Page 65 of Inevitably Yves

“That’s what he is,” Hemsley murmurs, with a slight smile. “If you unchain me, if I do anything wrong, will you kill me? Please? I don’t want to live if it’s only to hurt people.”

“I promise, but you won’t do anything bad. You’ll stay here with us and be safe.”

“Okay then. You can take the chains off.”

Thorn bends down and simply pulls the chains apart. They don’t hurt us given how closely we descend from Hadrian. Hemsley slumps and exhales a shaky breath, clearly waiting for some evil entity to take him over.

When that doesn’t happen, he smiles, and his color starts to improve. Vivienne walks over to him, kneeling to place some of the ward potion on his forehead.

“Come inside now,” she says. “We’ll give you something to feel better and help heal whatever he did to you.”

Hemsley nods, gazing at Vivienne like she’s his long-lost mother. As she and Viper guide him inside the club, Yves stands and glances around the dark parking lot.

“He’s been operating right here for so long.”

“Not that long, Yves,” Thorn says. “We just caught on to the Admiral.”

“But that means he’s been operating in other states, maybe even other countries, to build an army,” Midnight notes.

Syn huffs in disgust. “Stealing young people and turning them when they aren’t even fully adults yet. It’s cruel.”

“Hadrian doesn’t give a fuck about cruelty or propriety,” I spit.

Yves nods, his jaw twitching. “We have to find him. I will not allow any more innocent blood to be shed in my city. It stops now.”

TWENTY-ONE

Yves

I failed my city.

I let a rogue vampire in right under my nose. Everything inside me simmers with an unquenchable rage that will only be soothed by Hadrian’s head at my feet. His end is my sole purpose.

“That’s right, my beloved,” Damiano whispers as he presses his chest to my back, and his breath tickles my ear. “Let your beast take over. He knows exactly what to do.”

I lean against my love, inhaling his scent. “I don’t know if I can let loose like that anymore. It’s been centuries.”

“Look at me.”

I turn in his arms, immediately falling into his eyes.

“He made a vampire kill herself tonight,” Damiano says. “He turned an innocent boy into a monster. Do you think he will stop?”

“No.”

“No. Do you think he cares about your morality? Your ethical governance of your city? Do you think he views mortals as anything other than potential food?”

The more Damiano talks, the more my beast rises to the surface. My eyelids flutter and my chest thrums with white-hot anger.

“No.”

“No. All he wants is what he wants and everything and everyone in his path be damned. He’s been planning this a long time. Since he was somehow resurrected from his watery grave. He will stop at nothing to destroy you.”

Damiano grips my chin hard.

“He will delight in torturing and killing each of your beautiful brothers. He will turn your sisters with no mercy. He will tear me apart in front of you, and then when you are at your weakest moment, he will take your head, but not until after he’s ravished your body one last time just to erase my scent.”

My gums throb as my fangs descend to their fullest length. My eyes sting as my beast takes over. My senses sharpen. The sensation of my innermost feral self spreading through me is dizzying, disorienting, but in just a few seconds, I know that the cultured man I’ve tried so hard to be is buried, and the vampire Hadrian created is absolutely in charge.

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