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“You have consumed my brother’s blood, yes?”
I nod slowly.
Nix shrugs. “Then there it is. His blood lives in you now. Our maker used an unbreakable magick to ensure we never harmed one another.” He licks his lips. “Which means Lucien can’t kill me… and neither can you.”
Dread forms in my stomach and turns quickly to panic.
“Don’t worry. I’m not here to hurt you.” Nix steps forward slowly. “I’m here to offer you something.”
“I know what you offer me. And I don’t want it.”
Nix shakes his head. “You know my brother’s version of it, not mine.” He closes the gap between us and I find myself pressed up against the glass of a display case. It’s cool against my skin, which is throbbing with the pulse of the shadows that want to break free but know it is pointless.
“You see,” Nix says, “I understand human cruelty better than my brother, Luna. Before I was turned, I saw the worst of it. Unimaginable horror inflicted on myself and others. Not by supernatural creatures but by people.”
I swallow forcefully, visions of Steven trying to batter their way into my mind.
He wasn’t the worst of humanity; people suffer far crueller things than what he inflicted on me. But he was bad.
There was a darkness in him that I’ve sensed in other men. Women, too. But mainly men. The constant sense that he was holding back from the awful things he really wanted to do.
At least creatures like Nix don’t pretend.
Does Lucien? How much does he hold back from what he really wants to be?
“You don’t need me to explain it to you, Luna. You know it’s true. You’ve seen it, you’ve watched the newsfeeds, you’ve read about it, you’ve closed your eyes to the very worst of it because it is too horrific to even look at.”
He shrugs and puts his hands into his pockets. He’s handsome, like Lucien, but different. Same ageless skin, different hair, different voice. But some of their mannerisms are hauntingly similar.
“Vampires and demons? We fuck, we feed, we kill. But there are lines we don’t cross.” He moves closer still, and meets my eyes. “And the lines we do cross? Like what my brother did to your ex-boyfriend?”
The vibration inside me goes all the way into my rib cage, coiling around my heart, making it beat faster and with an aliveness that is intoxicatingly powerful.
“You want to cross those lines, too.” Nix reaches out and touches a finger to my cheek. “I can feel how powerful you are, Luna, just from standing in front of you. And I know you want to unleash that power on those who deserve it.” He takes his hand back but remains so close I can feel his breath on my ear as he says, “I can’t wield the power of The Covenant, Luna. No one can. Not without you. And when you have that power, you’ll be in control. Not just of the shadows, but of everything. Me, Lucien, men like Steven. You can design this world to look precisely the way you want it to. You can write your own rules and every living creature, supernatural and human, will have to follow them. You will be in possession of a magick older and more powerful than anything this world has seen—”
“Stop.” I hold up my hand between us, palm out, to stop him talking.
My cheeks are flushed, my heart is beating so fast it’s making my ribs hurt and – the weirdest part – I am so turned on I can hardly stand it.
As if he can tell, Nix flashes me a wicked grin. “Is it me making you wet, my queen? Or is it the thought of all that power.”
Before I can answer, a shape comes flying out of the shadows and hurtling into Nix. Lucien doesn’t speak. He just tears into Nix like a wild animal, ripping a chunk of flesh from the side of his face with his fangs, then punching him, putting a hand around his throat, slamming him into the ground.
He is kicking him relentlessly when Kim appears behind him. Smashing a glass display case, he removes a large silver dagger, and strides forward.
“You do it,” Lucien says. “I can’t.”
Kim holds up the dagger, brings it down so fast and hard that I hold my breath. But when it is millimetres away from Nix’s throat, the tip of the blade itself bends. The dagger twists violently in Kim’s hand and flies across the room.
Kim runs for it, but Nix simply spits blood onto the floor and smiles. Then he glances at me.
“You weren’t the only one who drank my brother’s blood, were you kitten?”
25
Lucien
Kim drank my blood. Luna drank my blood.
