Page 66 of Vampire Savage

Flicking my right wrist free of blood, I turn back to the table and freeze, save for a snarl.

Some fucking how, Oberon got to Wren. He’s holding her to his chest, his thick arm a band of steel around her shoulders and he’s holding a knife to her throat. She’s gripping his forearm though not struggling. Her fear reaches me now that I’m no longer distracted, but it isn’t strong. Her heart is beating quick, but when I look into her eyes, all I see is her trust.

The truth slams into me as I hold her gaze. I’m not capable of falling in love with Wren, because I already am in love with her. I sought to infiltrate her life and use her for my own selfish means and in doing so, she slipped past my barriers of ice and found a home in the remains of my soul.

“Do you know why I named her Wren?” Oberon asks, his tone mocking now. It’s clear any care he had for his daughter is gone. He glares at me, jerking her harder against him, the blade’s tip pressing into her skin hard enough that a drop of blood wells. My brave mate doesn’t give him a whimper. “Wrens are tiny things, delicate and hardly ever noticed. It doesn’t take much to shatter their bodies.”

“Give it up, Jurgis,” I grit out, reverting to his true name as my eyes locked on the thin trail of blood created by the drop’s descent towards her chest. “You will not win. As we speak, the Nightshades are dismantling your empire.”

Miles stands from his seat but I don’t dare look away from Wren in her father’s grip. The sycophant of Jurgis, the man who tried to force Wren to marry him minutes earlier, has regained the outward appearance of calm as he stands just behind Oberon.

“You should have appreciated me, Wren,” Miles sneers, looking towards her with contempt. “I convinced your father it was in our best interests to let me marry you and get a child out of you before sacrificing you for both of us. Then we’d have a child to raise, just like he did after your mother.”

“Fuck you,” Wren spits out, struggling against Oberon’s grip but he presses the blade up against her jaw and she stills. “I bet that’s what you thought,” my mate continues, her voice pure defiance. “My father is too damn selfish to share, you stupid idiot. He planned on killing us both after the wedding, crashing his plane as we supposedly traveled to the honeymoon he was gifting us.”

Miles frowns and shakes his head. “No, we had a deal.”

I roll my eyes, easing forward but Oberon’s eyes catch the movement and he forces Wren with him as he moves backwards towards the door leading to the kitchen. She lets go of his arm as she tries to keep her balance and not press into the blade against her. She looks at me and I tilt my head, no more than a hair, and look at the set table for no longer than a blink. She blinks twice with understanding and pride suffices me.

My Wren is no meek little creature like Oberon believes.

“You can’t really believe that,” I say drolly, raising a brow in mockery at the commercially handsome man. He clearly has more looks than brains. “It’s no wonder why Oberon chose you as his puppet. You’re just so desperate for the attention your parents never gave you.”

Miles glares, his dark eyes focusing on me. Oberon is silent, taking another step back towards the exit, putting them beside the dining table. I don’t let myself look at Wren as I catch her slight hand sway towards the table, a movement that’s easily mistaken as her keeping her balance. As she sways against Oberon, she’s able to grasp the knife and twist it so it’s concealed, her hand around the handle and the blade upwards, pressing flat against her wrist and forearm.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miles says and I tut, sliding my hands into my pockets.

“Malachi and Ambrose have secured the building,” comes Deidre. “Communications are jammed, along with any surveillance cameras. The elevators are disabled and they’re on their way to your level through the service stairwell.”

“I do, actually,” I say, calculating how long it’ll be until my fellow vampires reach the penthouse. The service stairwell is at the opposite end of the penthouse, but that means little with the speed we’re capable of. “My father decided he hated my grandfather and left my mother and me. Then I spent the last few centuries fighting against my grandfather in every way I could without hurting my mother. I blamed him. I thought my mother chose him over me, I blamed him for my father deserting us. I acted out, thinking I didn’t have a family. The difference between you and me, though, is it turns out I do have a family. One that helps me even after all the fucked-up things I’ve done.”

Apparently, today is the day for multiple breakthroughs for me. I barely keep from rolling my eyes. Malachi would say he’s proud of me and probably make a joke about his reality TV being a therapist in place of the ones I refused to see over the years.

Because, as much as I might have believed I’d resented Ambrose and the rest of the Nightshades, I hadn’t really. I’d resented myself for surviving that night when I should have died when I shot that gunpowder keg. I resented the fact that I lived when Sergi died—a man with a wife and kids, whereas I had only my mother. Then when I was turned, it felt like another merciless punishment. It’d be even harder for me to die, in spite of all the opportunities I’d given Death to take me. Drunken bar fights, gambling debts with the worst of criminals, picking fights with anyone who looked able to take a beating and deliver one in turn.

Until Wren, I never realized why I didn’t care if I lived or died. Never cared if I had the respect of the Nightshades. Never cared about my own soul. I made the underworld my home, learning to revel in the darkness like Hades himself. It wasn’t until I captured a little bird, one filled with light and life like my very own Persephone, that I realized how much my darkness was of my own design.

“Fuck you!” Miles yells belligerently and pushes past Oberon and Wren to charge at me. I see Oberon smirk over his shoulder, then blink away faster than should be possible with Wren through the kitchen door.

To hell with this.

Miles has taken two steps towards me and I pull out the SIG from my shoulder holster. As Miles reaches for me, the anger in his eyes transforms into shock but it’s too late. I pull the trigger. His head snaps backwards, a bullet between his eyes, as his body collapses.

Malachi and Ambrose enter the room as his body hits the floor, both with their own guns drawn and expressions of stone.

“Benoit?” Ambrose asks, taking in the room before holstering his gun on his belt.

Malachi does the same, no longer looking like the debonair ladies’ man but instead the merciless soldier and general he is. He steps over to Mark, cocking his head before looking at me with a raised brow. I know he’s surprised I’d left the man alive.

I lift a shoulder in a shrug. “What can I say? Wren must be a good influence on me.”

Malachi grins and shakes his head, rising again. “Never thought I’d see the day where you’d take the fall.” He jerks his head towards the door Oberon dragged Wren through. “You and Ambrose go after them. I’ll take care of these three.”

Ambrose is at my side, his eyes meeting mine as he grips my shoulder. “Let’s finish this and get your mate back.”

I nod sharply and head out the way I came in. There’s only one place Oberon would take her now.

“Guys, what the fuck.” Deidre sounds pissed and I start running towards the panic room Oberon uses as a workplace. “I have visual from cameras on the neighboring building. Benoit left the building in a silver Mercedes. He has Wren in the front seat, but she looks out cold.”

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