Page 66 of Property of Scar

There’s resistance—bone, muscle, structure—but I break through it anyway. I feel it give under the force, feel the exact moment his body stops fighting the intrusion and starts failing under it, the rhythm inside him collapsing into nothing under my hand.

His eyes snap to mine.

Too late.

I close my grip around what’s left, holding him together and tearing his heart free.

The body jerks once. Twice. Then it stills.

I don’t let go immediately. My hand is still buried in his chest when the body finally gives up the last of its resistance, the structure collapsing under my grip until there’s nothing left holding it together.

I tear free, the heart comes with it. It’s stone cold in my hand. Still alive in a way it shouldn’t be, muscle twitching once, twice, as if it hasn’t yet accepted what’s been done to it. Blood runs over my fingers in thick, dark lines, dripping from my knuckles, hitting the broken concrete below in a steady, wet rhythm.

The body drops.

I don’t look at it.

I’m looking at what’s in my hand, and something in me surges.

Not thought or decision.

Hunger.

It hits fast and absolute, ripping through everything I’ve held in place for five centuries, dragging something older, sharper, and far less controlled up from where I have buried it. My fangs descend before I can stop them, the shift immediate, instinctive, the scent of blood saturating the air until it’s all I can taste, all I can feel.

The world narrows.

The room disappears.

The smell of human blood in the air, but it’s tainted. Half human, half vampire, but human nonetheless.

It smells so good.

My grip tightens, crushing the heart.

For a fraction of a second…

The hunger overwhelms me, the craving like an adrenaline surge, and I spin toward the intoxicating smell.

Then I see her.

Cali is on the floor where the third one drove her down, her arm cut open, that intoxicating blood leaking out. But her body is still, her head turned to the side, her throat marked with the force of the choke that took her air.

That’s when the world snaps back into place.

Hard.

Violent.

The hunger doesn’t disappear, but it collides with something stronger.

I drop the heart, and it hits the floor with a wet, final sound that barely registers as I’m already moving, crossing the space between us in a single step, dropping to one knee beside her.

“Cali?”

No response.

Her chest rises, but it’s shallow. Too fucking shallow.