“Fucking Luci.” Clutch coughs a laugh.
Lucian’s eyes glare with fury. Evelynn doesn’t so much as blanch; she merely blows him a kiss before her attention returns to me. “And truths need to come out now. If we’re going to go get her, Silas, I need to know why my friend would choose to go with an ex, but not just any ex, one that had her family killed,” she demands.
“You sure heard a lot,” Viktor mutters, a smirk playing on his lips.
“Vampire hearing,” she says, tugging at her lobe. “And I was standing outside the door,” she adds with a devilish grin.
“While I may agree with you on most of what you have said. You are not coming with us,” Lucian seethes, his amber eyes flaring in warning.
“I have the daggers that beat Anathema, remember? I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure I and my daggers could be of some use,” Evelynn argues.
My impatience builds, becoming too much to contain. “I don’t care who comes and who doesn’t. I’m leaving tonight. You’re either with me, or you’re not. I won’t risk another day,” I seethe, my temper rising.
“We are with you, Silas,” Evelynn states with firm conviction, ignoring Lucian’s growl. “But I need to know everything. And I mean everything,” she demands. My eyes flicker to Lucian. He gives me a sharp nod.
“Enough now. Secrets get people killed,” Lucian warns.
I inhale, sitting back down. However, most of the brothers know most of the truth. There is still a lot they don’t. Only Lucian knows and kept his word.
27 YEARS AGO. NEW YEAR’S EVE
I stand there, rooted to the spot, watching her walk away with Morbius as if something inside me has already begun to die. Every instinct screams at me to go after her, to grab her wrist, to force her to see, to understand what he is, what I’ve seen lurking beneath that smile. But I don’t move. I just stand there like a coward, replaying the taste of her lips against mine, the way she hesitated, like she almost chose me.Almost.Instead, she chose him.Believed him.And that… that fractures something deep in my chest.I turn back toward the festival, but it feels wrong now; too loud, too bright, too alive for the hollow thing I’ve become. “Let her go,” Lucian warns. The music pounds, people laugh, glasses clink, but it all feels distant, muffled, like I’m underwater.
“He’s going to hurt her,” I grit out. I can still feel her. Still taste her. Still hear the way her voice broke.As midnight creeps in, I can’t escape it. I can’t shut it off. Every second stretches, suffocating me under the weight of what just happened.“I have to go,” I mutter, shoving my drink into Lucian’s hand before he can ask. “I can’t let this lie.”He studies me for half a second, just long enough to see the storm behind my eyes, then nods.That’s all I need.I take off.
The world becomes a blur as I move, faster than thought, faster than regret. The ground barely registers beneath my feet. My only focus is on her. Finding her. Fixing this and begging if I have to.Anything but losing her like this.I reach the bar in seconds, but it’s wrong. The air feels off. Thick. Charged.And then I see him.Morbius.Walking out like nothing’s happened.Alone.No, not alone. With someone else.But not Lilith.Something inside me snaps so violently that it feels like my bones splinter.I’m on him before he can even turn.My hand slams around his throat, driving him into the ground hard enough to fracture the tarmac beneath us. The impact cracks like thunder, but it doesn’t come close to the roar tearing out of my chest.“I know what you’re doing,” I snarl, my grip tightening, shaking with barely restrained fury. “I know what you did.”His grin, that grin, spreads slowly, grotesquely, like he’s been waiting for this.
“I did it for us, brother,” he rasps, completely unbothered. “You’ve always been too soft. Too… human.”My fingers tighten, desperate to crush the life out of him, to erase that smile forever, but then he laughs. A wet, choking sound that only fuels my rage. “What are you going to do?” he taunts. “Strangle me? We don’t need oxygen.”My grip falters. “But she does.”Everything stops.His eyes flick lazily toward the bar.And that’s when I see it.Fire.Bright. Violent and hungry. Flames clawing at the windows from the inside.My hand drops from his throat like he’s already dead to me.
I’m moving before the thought fully forms.The doors shatter as I crash through them, heat slamming into me like a wall. Smoke chokes the air, thick and suffocating, and the smell of burning flesh, spilt alcohol, and charred wood hits me hard enough to stagger.Bodies.There are bodies in the centre of the room.Engulfed.Unrecognizable.My stomach twists violently.“Lilith!” My voice breaks as it tears out of me,raw and desperate.For a second, nothing.Then A sound.So faint I almost miss it.A broken, fragile moan.I turn sharply, scanning, and then I see her on the floor.Face down.Blood pooling beneath her like a dark halo.“No, no, no, no!”I’m beside her in an instant, turning her over, gathering her into my arms. She’s so light. Too light. Her skin is already cooling, her pulse fluttering weakly beneath my fingers like it’s trying to disappear.“Stay with me,” I whisper, but it comes out shattered, useless. “Lilith, stay with me.”Her lips part, but no words come; just a wet, choking breath.She’s dying.I can feel it. Hear it.Every second slipping through my fingers. I carry her out of the inferno just as something behind us explodes, flames roaring higher. I don’t stop until we reach the edge of the forest, where the night air hits us cold and sharp.I sink to my knees, cradling her against me, my hand trembling as it brushes her cheek.She doesn’t respond.Her breaths are shallow now. Fragile. Breaking.Gone, any second.The code screams in my head.The law.The consequences, but none of it matters.Not with her like this, not with her dying in my arms.A pain rips through me so violently, tears burning my eyes as they finally spill over.“I’m sorry,” I choke, my voice collapsing under the weight of it. “I’m so, so fucking sorry.”And then I make the choice that will damn me.
