Page 27 of Taste of Fate

Despite his shock and pain, the addict managed to keep hold of the little vial in his hand. He even resisted when I pried it from his fingers.

“What is this?” I forced his head to turn and look at the vial in my hand.

“Nothing!” he cried.

“Mm, try again.” I squeezed harder around his neck. Sun exposure had made his muscles weak and soft.

“It’s drae!” he whimpered pathetically. “It’s drae, okay? Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“And you were trying to sell it to these two? Out in public, huh? And on a busy night in the Cap, no less?”

“I mean, I was gonna let ‘em try it for free, but?—”

That only pushed my anger into dangerous territory. I dropped the vial on the floor and crushed it under my boot, which made the addict flail in panic.

“No, no! I spent my whole month’s salary on that! I need to work overtime during the day and, ahh?—”

I lifted him up from the table and, with a flipped grip, used the same hand to lift him off the floor and slam him against the wall.

“I should fucking eviscerate you,” I hissed. My fangs fully elongated, not in blood thirst, but in a surge of seething anger and violence. “For not only trying to sell drae in Blood ‘til Dawn’s territory, but to my fucking blood pet as well.”

The vampire’s eyes widened and not just because I was slowly suffocating him. He’d been trying to sell an outlawed drug to a blood pet of the ruling clan. The same clan who outlawed the drug in the first place. Now he realized how fucked he was.

“You’re going to tell me who your supplier is,” I said, deadly calm in my fury. “And then you will never come anywhere near my blood pet again. If you see her coming down the street, you go the opposite way. If she comes into a bar, you get up and leave. If she says hello, you apologize for existing and get the fuck away. You get me?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m sorry! It won’t happen again.”

I released his throat only enough to let him breathe and talk. “Your supplier. Now.”

He hesitated and I squeezed again, making him flail in panic.

“Cy, don’t kill him.”

Tavi’s voice cut through my haze, reaching through to the real me underneath all the fury. It was only because of her demand that I loosened my grip by a hair’s breadth on the dealer.

“Vlad,” he choked out. “I’m a middleman for Vlad, in the south Ribs.”

“Huh.” I grunted, keeping my grip steady. “You’re pretty far north from home.”

“I’m visiting family and uh—ugh…”

“Scoping out new customers?” I drawled.

His shaky nod was all I needed. Well, fuck. The draitrium problem truly was a beast with dozens of heads. We cut off a few, and new ones grew back to sniff around for new territory.

“The whole Heart of Sanguine is off limits to your business,” I hissed in the dealer’s face. “If I see you or anyone associated with you in Blood 'til Dawn’s home turf, we’re sending you to Vlad in pieces. Understand?”

Again he nodded shakily. I drew him forward, then shoved him back just hard enough for the back of his head to hit the wall. “Say it.”

“I understand,” he sputtered. “I’m l-leaving the Heart tonight.”

Only then did I open my fist, and then watched him scurry out of the restaurant like the vermin he was.

I took my first deep breath in ages, looking at the two women still sitting next to the window. “Are you two alright?”

Slow, tentative nods from both of them. Bea understood we had to get rough sometimes to keep drae and its pushers out of circulation. But it was the first time Tavi had seen me do that, and I couldn’t read the expression on her face.

One thing was certain. I had to make sure she was always safe, especially if I was hellbent on avoiding her and wouldn’t always be at her side.

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