Page 16 of Midnight Coven

The warped, cold, echoing voice filled Nick’s ears. Something in it made him wince. Something in it made him close his eyes, will it away.

…You can’t have them. You can’t. You stole it from me. You stole everything from me. I need you to give it back. Then I’ll go. I’ll leave this place.

Nick didn’t understand.

He didn’t even try to understand.

He didn’t want to understand.

You can’t have them,the being repeated.I won’t let you steal them away from me again. I won’t let you leave me. I won’t…

Nick grimaced, closing his eyes.

He didn’t want to know what that… thing… was talking about.

He did know, though.

Nick realized he knew exactly what the creature meant. More to the point, he knew exactlywhothe creature meant.

He just didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to know anything about this.

He would have killed the other male if he could. He would have ripped him apart with his bare hands. He would have erased him from existence totally.

Yet Nick’s reaction wasn’t really aggression, or anger.

Despite the threat he heard in the background of the Stranger’s words, he didn’t feel that intense, protective rage he’d felt when hearing threats like that before. He felt nothing like how he would have expected he’d feel if someone threatened his wife and friends.

A cold fear settled in his gut instead.

A deep dread.

A horror that nothing would ever be right again.

For a bare breath, the feelings there utterly paralyzed him.

Nick couldn’t even tell whose they were.

He really didn’t know if they belonged to the creature or to him.

CHAPTER4

SLOW MOTION

Nick jerked awake…gasping, choking.

But that wasn’t right.

It wasn’t right.

He didn’t need breath.

He didn’t need to fucking breathe. He wasn’t suffocating. He was totally fine. He was a damned vampire for Christ’s sakes.

Remembering that much helped.

It began to calm down at least.

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