I press my mouth to her throat.Her blood is everywhere, hot, metallic, intoxicating and the moment my teeth break her skin, something dark and ravenous surges up inside me.She gasps, her body jerking weakly beneath me as I drink. Her blood. God, her blood. It’s everything.Sweet. Powerful. Addictive in a way that makes my control splinter instantly. The hunger claws at me, demanding more, more, until it’s all I can think about.For one horrifying second, I forget why I’m doing this.Forget her.If I don’t stop, I will kill her.
With a strangled sound, I tear myself away, my whole body shaking violently as I fight for control. My eyes squeeze shut, my head tilting back as I drag in useless breaths, trying to cage the monster clawing its way out of me.It takes everything.Everything I have left.Slowly and painfully, I force it back.When I look down at her again, my lips still stained with her blood, something has changed.The bleeding has stopped.The wound on her throat is closing, flesh knitting together, sealing as if it was never there.Hope and horror twist together inside me.There’s no going back now.I rise to my feet, holding her tightly against me, as if letting go would undo it all. Sirens wail in the distance, too close, too late.I turn toward the forest and run.Faster than before, faster than fear.Faster than the consequences I know are coming.Because whatever waits for me, whatever punishment, whatever judgment. I’ll face it.I’ll face all of it as long as she survives.
I finish tellingthem what happened that night. “She thinks Morbius saved her,” Evelynn states. I nod. She frowns. “I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you tell her?”
“When she woke, she was…” Lucian pauses. “Unstable. She woke to remember her entire family was dead. All she remembered was some figure in a long cloak was responsible. That Morbius was there, that she was now a vampire,” Lucian explains.
“Okay, that’s a lot. But there has to be more to it. You love her, right? If that were me, I would have told Lucian,” Evelynn says.
My jaw sets. “You didn’t see her. You didn’t see the torment in her eyes. Her world had just imploded around her. If her believing I helped my brother leave, that I was hiding him, helped her, then I would take the hit. I would take the hate, timeand time again. The hatred helped her heal, helped her focus, helped her get control of her life back. The bar was salvageable; she could mourn her family, be angry at my brother for abandoning her, blame the Dominion for her family, and move on with her life. I thought maybe in time I could explain, maybe talk to her about it, but she locked onto that hatred and never let go.” I sigh, keeping some of the information back. The brothers know this and only this, excluding the punishment I received for breaking the code. But that remains with our club. My gaze fixes on Lucian, silent words exchanged in our look.
Evelynn clears her throat, catching my attention. Her gaze sharp and intuitive, I merely look away. Not willing to talk anymore, I stand and leave the room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LILITH
I pacethe room like a caged animal, wanting nothing more than to break free and hunt. The hunger grows inside me. “I need to get out of here. I need to feed,” I gasp, clutching my throat. Cara moves with speed and runs from the room, and I follow her into the hall. “Wait, I didn’t mean I was going to feed on you!” I yell after her, watching as her shadow disappears. I sigh, feeling defeated, glancing left and right. The urge to explore is strong. I need to find some food; even alcohol-infused blood would do at this point. I try to make my way back the way we came, or so I think, but end up heading down a set of stairs that seem darker and narrower. Nope, this is definitely not the way. Still, I continue to descend, figuring maybe they lead to a kitchen. Maybe there’s blood in the fridge.
I come to another long, dimly lit hall. The sound of crying—pleading—catches my attention. I walk silently, my brow furrowed as the begging grows louder. The stench of rotting flesh invades my senses. I stop in front of a huge wooden door with black iron bars covering a small window. Cautiously, I peer through. At first, I think my eyes are deceiving me, becausewhat I see cannot be true. There are at least a hundred of them. Vessels, chained up, their skin so thin it’s almost see-through, their eyes pained and pleading, clawing at their throats. Hunger. The stench is almost unbearable, and I cover my mouth, slowly turning away, unable to handle it any longer.
Before I turn to walk back up the steps, I pause and give the door one last glance. How can Morbius sleep in luxury upstairs while these creatures suffer below? Suffering. Starving. Is that happening to Cara, too?
My mind is whirling with a million thoughts as I manage to find myself back in my room. Within a minute, Cara comes in, dragging a man behind her. He looks to be in his late fifties, and I immediately smell the alcohol on his breath. He stumbles as she lets go of him. “Whoa, easy there, lady,” he chuckles. He stands upright, his large pot belly overhanging his ripped and barely fastened trousers. I can hear his heart beating, working twice as hard as a healthy one. His breathing is labored, a rattle in his left lung. He’s a dead man. He could drop dead at any point. A grin spreads across my lips as I look to Cara. She listened earlier. She knew I wouldn’t feed off someone so young and healthy, so she went and got me an old guy with health issues.
“You did well,” I praise before I bare my fangs and launch myself at the man, wrapping my arms and legs around him, catching him completely off guard as I sink my fangs into his neck, devouring his blood. Liquid euphoria consumes me. His body crumples beneath me, but that doesn’t stop me. I fed and fed until I couldn’t possibly drink another drop. I pull back, panting, licking my lips, eyes hooded. I look at Cara. Her eyes are pinned to the now-corpse. I move off him and shuffle back. “Feed, Cara,” I gesture. She launches herself, a feral growl ripping from her throat as she bites him everywhere, her savage hunger so desperate she’s draining him from every part of hisbody. I get to my feet, watching her. When was the last time she fed?
