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“This isn’t going to hurt…” He burst out laughing. “Well, it will. Sorry.”
He came to me, and I trembled. I tried to fight the ropes that bound me to the chair again, but all it did was scrape against my wrists until the skin was raw.
“Do you like it?” Lazlo asked with a grin. “Colter has the fae on his side, but demon magic can get the spells done just as well, and there isn’t shit you can do against the dark power they wield.” He grinned smugly, pleased with himself.
“He trusted you like a brother,” I said.
“But he didn’t,” Lazlo answered. “If he really did, he would have let me be his beta instead of passing me over for Mykel. Now, that shifter is his beta, and that only showed me that Colter doesn’t trust the vampires as much as he said he did. He doesn’t give a shit about us, and he’ll never give us the equal rights we deserve on Earth. This should have been my chance to redeem myself, but no. He took that away from me.”
“Redeem yourself?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
Lazlo narrowed his eyes at me. “You know nothing about vampires and where we come from, do you?”
I shook my head. “I was raised human, remember?”
Lazlo nodded. “Humans are born, and they live, and they die. Simple, right?”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s just not that simple. If you live a good life, you end up in the Overworld. If you’re especially pure of heart, you’ll become an angel in the afterlife. And if you fuck up? Well, you end up in the Underworld. But if you fuck up really badly, that’s where vampires come from. We’re the undead, serving our punishment for eternity.”
“You’re monologuing, boss,” Jerry said.
“Will you shut your bitch mouth?” Lazlo snapped over his shoulder before he turned his attention back to me. Jerry snapped his mouth shut. Clearly, Lazlo treated him the way he’d treated me. Interesting how the tables had turned.
“We can redeem ourselves,” Lazlo continued. “We have a chance, after reflecting for-fucking-ever, to do better, to be better, and we have a chance to turn it all around. I’d nearly gotten there. I could have done it, too, if it wasn’t for Colter and his need to stay on top. He messed it all up for me.”
I narrowed my eyes at Lazlo. “So, instead of redeeming yourself and doing the right thing… you gave up and continued doing bad?”
“What’s the point of doing the right thing when you just get punished for it again and again?”
That didn’t seem right to me. Lazlo was the one who’d fucked up, and he insisted on blaming others.
“Anyway, it’s time to set things right,” Lazlo added. “If I can’t get to the top by doing good, then I’ll get there my own way. If I’m bad, then I’ll be the worst I can be.” He offered me a slimy grin.
“And I’m the answer to your prayers?”
Lazlo snorted. “Praying is for humans. Once you’ve been through the ringer, you’ll realize prayers don’t do jack shit. But yeah, you’re the answer. It wasn’t until you came back from the island that I knew you were exactly what I was looking for, but in a past life, my mom used to say patience is a virtue. Turns out the bitch was right. It almost makes me feel bad for killing her, back then.”
I gasped in shock. It was almost too much to take in. I should have known Lazlo was capable of bad things after he’d told me how punishment worked for a bad life, but to think he’d killed his mother…
“Are you going to do it now or what?” Jerry asked from behind Lazlo.
Lazlo turned around and snarled at Jerry, but he grabbed my arm, and I shook with pain when he shoved the thick needle into the crook of my elbow.
Thick blood started to run into the tube and toward the machine.
“You can’t do this!” I roared, fighting the bonds again. The more I moved, the more the needle in my skin hurt. I didn’t care about the pain, though.
But if they took my blood…
Lazlo laughed.
“You don’t get it, Liv. I already did.”
28
COLTER
