Page 19 of Crimson Mourning

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Damon.”

“No, I don’t think I did,” I declared with a slight shake of my head. “Could you repeat that to my face?”

Michelle walked up to me, entered my space, and leaned in, placing her mouth next to my ear.

“Damon turned me,” she whispered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CASSIE

He abandoned me.

The man I had given everything to. The man whom I was willing to sacrifice my human existence for.

Abandoned me.

Damon had given Michelle the one thing I wanted the most, to join the elite. To cross over and become immortal. Instead of coming to find me, he promoted this bitch before me with a wicked smirk on her face. He chose to promote her over me.

Then it hit me why he hadn’t come to rescue me.

He chose to let me stay with Lawrence.

Reality burned through my body like a thousand suns. The searing heat rose through my neck and bombarded my checks. Michelle was connected to Damon now in the way I should have been. She could probably sense where he was if he was close and kept it from me out of spite. He chose to embarrass me, humiliate me.

“And when he slipped inside me,” Michelle continued to whisper in my ear, “he sent me straight to heaven. I didn’t know he was that big.”

She stepped back and tilted her chin. “I mean, I had my thoughts, but I didn’t know he was so…so big.”

The rage inside me exploded and I lunged at her. All I could see was red. I grabbed her around the neck and forced her against the wall beside the door. Raw emotion coursed through me as I squeezed.

“You’re going to die!” I screamed.

Michelle’s hands were left free, and she blasted my mid-section with her fists, forcing me to let go of her neck and double over. I didn’t have time to think. Michelle was on me like a rabid dog. Trying to bite me, she grabbed my hair and pulled, spinning me away from her. Her strength and ferocity almost made me lose my balance, but I grabbed the hand holding my hair, and pushed out with my feet, slamming her back into the wall. I let out a bloodcurdling scream, but it wasn’t enough to loosen her grip.

“Today is the day you die,” she shrieked

“We’ll see about that.” I grunted as I tried to regain some sort of footing.

“With you out of the way, Damon will be mine. When I find him.”

This bitch was going down. I went limp and fell to the ground, throwing off her balance. Michelle loosened her hold and I shifted myself so I faced her lower half. I grabbed both legs and knocked them out from under her causing her to crash to the floor. While she was down, I jumped to my feet, sped to the wall that held the pool cues, grabbed one and broke it in half over my knee.

Michelle staggered to her feet, and I launched using every bit of strength I had to speed to her and drive the sharp end of the broken cue straight into her chest. Her scream played like music in my ear as I slammed into her and forced her back against the wall.

“Is that all you got?” She taunted.

Blood poured out of her mouth and down her neck, but this bitch wasn’t dead.

“Look at you,” she said, gurgling on the blood in her mouth.

I cast a furtive glance at the mirror mounted on the wall at the entrance of the entertainment room where I’d grabbed the pool cue from. I’d been so preoccupied with finding my traitorous husband, I’d never once stopped to look at myself.

Each time the virus found a new host, there was a chance for mutation. It was a major reason why even the very best minds couldn’t develop a cure. Before I joined the elite, I had auburn hair and brown eyes. I assumed my coloring would change to match clan Shaye. Some shade of gray or black hair and black eyes with a fair complexion. Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw the mutation firsthand. My auburn hair had turned white. My brown eyes were no longer the same, but were an icy blue. My skin pale. I looked like a cold-hearted bitch.

Might was well play the part then.