Page 38 of Chains of Blood and Darkness

My head spun as I tried to wrap my brain around his words. My brows crunched into a deep scowl. “And which supernatural do you think murdered Jacques?”

Enzo shrugged. “I don’t know. It could have been anybody.” His words settled on my shoulders like a heavy cloak, filling me with fear and uncertainty.

“They want to kill me, don’t they? Because my father’s a demon.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Enzo warned.

Gianna got out of her chair and clasped my hand. “What we do know is that you’re safe here, Serenity. My brother would never let anyone hurt you.” She wasn’t fooling me. I could hear the troubled note in her voice.

Silence swept around us, stilling my breathing. My lungs seemed to be frozen in time. I couldn’t remember how to inhale or exhale. It was as if the knowledge had flown out of my brain.

Enzo shifted in his chair, and it snapped me back to attention. I finally remembered how to breathe and greedily sucked in a gulp of air.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “You look like you could use a drink.”

I met his gaze, my heart heavy with the weight of the night’s events. “I feel like I’ve aged a decade in the past few hours. Yes, that might help, thank you.”

It was probably stupid to have a drink around vampires and when something was after me, but right now, I needed something to distract me from everything that was going on. Normally, I would work out or go for a run, but that was out of the question right now.

Gianna sat next to me and smiled wryly. “I don’t know about her, but I definitely could.”

Drinking after getting bad news was following Freddie’s example, but honestly, right now, I didn’t care. I needed to chase away the shock of finding out my father could be a demon. That was a million times worse than having Freddie as a stepfather.

Enzo walked over to the bar, moving silently in a way that only a vampire could. He picked up a bottle of red wine and filled three large, ornate goblets, then handed one each to me and Gianna. I swirled the deep crimson liquid around, its rich aroma wafting up to my nostrils.

I hesitated for a brief moment, wondering if it was wiseto accept a drink from a vampire, but the temptation was too strong to resist. I finally found my tiny voice. “If they caught me, do you think they would kill me like they did Jacques?”

He sat beside me again. “Absolutely not. You’re too valuable. They need your power. They’re desperate for it.”

“Great, so they want to unleash a power that never should be released,” I murmured bitterly. Demonic powers wouldn’t make anyone a superhero.

Gianna looked down at my shaking hand as I kept swirling the wine in my glass, then at my face full of fear and dread. “Drink, Serenity. The wine will calm you.”

I numbly did as she asked, unsure if I was doing it on my own volition or if she was compelling me. The minute the wine crossed my pinched lips, it was as if a great thirst came over me. I wanted to forget everything I had learned. Forget I had a price on my head. Forget my dad wasn’t just a deadbeat dad, but a fucking demon deadbeat dad.

I downed the glass and handed it back to him. “Another one.”

He cocked his eyebrow but didn’t argue.

The second glass went down even faster than the first. Usually I drank wine slowly since it went straight to my head, but not tonight.

He pointed to my empty glass. “You’re going to get sloshed if you keep drinking like that.”

I laughed softly. “That’s the idea. I don’t want to remember anything. I want another one, right now.”

He took the goblet from my shaking hand. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

I lifted my chin defiantly. “Do it, or I’ll tell Angelo you touched me.”

Gianna laughed and held up her own glass in a toast. “I like her. I like her a lot.”

Enzo’s face paled, his hands gripping the edge of the table as he stared at me in disbelief. His jaw clenched, and for a moment, I thought he might physically lash out at me. But instead, he stood up abruptly and stormed into the kitchen, returning with another glass of wine which he thrust into my hand.

He glared at Gianna. “You compelled her to drink, didn’t you?”

Gianna shrugged. “She needs to forget, Enzo.”

“Angelo will not like this,” he growled.

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