AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Look at you, Brother,” Ian hissed. “You’re siding with wolves and humans, against your kind, against your brother!”
"You stopped being my brother the day you killed Marissa, and I won't let you kill Marian too," Isaac rebutted, the slash I gave him across his chest already healing. I could smell it in his blood, though. He was a royal, they both were. "Let her go. You won't make it out of here alive, and you know it."
“All the more reason to take her with me,” Ian shouted. “Then who will be blamed? You, they’ll blame you! We were the Macabre Twins! Feared and respected! I want my life back!” He tightened his hold on Marian, and everyone took a step forward. "Come with me, Brother, and I'll let her go."
“Those days are over,” Isaac said while standing up from his crouched position.
I repeated the name Macabre Twins over and over again in my mind because it sounded familiar. They weren't registered royals because that would have come up in Killian's background check, but there were many unregistered royals. These two, though, the Macabre Twins, I'd heard of them before. I just couldn't recall where.
When wolves moved behind Ian, he swung himself and Marian, putting his back towards the stairs, and Marian cried in fear. I held my hand up, ordering the wolves not to move. Not even I could act. One twitch and Ian's nails would rip her throat open.
Killian and I exchanged irritated glances.
I could act or he could, taking a chance at getting him away from Marian, but she was too close to him. His hand was around her throat and the other around her waist. He could hurt her in any number of ways.
It wasn't often I felt helpless, and I hated it!
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” I began to say. “Frankly, I don’t care. Ian or whoever you are, let Marian go.”
“Ah, the boyfriend, the hunter,” Ian smiled. “You certainly look like a hunter, but even you can't stop me, or you would have tried to already." He looked around at the werewolves. "Did no one call the hunter organization, huh? Do you think these wolves can face me and live? I'll kill everyone—everything! Do you hear me!”
He tightened his hold around Marian's waist so much she screamed, and Isaac vanished.
I'd never seen a creature move so quickly, and while Ian caught on, Isaac had apparently moved too fast for even him. Isaac appeared behind his brother, and we all watched as he stuck his hand into Ian's back and ripped out his spine.
He severed Ian's head, and Marian ran to me while Isaac removed Ian's heart and crushed it in his hands.
No one moved. No one made a sound.
To effectively kill a royal, they had to be dismembered, and their heart removed. While I'd never witnessed it before, I heard some could even grow their hearts back and limbs, too, hence needing to be thoroughly dismembered.
Isaac stared at his brother's body on the ground, and Marian buried her face into my chest. She wept while I hugged her, her body trembling violently.
"I've got you," I whispered. "It's okay. I've got you."
One brother was dead, but that left Isaac, and I hadn't forgotten that he'd bitten her. Wolves started growling at him, advancing on him, and Marian untangled herself from me.
“Stop! Don’t hurt him!”
“Marian,” I held her arm. “He bit you.”
She pulled away. “I told him to.” Her words were like a sword running through me, and she turned away to face Isaac. "I told him to do it, or we'd die."
She looked at him apologetically, and Isaac's eyes fell to her bloody hand. His face twisted, his claws descended, and his fangs elongated. He looked starved like he was struggling with an internal battle.
I could tell he wanted to attack her.
He'd gotten a taste of her blood, and although he just saved her, a part of him wanted to kill her. I held her arm to hold her back, but she only pulled away again. This time when she stepped forward, Isaac hissed and stepped back.
His brows furrowed, and I saw more emotion in him than I'd ever seen in a vampire. He looked torn and broken, and he was staring at Marian with such love I wasn't sure how to feel. He looked apologetic.
He was struggling, fighting his natural urges to kill, and it was breaking him.
I recalled where I’d heard the name Macabre Twins. It was during my time at the academy.
They were talked about as a myth, vampire twins that were so savage during the war against the humans that supernatural creatures wanted them to stay out of it. Their brutality was too much, and before the war, centuries prior, they were feared by even their fellow vampires.
They slaughtered entire towns together.
