Page 89 of Two Sides of Sin

Julian..

A dark, bitter amusement flickered in my chest. I was honestly surprised my twin had stuck around the Manor as long as he did after the Ritual. He hadn’t stayed out of brotherly loyalty, of course. He had stayed purely to butcher me. He had spent the first few years of our immortality waking up every single day with the sole objective of finding new, inventive ways to tear me apart.

But I was the one who had cast the spell. I was the architect of our ruin. He couldn’t kill me. And eventually, he realised it. One morning, the Manor was simply empty, and Julian was gone.

“Are you even listening to me?”

The grating voice dragged me immediately back to the present. The blonde model pouted, her mascara slightly smudged beneath her eyes—a messy imperfection that made my skin crawl.

“I’m listening,” I lied, my voice a smooth, cold drawl that lacked any of Julian’s warmth.

“Then kiss me,” she demanded, splashing more water as she clumsily swung her leg over my thighs, straddling me in the water. She threw her arms around my neck, her champagne glass slipping from her fingers and sinking to the bottom of the tub.

She lunged forward, pressing her sloppy, wet mouth roughly against my jaw.

The last tether of my meticulously controlled patience vanished.

In a fraction of a second, the cold, sociopathic beast beneath my skin took over. My hand shot out of the water. I clamped my large, iron clad fingers directly over the delicate hinge of her jaw and the base of her throat, stopping her dead in her tracks.

Her eyes went wide with sudden, breathless shock. The tipsy haze vanished, instantly replaced by the primal, helpless terror of a prey animal realising it was trapped in a cage with a predator.

I looked at her, my expression blank, devoid of any sympathy or passion.

“It’s a pity,” I whispered, my voice detached and calm echoing through the luxurious bathroom. I tilted my head slightly, my thumb pressing brutally into her pulse point. “I usually wait until after. But you’re just too god damn annoying.”

With a swift, surgical, and effortless twist of my wrist, I snapped her neck.

The sickening crack echoed loudly off the marble walls. Her eyes rolled back, her body going instantly limp. I released my grip, letting her lifeless form slide into the warm, foaming water.

I sat there for a long moment in the welcomed silence.

I reached blindly for my own glass of champagne, took a slow sip, and looked back out at the city skyline.

Where are you hiding, Julian?

The water lapped gently against the sides of the marble tub, the pristine white bubbles slowly parting as her lifeless body settled. She floated face down, a tangle of wet blonde hair fanning out like a halo across the surface as the water around her began to bloom with a dark, ribboning scarlet.

I stared at the floating corpse, my pulse perfectly steady. It was always the same.

Every single night, a new face. Every single night, a different name. And every single night, they never made it to see the morning sun. It had become a necessary, calculated habit over the last few decades. Use, dispose, and replace. It was the only way to keep the crushing, suffocating boredom of immortality at bay.

But there was a strict, unspoken rule to my cycle of disposal.

Only blondes.

My mind instantly detaching from the violence of what I had just done. I preferred it this way. I preferred the blonde hair, the complete absence of anything that could remind me of the Manor.

The last time I had allowed a brunette into my bed—decades ago, in a dimly lit hotel room in Paris—the illusion of my control had faltered momentarily.

I had been looking down at her, my hands pinned to her wrists, when the shadows in the room shifted. Just for a fraction of a second, the dark, heavy waves spilling across the pillows weren’t a stranger’s. The defiant, terrified eyes looking up at me weren’t hazel—they were a deep, suffocating blue.

Her face had morphed flawlessly into June’s.

The shock of it had triggered something deep within my chest—something gut wrenching and frighteningly close to human emotion. It felt like grief. It felt like the obsession I had spent lifetimes trying to bury under piles of wealth and bodies. I had ripped the girl’s throat out before she could even scream, utterly terrified of the humanity that phantom image had dragged to the surface.

I never touched a brunette again. Blondes were safe. Blondes were blank, interchangeable canvases that allowed me to remain exactly what I was—emotionless.

I stood up slowly.