Page 93 of Fated In Forever
Nothing mattered now.
Because Evangeline was slipping away.
And I wasn’t letting her die.
Not today.
44
EVANGELINE
Iwas seven when I killed my first vampire.
Silas had been disappointed in my training progress, and Angel had just been born, so his end game was, most likely, for me to die honorably, in the Silverwood line of duty, so he at least wouldn’t be completely humiliated by his worthless older daughter.
My father was all about bragging rights.
He and Dante had dragged me to an abandoned warehouse where I’d stood alone on a greasy stained floor, trembling with fear, a knife gripped in my hand, my knuckles still dimpled with baby fat as I drew the knife across the lifeline on my barely-calloused palm, as they’d instructed.
My blood had beaded up so fast, the pain worse than I’d expected.
My trembling had only increased when a starving vampire crept out of the shadows, eyes glowing, yellowed fangs sharper than my nightmares. I’d never seen one close up before, only the fangs hanging around my Uncle Alister’s neck on a chain, though my cousins sometimes whispered there was a secret room where my father mounted Ancient’s heads on a wall.
I hoped I never saw that, because it sounded horrible.
Not as horrible as this creature crawling toward me, paper thin skin peeling, pupils dilated from hunger as myblooddrip drip drippedto the floor. The vampire’s nostrils flared, and I didn’t see him move, as much as I felt the rush through my bones, a displacement of stale air that had me shifting out of the way, faster than I’d ever moved before.
The creature landed on all fours, then dropped its head and began lapping my blood up off the filthy floor, tongue rasping against the concrete.
And it was like instinct took over from there.
Three quick, quiet steps so I was behind him, my hand raising the knife, and the blade sliding between his vertebrae like a key into a slot. One hard twist to the right and he went limp, his tongue still frantically licking as the light faded from his eyes.
What I hadn’t expected was the wave of pity and sorrow and nausea that followed.
I vomited, feeling none of the vicious joy my father told me was normal, none of the righteousness in killing a foul creature, birthed from darkness itself. I was a Silverwood slayer and I was born for this, but killing that starving vampire had felt like a sin.
I’d thought a lot about that night.
How my father and Dante had slithered out of the shadows, peering down at me like they couldn’t believe what they saw. Me, clutching my little knife, wondering if I was strong enough to defend myself against them.
But mostly, how wrong killing that creature had felt.
And all the ones that came after.
To be fair, I’d gone out of my way to block out most of my childhood, since all of my youthful memories were some twisted version of that horrid night. But that was the face I always saw in my dreams. I guessed it was like they said.
You always remembered your first.
But now, studying that memory, my life came full circle.
That little girl had been twisted by pain, forged by cruelty and yet, no matter how hard he tried, my father failed to turn me into any version of himself. If anything, I’d emerged from the Silverwood cauldron of fire to become his polar opposite.
I had my mother to thank for that. And Angel.
And Riordan and Blake and Malachi.
But I also thanked myself. Every choice I’d made, every path I’d chosen was a conscious choice, shaping my own destiny, breaking the chains of my hideous family history. I’ddecidedto be different, to always pick another path, rejecting every corrupt ideal my father worshipped like a slave.
