My brother was a vampire. My teacher was the devil. The guys I was attracted to were bad boys from hell.I knew Inferno looked familiar. How did I miss the resemblance? That’s beside the point, Vixen. Focus.
I was so fucking right to leave this pit. Now, I’d yank my brother out of it, drag his ass to Washington with me and forget about this madness. “We’ve got to get out of here, Malcolm. Tonight. You get my car, and I’ll pack for the both of us.”
His shoulders slumped as he slouched back in his seat. “No, Vixen.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“I’m not joking.”
My heart thudded. “Malcolm, we’re leaving Forest Grove. Together. And we’re never leaving each other again.”
“You’releaving, Reindeer. Not me.”
“Yes, you are. With my help, you’ll start a new life in Washington—”
“And do what?”
“Anything!” The chair screeched under me as I bolted off it. “Fix cars, draw tattoos, go fucking ice fishing, I don’t care. As long as you’re out of here.”
“Why can’t you see that I don’t belong out there, with humans, anymore?Thisis where I belong. The Blood Demons are my family.”
“Iam your family,” I seethed. “I am the one who was supposed to take care of you, be there for you when you fucking died and came back a soulless, walking corpse.”
His lips twisted as he shook his head. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I was a fucking mess when I came home. I didn’t need your judgmental crap.” He left his seat. “You think I just embraced my new nature and breezed into the bloodsucker lifestyle? The need to kill, to drink human blood ate me from the inside out. I’d spent weeks after weeks wishing I’d been dead.
“Then I had shitty destructive thoughts about myself and this very family that took me in and taught me how to control my blood thirst. Because I was no way near accepting what I’d become.”
Tears pricked my eyes. I was sorry he had to go through all of this, and sorry he’d felt the need to hide it from me. “That’s why you kept the…” I waved at the hidden door. They might not be in the same room but, with theirnature, they probably could hear us. “An out?”
“And access,” he pointed at the arsenal, “and secret conversations,” he mouthed.
“So what changed?”
His gaze drifted away. He seemed to be recalling a memory. “One day, I lost it. I needed blood more than I’d ever needed anything in my life. So I snuck out and lurked in the dark like any fucking predator waiting for the right moment to hunt its prey.” His nostrils flared, dragging in a breath. “And I did. I killed my first human as a vampire that night.”
A cold wave washed over me as if all the blood rushed out of my body. “You killed an innocent human?”
“That’s what I thought at the time. But even then, it didn’t stop me from hunting for more.”
I barely had the strength to stand. “You killed more people?”
“No. Slasher and the rest came to the rescue. They stopped me before it was too late.”
“The video,” I blurted absently, regretting it the second it fell off my mouth.
“Yes.”
My heart skipped a beat. “You knew I…”
“Fuck yes.” He scowled. “It doesn’t matter. I was planning on telling you at some point. By the way, the plant you saw is wolfsbane not weed. I know how your mind operates. I keep some along with silver bullets ready in my room in case of an outside attack. Shifters don’t like vamps very much.”
My mind spiraled. “How did they save you? And why have they filmed it?”
“They fought me, took the other woman away before I sucked her dry. They filmed it so I would never forget. And luckily, my first victim turned out to be a fucking rapist, lurking as well. If he had been some family guy, I’d have been really dead by now.”
I had to sit down. The idea of losing Malcolm for any reason was too much to bear.
“When they took me back home, they didn’t push me away or kick me out. No one judged or gave me a hard time about it. They understood what I was going through. All they wanted was to help me get over it. Only then I knew the Blood Demons deserved my loyalty not my doubt. I owe them and Slasher everything.” Malcolm stared at me. “Imagine if that were you who had to take care of me that night.”
