Page 21 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

Her power surged, bright enough that the small lamp beside her flickered. A crackle swept over her skin, rippling through the room like ozone before a strike.

I stepped closer, gripping her arm gently. “Raven. Look at me.”

Her gaze snapped to mine, furious and desperate. A twitch pulsed along her jaw. The glow in her irises intensified.

“Raven,” I said again, grounding her with my voice. “You can’t tap into your magic right now. Rene is already too weak. You’ll drain yourself, and me. Breathe.”

Jana moved to her mother’s other side, placing a hand over Raven’s. “Mom, please. I’ve got you.”

For a long, tense moment, the magic resisted—hot, trembling, and aching to lash out.

She was seconds away from burning the truth out of Marcus with sheer instinct.

I held on, steady and sure. Jana anchored her on the other side.

Slowly—painfully slowly—the light in Raven’s eyes dimmed back to violet. The energy pressing against my senses receded like a tide pulling away from shore.

She exhaled in a shuddering breath and lowered her gaze.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

But the hurt in her voice was unmistakable.

I looked at Isra.

His expression shattered something inside me.

He wasn’t angry.

Not yet.

He looked wounded, so deeply that for a moment he didn’t seem able to draw breath. His features slackened, lips parting as his eyes unfocused. The dramatic makeup he wore only magnified his pain, making every tremble of his mouth and every tightening of his brow excruciatingly visible.

It was as if someone had stabbed straight through his chest.

He lifted a hand, fingers shaking, and covered his mouth. The glitter on his cheekbones couldn’t hide the way his face had gone pale beneath the makeup.

His voice finally emerged, cracked and barely audible.

“You lied to me?”

Marcus opened his mouth, but Isra raised a trembling hand.

“No,” he said, choking on the words. “Not yet. I want to hear what Jana sensed. All of it.”

Jana swallowed, her own eyes glossy with sympathy. She spoke gently, as if each word were a bruise.

“The only lies he told were about his work,” she said. “About Dimitri. About magical items. Everything else felt true.”

Isra’s breath hitched.

He looked at Marcus again, not with anger, but with heartbreak so raw it felt like the entire room bowed under the weight of it.

And Marcus…

Marcus finally lost some of that perfect composure.

A crack in his charm.