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Despite the confusion and fear surrounding what I found in Atlas’s office, the thought of never seeing them again and finding out the truth makes my eyes burn. As much as I’ve tried to fight what I feel about being with them, they’ve taken care of me since arriving in my life like a hurricane. Whatever is going on with them and Brighton’s family, I want to be around long enough to find out what it is.
“So what,” I say, “you’ll feel better about what you lost after killing me?”
He cocks his head to the side, staring at me. “Do you know what I lost?”
“Whatever it is, you’re of the opinion that my life is worth less, so I really don’t care.”
“Hmm, you’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” His eyes glimmer with what I can only describe as hunger, and it makes me want to run far away. “Perhaps I should keep you around a while. I think you and I could be good friends, Calla.”
“Are you offering me a choice between your company and immediate death? Because if you’re going to kill me anyway, I think I’d prefer you do it now.”
Amusement colors his features, and he laughs. “Kade must get a kick out of your fire.”
I roll my eyes. “Your issue is with them. Why don’t you take it up, you know,with them?”
The humor in his eyes morphs into something darker, something that triggers an alarm in my head.I need to get out of here now or I’m not going to.
“Oh, I intend to. When I deliver your cold, lifeless body to their doorstep.”
Nausea rolls through me in a vicious wave, and I inch backward. “How theatrical of you.” I force an uninterested tone despite Dante being able to hear the erratic heartbeat in my chest.
He appears right in front of me before I have the chance to register any movement. He wraps his fingers around my throat and tugs me forward, flashing his fangs as a sharp gasp escapes my lips. I’ve got nowhere to go. When he opens his mouth and his fangs extend, my breath gets caught in my throat.
“Please don’t.” My voice cracks, and I cringe inwardly. The thought of having his fangs in my neck brings tears to my eyes and makes bile rise in my throat.
His chest rises and falls deeply with an inaudible sigh. “I could make it so much better than what you’ve experienced. You have no idea, little human.” He tips his head back slightly to look into my eyes. “There’s no reason for your death to be painful.”
I shake my head as much as I can in his grip. “Dante, please don’t do this.”
His fanged smirk makes my stomach feel as if it’s filled with rocks as he leans in slowly. I’m frozen in place, stunned by fear and weighed down by the knowledge that there’s no chance I can escape him. No one knows where I am; I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. The only shot I have at making it out of this alive is if Brighton contacted one of the guys after I didn’t show up. They could track me here—whereverhereis.
Dante pulls me out of my thoughts, grabbing my hip with his free hand and digging his fingers into my skin. I yelp in surprise, and the sound quickly turns to that of pain when he sinks his teeth into my neck. I try weakly to push him away, shame and terror rippling through me as the pull of my blood leaving my body fills me with dread.
This is nothing like what I experienced with the guys. This is the worst thing I’ve ever felt.
“Please,” I whimper, silent tears slipping free and wetting my cheeks even as I keep my eyes closed. The room no longer smells of lavender, but the strong, copper scent of my blood as it spills down my neck, staining the front of my shirt.
He doesn’t stop; his teeth are like a hundred needles in my neck, ripping and devouring me in the most grotesque way I ever could have imagined. Worse, actually. This feeling, this horrific pain is nothing I could have anticipated or prepared for. My head spins, and I force my eyes open, only to find the world darkening around the edges of my vision. I open my mouth to scream, a final effort with the minuscule amount of strength I have left, but before the sound tears from my lips, Dante goes rigid against me. He makes a choking sound as he pulls away from my neck and stumbles to the side, reaching for his heart—or where it should be.
Instead there’s a gaping hole in his chest and blood soaking through his dress shirt.
His mouth opens in a silent scream, his fangs covered in my blood, and then he collapses onto the floor, revealing the most stunning woman I have ever seen… who just so happens to be holding Dante’s heart in a perfectly manicured hand.
I stumble back a step into the table bench, and it’s the only thing that keeps me upright. My eyes go wide, and if my jaw wasn’t locked, I would probably scream. I lift my hand to my neck, covering the puncture marks as they continue to drip blood down the front of my shirt. My chin wobbles, and I swallow hard, desperate to keep it together. The panic in my chest is making it hard to breathe, and I can’t look away from the vacant-eyed vampire between us.He’s dead.I should feel relieved, and a part of me definitely does, but I have to fight the dark ripple of sadness and remind myself that he was going to kill me. Dante was going to drain my blood even as I begged him to stop, then drop me on a doorstep all because of a deal that went sideways over a hundred years ago.
The woman tosses Dante’s heart at his feet, and it lands with a sickeningly wetthud. “Such a waste,” she says with a sigh, shaking her head. Her hair is so blond it’s almost white and reaches past her breasts. Her silver eyes are shadowed with dark liner and she has lashes any woman would kill for. Her lips are dark red and pressed in a tight line as I stare at her.
“I… um, th-thank you,” I whisper as the blood seeps through my fingers, leaving a trail of crimson along my pale skin, and I cringe.
The elegant woman bends—the white floor-length dress she’s wearing pooling around her feet—and rips a length of Dante’s shirt from his body, rising as she uses it to clean his blood from her hand. “Do not thank me, Calla.” She drops the blood-soaked scrap of shirt onto the floor. “Dante’s ill-mannered, silly little excuse for revenge is not the reason you were brought here.”
Confusion floods through me as I grip the table behind me, quickly joined by intense dizziness from losing so much blood, and I frown at the woman who I believed wassavingmy life.
She smiles at me, the light from the chandelier above the table catching her fangs.
I choke on a scream as the woman shoots forward with vampiric speed, and her sharp silver gaze is the last thing I see before my world goes dark.
END OF BOOK ONE
