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Overtook me.
I doubled over, clenching my eyes, and when I looked up, everything was crystal clear. The Deacon looked satisfied, and Sorina looked scared.
He leaned in close to Sorina’s ear. “How does he look?” he asked, squeezing her neck.
I didn’t know what he meant; I couldn’t see myself, couldn’t see my eyes. Bloodshot, bulging. I’d see them in a memory that was not my own.
“Has he tasted you?” the Deacon asked. “You let him. You were always so foolish. Arrogant. You’re meddling with things you shouldn’t, tempting fate. I should leave you here with him. Let him feast on you. Do you want that?”
“Yes,” Sorina breathed, staring into my eyes.
I felt myself growing, breaking open—as if every morning I woke feeling stretched, compounded to this, magnifying my pain and ache. And when I stood, the ground seemed farther away. I held my hand up to my face, stumbling back at the sight of my long fingers, the growing fingernails. They looked like claws.
“Should I let his brother have your daughter?” the Deacon asked.
Sorina’s face fell, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, a red tear fell.
The Deacon leaned close, his long tongue lapping up the tear. “And what aboutourdaughter?”
My reaction was instinctual, enraged. I growled.Our daughter?What the fuck.
The Deacon laughed. “So you did not tell him, then? He doesn’t know. Maybe I really should leave you to him, let him punish you. They can be quite territorial, his kind. Maybe I should let him think you’re his.”
I stepped forward, and the Deacon stepped back. “Ah ah ah, not so fast.”
Everything in my body begged me to leap on him, rip him apart. I looked down at my hand again and brought the other forth. My fingers were black, the darkness extended to my wrists, and my shirt bulged around my arms, threatening to tear.
I looked up, ready to jump and tear the Deacon apart. But I stopped short.
Before me, he twitched and shuddered. Sorina’s legs grazed the floor as he stooped. Behind him, two giant wings spread out from his back, white as the moon, black claws at the tips. They stretched wide, scratched the walls, and pushed into the ceiling. The Archer house moaned with the invasion, with the darkness.
The Deacon stood tall, stretched a grin. When he looked at me, he laughed and all of his teeth were jagged, and his forked tongue ran over them. “Ah, this is much better.”
I stepped back, stumbling over my limbs, larger and foreign to me. I cursed my vision as I stared at the beast before me. He was the nightmare of my dreams. The winged creature looming over the town, devouring everything and blotting out the sun, consuming the moon.
When I imagined the horrors of the night, vampires of old, this was the image that haunted me.
And it was real.
Hewas real.
“Did she tell you everything as she lured you to her bed, Skoll? Everything our kind does? That pretty human word is nothing. Cannot live up to your dreams. Did she comfort you by telling you I am the villain? She weaves a pretty story. But you don’t want pretty stories. You want this—reality unveiled.”
“What the fuck are you?” I asked, my voice deep and guttural. There was more to him, more to his vile existence, and I wanted to keep him talking.
The Deacon leaned close to Sorina’s ear. “Tell him what I am, my darling daughter.”
I stumble back; my shock was violent, unearthly.
Daughter.
“You … you …” I stumbled over the word, the one I buried, the brand on my flesh. I thought of the naked man on the road, beckoning Sorina in her memory.He was waiting for me.I stood to my full height, grazing the ceiling of the Archer house, growling. “You raped your own daughter?”
“Oh, is that what she said? They always do love to sell a good tale, my daughters.”
Sorina sobbed and thrashed again.
The Deacon reached for her leg and spread it, exposing the white of Sorina’s skin. With one long fingernail, he broke her skin, spilling the blood on the floor. “She’s not yours anymore, Skoll. You want her? You’ll have to lick her from his floor.” The Deacon sneered.
