Page 101 of Moon Kissed

“Badr said it was too risky to try and fool you with blank paper. You might notice that your scent wasn’t on them. You’d see the difference. Blah, blah, blah. They were terrible excuses,” he said softly, “and I guess I never really believed them from the start.”

“Is that why you came here?” I rasped. “To tell me you were smart enough to figure out they were lying bastards? Whoopee for you.”

“No, Volana.” A warm hand on the back of my head made me jerk back, eyeing him suspiciously. Edric drew back immediately and reached into his pocket, sliding over his phone. “I was worried they would end up going too far, so I took these when they weren’t looking. Just in case. I know it’s not the same but...” Edric tapped his phone and the screen woke up. On it was a picture of the letter Mom wrote me for my eighteenth birthday.

I reached out, my hands shaking as I cradled the phone. I swiped across the screen, the tiniest trickle of hope filling my chest as letter after letter looked back at me. Most of them were taken at weird angles and in poor light as if Edric was trying to conceal what he was doing, but I could see them. I could hold them again.

“Why?” I croaked, lips trembling.

“Because Paxton’s, Nyx’s, and Badr’s parents are all alive and well, and Orion hates his folks with his entire soul. Only I know what it’s like to...” Edric drew something out of his pocket. Well-worn and wrinkled, he smoothed the letter on his thigh. “To only have sheets of fucking paper left of the only person who has been there for you from the beginning.

“I told you, Volana, there are just some things you don’t do. I understand why you’re punishing us. If anything, you’re going easier on us for destroying the letters than I ever would be.”

I nodded, cradling the phone to my chest. “Thank you,” I whispered. I was shattering my badass reputation. I was making a saint out of someone who’d been nothing but a devil, but— “Thank you, Edric.”

“Castor really hurt you, didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question.

Meeting his gaze, I nodded. “You’re not a complete and total bastard, are you.”

Edric chuckled. “Don’t get carried away. I’m going straight to the alpha council after this and telling them I’ll only help them take the academy back from you if they pay me my two million.”

“Smart,” I mused, tucking the phone under my pillow. It was mine now. “You going to tell them before or after you take off to the Bahamas that you’ve got no idea how to do that?”

“After, of course. If you’ve taught us all anything, Volana, it’s the benefit of good timing.”

A little giggle burst out of me, over as soon as it started. I felt my wolf stirring in my chest—the signal that it was time to cut this short.

“But seriously,” Edric said, sobering. “Why did you want me to have a chance to escape?”

I cocked my head. “You really don’t know? I thought it was obvious after the whole performance I put on about knowing everyone’s secrets. I wanted you to escape because I know now why you need the money.” I tipped over, breaking away from his shocked look. “If you just left, I would’ve let you go. If you came here and attacked me, I would’ve kicked your ass and then given you this”—I took a slip of paper out of my nightstand—“lording it over you that I’m a better fighter and person than you. Would’ve made you feel so bad, bawling on the floor, cradling your broken bones and thanking me on your knees.

“But then you had to come in here and be all sweet.” I dropped the check on his lap. “Thanks for that. You completely ruined my fantasy.”

Edric read the check with the number two million on it, and jumped to his feet. “What the fuck is this!?”

“It’s the money you need to buy your sister out from Sunella’s thumb. Take it. It’s yours.” I smiled at him. “And just to get back at you for ruining a perfectly good revenge fantasy, I’m going to tell you that I would’ve given you the money that very first night if you had simply told me why you needed it.” I hummed, nodding. “Although, I am a bit impressed now that you wanted to pay Sunella with her own stolen money. That would’ve been some nice poetic justice.”

“This is a trick,” he barked, still stuck on the first half of my speech. “It’s fake! You don’t know— You can’t possibly know—”

“That Sunella has been recruiting innocent, pretty, youngomegawomen, forcing them to sign ironclad contracts, and then using them in the most disgusting of ways, so that she can hold on to her council seat for the rest of her life.”

His jaw slackened.

“Yes, Edric. I know.”

Edric dropped hard, falling on the step and pitching over. He fell on his hands and knees, gasping hard—gazing on the check like he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t breathe. “How?” he rasped. “Who?”

“Most of it was Lucia,” I admitted. Why not? He’d given me back something infinitely precious. I could give him the truth. “Everyone hates me for working with a vampire, but Lucia hates vampires too. For thousands of years, vampires have lived under the law of only turning people with their consent. The man that turned her broke that law.

“Lucia was young, happy, and married to the love of her life when a blood-sucking rapist turned, kidnapped, and locked heraway in his castle. She was trapped with him for over a hundred years until one day she staked him through the chest and took off. But he was a vampire king.”

Edric hissed, wincing. Even he knew what that meant for Lucia.

“The others hunted her down like a dog. Didn’t matter that he broke their most sacred law. A king is a king.” I blew out a breath. “She spent the next century running, hiding, fighting, killing, and learning.”

“Learning?”

I nodded. “The vampire community is stuck. Trapped in the past. They hide away in ghost towns, or blend into the seedy darkness of overcrowded cities. But as mundane technology got more and more advanced, they weren’t prepared to deal with it. Now everyone everywhere has a camera, and they’re recording every flipping thing from their food to their reactions to people recording their food.

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