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The vampire’s eyes widened, sniffing her blood. “I was getting hungry too. How convenient.” He went for her again, knife poised.
Somehow … with strength she didn’t even know she had … Valentine was able to push back against the vampire. Her stubby chair leg was no match for his sharp dagger, but she gave the fight everything she had.
“Val, watch out!” her sister cried just in time.
Nikolas was going to stab her in the leg, but with Lil’s warning, Valentine dodged and brought the stake down and into the vampire’s back with all her might.
Thesquelchechoed through the cabin, and the vampire turned to face her. The end of the chair leg stuck out the other side of him, right through his heart. He blinked at her and then down at the makeshift weapon protruding through his body.
“Fuck,” he growled before vanishing in a puff of acrid dust. The cloud fell to the floor and simmered with a hiss before finally looking like nothing more than a really dusty patch of hardwood flooring.
Valentine couldn’t breathe. She could only stare at the spot where Nikolas had stood. “Oh!”
“What did you just do?” Lil cried, panicked.
Valentine looked down at her hands. “Holy shit.” She stumbled back and fell on the ground, where she decided to stay despite the floor’s insistence on spinning wildly. “Holy shit,” she repeated.
“Do you have any idea what you just did?” Lilliane screamed. “We aresofucked. Like, more fucked than fucked. It was all going to be okay, but no. You had to meddle. You screwed it all up, and now Nikolas is dead, and they’re going to kill me. Are you happy?”
“I havenoidea what you’re talking about,” Valentine said, still in shock. “Did I just kill someone?”
“YES!” Lilliane shouted. “This is bad.”
“Yeah,” she replied, hollow and empty.
“The council is going to be so pissed.”
Valentine didn’t know what to do. Was she evil now? Had protecting herself and her sister with the stake made a killer out of her? Was she a bad person for removing a killer like Nikolas from the world?
Her limbs shook with each question she asked herself, and Lilliane’s screams of panic weren’t helping.
She needed help. She needed a hug. She needed a whole bunch of things, and the only person she could think to call was Nero.
She couldn’t think about the big fat lie he told her in the woods. That was a problem for another day. At the precise moment, she needed him.
That didn’t mean she agreed to be his mate.
TWENTY-THREE
NERO
Nero was shocked when he saw Valentine’s name on his screen. His heart jumped in his throat.
Maybe she’d calmed down and talked to her sister Celestine about the whole mate thing. Maybe she was calling him because she wanted him.
“Valentine?” he answered, saying her name with a drawl like a cocky son-of-a-bitch.
Her breath hitched as if she were crying, and Nero jumped to his feet. “Nero?” she asked with a sniffle.
“What’s wrong?”
“I killed someone. A vampire.”
His blood ran cold. “Where are you?”
“At the cabin. Lilliane is mad. She said I messed up, but he was attacking us, and now …” She sobbed. “Oh, my god, what have I done?”
“You’ve protected yourself, love. You’re a complete badass. I’ll be right there. Just take deep breaths.”
