AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You have a liar in your midst, Mikalis.” Saint backed up.
“I see that.”
“And you have the wrong perpetrator in Octavius. Maybe you should look closer to home than wasting time stalking me all over the Ozarks?”
“The mistake is mine. I should never have let you live.”
The hate was real and visceral. Saint could taste its bitterness. It blinded Mikalis, madehimweak. Saint straightened and tugged on his shirt cuffs, righting his suit. “There was a time I worshipped you. I might have still, if you’d been honest. But I can’t abide manipulators.”
“And I will not sufferbetrayers.”
Saint looked his sire in the eyes. “I’ve never betrayed you.”
Mikalis’s top lip pulled back in a snarl, revealing savage teeth. The weapons that would be Saint’s end. Except, Saint wasn’t alone, not this time.
Octavius swung a piece of metal bar and struck Mikalis on the side of the head. For any normal nyktelios, it would have knocked him sideways. But Mikalis stood firm, and the bar buckledaroundhim.
Octavius staggered backwards with the bent bar in both hands. “Fuck.” He dropped it with a clang and raised his hands. Mikalis turned slowly.
“I know what this looks like, but I’m not with him,” Octavius gushed, backing up.
“He is,” Saint said, wiping blood from his mouth. “We have an agreement.”
“I didn’t plan this, Mikalis. I didn’t let Saint go.”
He sounded weak, the little wolf, in the face of Mikalis’s judgement. And that wasn’t right. Octavius wasn’t weak. Complicated, vicious, hard to like, but not weak.
“I thought more of you, Octavius. Itrustedyou,” Mikalis snarled.
“I know! And I didn’t break that trust.”
Octavius’s begging tone made Saint sick to his stomach. He’d sounded the same once, begging for forgiveness that would never come. Mikalis wasn’t capable of forgiving.
“Raiden—I know how it sounds,” Octavius rambled on. “But I’m not just blaming everyone else. You need to look at Raiden. He admitted it—”
“You’re feeding from the vein, you’re sharing a feeder, and you’re colluding with my enemy? Why would I believe you?”
Octavius’s face fell. He realized he’d never win this fight. He’d hoped, until this very moment, that he had a chance. Saint knew that grief, he’d been there, hoping that the truth would outshine all the lies. But it didn’t.
Venom soured Saint’s tongue.
Mikalis had his back turned, focused on Octavius.
Was Saint really going to kill Mikalis?
What choice had he left him? Kill or be killed.
He lunged, fangs bared, and reached for Mikalis’s neck. Mikalis twisted and grabbed Saint’s jaw, holding him aloft. Mikalis’s glare burned with disgust. Even now, in these final moments, Saint’s naïve heart still hoped he’d see the truth, and for Mikalis to know Saint had never wanted to hurt him. He wished for more time, wished it didn’t have to end like this, wished he’d gotten Octavius his redemption.
An engine roared, light flooded the convenience store, and a car plowed through the remains of the window, slamming into Mikalis. He vanished, buried under the car.
Saint dropped to the floor, spluttering, and watched as the car plowed into more racks of food, then smacked into the convenience store’s back wall, lodging there, halfway through, wheels spinning and horn blaring. Then the engine died, and the horn cut off.
The silence that followed numbed Saint to his core.
“That’s your car!” Octavius dashed through the twisted shelving and yanked off the driver’s door. The air bags had inflated, saving Jay’s life. Octavius dragged his unconscious body from the buckled car, slung him over his shoulder, and barked at the hiding cashier to hand over his keys.
Still numb, Saint found himself climbing through the hole in the front of the store and following Octavius to the car that blipped its alarm, answering the key fob Octavius had.
