CJ looked mildly offended. “We researched.”
Bogdan suddenly snarled. The sound ripped through the entire house. The counting stopped. His eyes snapped upward toward the children. “Oh, enough.”
He moved so fast that my eyes barely tracked it. One second, he stood at the base of the stairs. The next he was halfway up them.
CJ screamed. Bianca grabbed Billie. I grabbed the fallen stake again and launched myself forward out of pure instinct.
Bogdan spun instantly, his fist connecting with my stomach. I slammed into the wall, pain bursting through my ribs. The stake flew from my hand again as I hit the floor. Everything rang. For a second, I couldn’t breathe or think.
Bogdan descended the stairs slowly toward me. He seemed completely calm now, almost relaxed. “You truly are determined,” he observed.
I tried to stand and failed.
Above us, the kids huddled together, crying openly now behind the salt line.
Winnie staggered toward Bogdan desperately. “Please,” she begged. “Please don’t hurt them.”
He ignored her as he grabbed the front of my shirt and slammed me into the wall again. I dimly heard the plaster crack behind me as pain shot up my spine.
Bogdan leaned closer. Those dead, gray eyes locked onto mine. “You should never have allowed her to feel loved.”
Behind him, I could see the kids. Terrified. Billie sobbing openly against Bianca’s shoulder. CJ gripping a silver cross so tightly his whole hand shook.
This was it. This was the end.
I shut my eyes. I couldn’t bear seeing my children frightened like that in what were about to be their last moments alive.
23
WINNIE
Conrad shut his eyes.
That was when something inside me broke.
Not when Bogdan struck him. Not when the children started crying from the landing, huddled together behind their salt line with silver jewelry scattered at their feet and holy water soaking into the runner.
Not even when Bogdan pressed Conrad against the wall with one hand around his throat, smiling with that bored, cruel pleasure he always wore when someone finally understood they had lost.
It was Conrad closing his eyes in quiet surrender.
That split second where he chose not to see whatever came next because his children were watching.
The sound that tore out of me did not feel remotely human. It ripped from my throat, raw and furious and terrified, and for one shattering instant, Bogdan’s attention shifted to me.
Good. Look at me. Leave him alone. Leave the children alone.
The compulsion still held me. It had me locked in place where I stood, muscles trembling, spine rigid, every part of me fighting a war nobody could see. My body belonged to Bogdan’s will. My blood answered his bidding. Somewhere deep inside the oldest, ugliest part of my making, his order pulsed again and again.
Attack.
Put them to rest.
Obey.
I had lived with the bond for many years. I had outsmarted it once, dragged my sire’s coffin to the sea with every ounce of strength I had and agony splitting my head, but I had never broken the bond. Not fully. I had only found seams. Loopholes. Shadows thin enough to slip through if I moved carefully and paid in pain.
There were no loopholes now. Only Conrad’s body pinned against the wall and his children sobbing in the corner.
