I stop beside Chikae. Extending my blade, I stare directly at my father as I place my foot on my brother’s back and then bring my blade down, removing his head from his neck.
His and mother’s screams fill the cabin like the choir in an opera.
Kozani runs from the kitchen and heads toward me. I waste no time spearing him in the neck. His twin comes up behind me. I spin around just as she attempts to attack me from the back, bringing her brother to the spot I once was. She slices through his neck. While she stares in horror, I quickly send her to meet him.
Soon, I’m surrounded by about ten members of the legion. All their swords are drawn as they stare at me.
“Do not kill her,” Markis shouts on the stairs. His shoulder has healed, but a blood stain shows where I stabbed him.
“Don’t kill her,” he reiterates with a sneer. “But make that bitch bleed.”
I lift my chin. We shall see who bleeds.
I spin around causing a whirlwind to form, stopping, I then send it out at the legion in front of me. It sends about five of them flying against the wall. One of the legion still on their feet charges toward me. Using psychokinesis, I pick up the bookcase across the room and slam it into him.
I go between every power I have absorbed over the years, using them like second nature to fight off these vampires. When the last body falls, I stand in the middle of the corpses breathing heavily.
The pain in my head is sudden, but not unexpected.
“You bitch,” Markis snarls as he walks toward me. “After all the years I spent loving you, you betray me. I gave you everything you have.”
I try to move, but he has control of my mind and will not allow it. Fighting against him, I attempt to push him out. One of the reasons I seldom use the gifts I’ve collected over the years is because it takes a lot out of me mentally. Which means I’m more susceptible to Markis.
He goes through my memories. As fast as I put a wall up, he breaks it down. Nothing is safe.
He stops on my last memory of Toraya. It was a few months before he’d gone into hiding. She’s kneeling in front of me, her body shaking, the rain pouring down onto her long blonde hair. I’ve chased her for days through the countryside of Spain.
“Please, Mizani,” she begs. “Don’t do this. He will hate you.”
I chuckle. “You think I give a fuck about him hating me? You both smiled in my face while you defied my bed behind my back. He gave you the one thing I’ve always wanted—”
“It’s gone,” she shouts, cutting me off. “I lost the baby.”
I smiled. “I know.”
I’d never do anything to risk the life of an unborn child. I had plans to wait until the bastard was born to kill its bitch of a mother, but fate had other plans.
She shook her head at me, her red tears mixed with the rain. “I’ll die knowing that he loved me and not you.”
“No,” I laughed. “Markis loves no one.” I place the images into her mind of Markis fucking Kavita and Venette. She gasps right as I cut her head off. I wanted the last thing she saw to be how he had played her, too.
“I see you discovered all of my little secrets,” he growls as he continues to go through my mind. He sees when I found a young Tech looking malnourished. He witnessed me watching over him. Next, he sees my entire friendship with Elizabeth play out.
“Your friend was pretty,” he chuckles. “I would’ve loved to fuck her. I would’ve put in time with her and taught her to resent you just like I did all the others.”
He’s not lying. Kavita, Venette, and Toraya were all once my friends. Eventually, they turned their backs on me.
He finally comes to my relationship with Enzo. He pulls up the night of us camping. The memory of the way Zo made love to me that night, and how his wolf was so on the surface I could feel him too, plays in full view. I pay attention to every detail. The gold in his eyes, the way his brows pinched, and his teeth duginto his bottom lip when he stroked inside me. The soft moans he made as he brought my body to euphoria.
“He could never fuck you like I can,” Markis growls at the memory before trying to rip it out of my head.
However, pulling that memory up and thinking of how happy I was in that brief time and knowing what all I have to fight for gives me the strength I need.
“You’re… right. He…fucked me…better…” I shove him out of my head with all my strength.
Markis flies back into the wall. He hits it with a thud and slides down. I fall to my knees, catching my breath. Okay, where did I get the energy to do all that?
“From your mate.”The door crashes in and my big black wolf comes rushing into the cabin. Blood covers his black fur. I guess he had no problem handling the legion outside.