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Endless Torment
Chapter One
Paris
Well, this certainly wasn’t the most sweetcream of situations.
Shock made me lose my balance, forcing me to tumble into Lord Vaughn.
“Easy there,” the vampire said, holding me steady.
Bewilderment sloshed inside my skull, my stomach twisting into a billion knots. “This…this isn’t happening.”
“What’s going on, sugar?” Medusa, the snake shifter, asked from beside me, her gentle touch finding my shoulder.
Words crystallized in my throat, my eyes fixated on the two elves before me. A man and a woman.
My parents.
My actual, breathing parents. Staring at me, tears streaming down their faces. Just as shocked as me, saying nothing, as the warning sirens of Glimmer City screamed around us.
We weren’t supposed to be in the elven metropolis. The sirens were an alert about the city’s magical lockdown being breached, the authorities on the hunt.
On the flipside, we were supposed to be here.
Elio’s mum was a Carver—an elf who inked elvish runes onto wooden disks carved in the Carving Glade. It’s how elves used magic, which until recently had been hidden by the deity Aidan’s lies.
Carvers made the disks, and Druids used them to cast spells. Elio’s dad was a Druid, as well as the gatekeeper of Carving Glade, and the owner of the key rune disk to get us inside. Through him, we’d be able to access it, and the deity Caer could get production on new rune disks started again with a spell to magnify the truth-revealing song within me to break through Aidan’s bullshit. Basically, show folk their faith was misplaced. And taking away the deity’s faith would suck for him.
Aidan. Liar and manipulator of the whole world. I once believed in him, prayed to him every day. Now I had egg on my face, and shame on my soul. Not my fault, sure. He was the one who sullied our minds with a false backstory, but the betrayal of my faith still cut deep.
Just like seeing my parents took an emotional razor to me.
What the actual hell? How was this possible? How was Elio, a thrall to the vampire king and a guy who once shot at me and Medusa, my brother?
This had to be a mistake. This tugging of threads, this clicking-into-place-vibe refusing to relent.
Shit. The truth knew how to land a gut punch.
I slid from Vaughn’s iron grip, my limbs jelly. The impact of my knees smacking the ground barely registered on my pain meter. My eyes were hot, my throat threatening to close up.
Don’t cry.
Don’t you dare fucking cry.
My inner voice set free a drizzle of rage to meet the rising sorrow. These elves, this couple, they gave me away as a baby along with Pearl, my twin sister. Handed us straight over to the Executioner Academy to be trained into vampire killers with one thing on our minds; exterminating the vampire race by killing King Silvanus. He carried the Heart of All, and destroying him would remove all vampires from Quintrealm, leaving nothing behind but crimson bone dust.
Pfft. That ‘dream’ lasted a few years until we were betrayed by the Global Order. They turned executioners into social pariahs while vampires integrated into society.
Pearl died as a consequence of those peace accords, leaving me to navigate a world without her, only to end up steeped in confusing desire for the vampire king.
Silvanus…
More than desire…
My one true love, apparently. At least according to the curse inside me. A guy I’d literally been raised to kill, only to now enjoy his touch, his kisses, and become the subject of his affection.
He’d told me he was in love with me.
