When Mom used her power on me, it felt like my own emotions, my own desires. The fae’s compulsion was fueled by hot guilt and obligation. This is different. This is cold and cruel. It’s raw, heartless, irresistible domination. It grips my mind and soul with a single, deafening command:
Submit!
It feels like a granite slab slamming down onto my upper back, trying to force me to my knees.
From everything Stryker has told me, becoming a vampire’s thrall is not an actual thing. Bloodsuckers shouldn’t haveanymind-control powers. So not only does that drop of Ah Puch’s blood let Valiente think like a movie vampire, apparently he gets some other Hollywood tricks, too.
But this is one trick I’m more than wise to. Apparently, Mom was practically a god herself, and I learned to resist her. And with the elf’s Obligation, I’ve recently had a ton of practice sharpening that skillset. Valiente with his amulet is hella strong, but I’m stronger. I can practically feel the monster inside me giving the monster in front of me the middle finger.
I slam against his magic with a flash of rage, and Valiente gets hit with a granite slab of my own raw emotion, causing him to stagger back.
“What?!” he says, eyes wide and confused.
Ozone magic sputters from the necklace under his shirt, and his power snaps off me like a broken rubber band.
I literally have him on his back foot, so I need to actnow. I could try to grab the amulet off him. He’s totally within range of that. Unfortunately, it’s currently tucked away, and even if it wasn’t, Collin made it clear that breaking his control over the other vampires wouldn’t end well for the kids. Crap, even punching Valiente’s lights out could lead to the same outcome.
Still, he’s not the only paranormal in the room whocan make people want things, which means that maybe there’s a way for me to salvage this. If the whole “wanting to leave” clause is still in effect, he mighthaveto let me, Rafa, and the kids go.
The problem is I’ve never used my power deliberately. I’ve only used it once—on that Uber driver, Dan. It wasawful. And it was my monster that did it, not me.
But my hunger’s been recently fed and satisfied. So when I look inside, instead of seeing something hostile and ravenous, what I sense feels a lot more like an ally. And its message is clear:
Just give me the word, boss.
Valiente, visibly shaken from my psychic parry and finding his feet, flicks a glare at Rafa. Ozone magic lashes out at the Hunter like a whip. Rafa immediately jerks toward me and vacantly pulls back his fist like some robot soldier, winding up to deliver a haymaker to my face.
That decides it. I let my monster loose on him.
Make him want to leave with me.
The demon within is only too happy to comply.
I don’t know what I expected using this power to be like. What happened in the Uber is so mixed up with my own shame, I just remember bits and pieces. But the emotion that I send into Rafa doesn’t feel angry or coercive or manipulative. Instead, it feels… a lot like love.
It’s not the satisfying, joyful sense of connection I’ve felt with Collin. It’s more like that excited roller coaster crush feeling when you realize you’re totally into a guy and you’d do anything to be with them. When you want to know everything about them. When all you can thinkabout is finding some way to touch them, and hopefully see them naked.
It’s both intoxicating and delicious.
The change on Rafa’s face is instantaneous. He goes from staring at me dead-eyed to deeply, passionately concerned.
“Alvin!” he utters, eyes squinting as if suddenly recognizing me. And before I can even respond, he whirls around to Valiente and hammers a brutal strike into his father’s face.
Rafa has been beaten badly, but he’s an insanely strong guy, and some of his helplessness was clearly an act arranged by Valiente. The blow crumples his father’s nose and sends the vampire tumbling onto his ass, which buys me a few more seconds.
I connect to my monster—my incubuspower—so I can extend it to all the kids around the room. But I immediately realize it’s not going to work. Maybe it’s because I’m not strong enough or skilled enough to use it on multiple targets. Or maybe it’s because the power is inherently sexy and thesearechildren, and I can’t think of them as anything different. But while I am able to form a connection and get a quick sense of some dulled, desperate emotions underneath a blanket of Valiente’s compulsion, I’m not able to send the young humans any commands. And as I try, my control over Rafa starts to shake. He sways awkwardly over his father, arms limp, and looks confused, hesitant.
I return my full focus onto Rafa, and his expression snaps into fierce resolve. He swivels, ducks down, and slams his shoulder into me, lifting me up over his back justlike the last time he carried me from this place. Apparently, it’s a go-to move for him. Then he’s moving us, full sprint, toward the stairs.
He might be in my power, but apparently that doesn’t mean he won’t have ideas of his own.
“I’m sorry, but I need to get you out of here!” he blurts out. “I can’t risk him using the kids against you!”
I feel like I’ve got the strength of the Hulk coursing through my veins and, yet again, he’s treating me like a damsel in distress.
Except me hanging over Rafa’s shoulder is hardly the safest place for me to be. Rafa blasts like a linebacker through the two vampires blocking the way out. Thankfully, with Valiente stunned, they’re too dazed to move to hurt him or the children next to them. But vampires recover fast, and by the time we hit the stairs, shots are being fired at us.
One rips through my bicep before we’ve climbed high enough for the top of the cavern’s stairwell entrance to provide cover. The bullet wound scorches through my arm like a hot poker, but it only stings for a couple seconds as I feel my power being directed to heal the injury. By the time we are at the top of the stairs, except for a hole in my windbreaker, it’s as if it never happened.
