Kane
She’s laughing.
And that’s the part that crushes my fucking soul.
Not the masks or the obscene wealth or the way the elite bloodsuckers exploit these women with their eyes.Trust me, all of that is pretty fucking awful.But it’s the fact that she’s enjoying herself. It’s the fact that her laugh is bright and flirtatious and completely devoid of the fear that laugh should hold beneath the surface.
Three elites surround her, taking her in, whispering hushed conversation in her direction. And all she wants to do is entertain them. She wants to play this game. But the saddest part of all is that she thinks the game is fair.
Shethinksshe knows the score.
She tilts her head just enough to give the man with black eyes access to her neck. My blood boils when he leans in and holds his nose just above her skin. He wants to claim her. He wants to possess her. He wants to breed her. He wants to fuck her.He wants to use her blood for his own power and pleasure and selfish desires.
He wants to take every ounce of life and vibrance from her, and he doesn’t care if her death would be the cost.
His hungry intentions invade my mind.
Her naïve ignorance breaks my fucking heart.
I want to murder him.
Visions of me striding right over to the vile piece of shit and slicing his throat infiltrate my head, and it takes every ounce of self-control inside me not to follow through.
I can see too much right now.This is the first time in my life that I feel like my gift is a noose around my neck. It’s choking. It’s clawing. It’s fucking suffocating me by the second.
I clench my fists when the two other men lean in to smell her neck too—smell her blood.
Her blood is one of the three. Even I can smell that from here. Hell, every vampire cock within a thousand-mile radius knows what those bloodlines smell like. It’s the only one we can breed with, and when you combine it with the fact that she’s a virgin—yeah, I can smell that too—her body might as well be a biological siren’s call.
She smiles and giggles as she gives them access to her skin. But they don’t push the line; that’s not how these bastards handle shit. They keep the violence and the cruelty for afterward—behind closed doors where no one but them can see.
She is prey, and she has no idea she is currently flitting around the goddamn lion’s den. Hell, even fucking lions have dignity. Even lions let their prey know the score. But not these men. They don’t want her to know the score. They want her to stay lost in her childlike intentions of fucking fairy tales and a fanged-up prince charming.
That’s not how they handle all the women, but it’s how they handle women like her. The ones who know. The ones who were raised to believe the lie.
She laughs again, smiling at the vampire with dark eyes and an even darker smile, and my jaw locks so hard my molars grind.
“Relax.” Calloway is right beside me right now, but he’s pretending to be incredibly interested in a glass of bourbon I know he won’t drink while we’re here. His voice is a harsh whisper. “Fucking relax.”
“I’m fine.”
He shakes his head at me.No, you’re not fucking fine, he’s silently saying.
I don’t answer, but when I try to drag my eyes away from her, I fucking can’t.
The vampire demon’s fingers hover over her neck now. He’s showing the other two men that he’s planning to claim her. He’s casual in his action and rule-bound in his distance, but his body language showcases possession. He’s also testing her—trying to figure out how fucking pliant she is.
She doesn’t balk.
He fucking loves that.
He wants her naïve. I can feel it. I can see it. I can fucking smell it.
And she smiles like she’s being admired and complimented and showered with some kind of desired affection. She thinks this is about courtship.
A violent jolt hits every nerve ending inside my body. And the pull, the invisible string that’s embedded itself in my chest, tugs tighter. I feel like someone dropped a hook in my spine and has started reeling me across the room—directly to her.
I take one step closer without realizing I’ve done it, and Cal’s hand grasps my shoulder just enough to discreetly yank me back.
