Page 153 of Memories Like Fangs
Byrd shook her head, her grip on my face tightening like she could take all the self-loathing out of me if she just held on hard enough. “No, Quinn. You didn’t want to hurt me. You wanted to survive the pain. And, that pain had nowhere to go but outward. You wanted to live. At the end of the day, you didn’t hurt me,baby. You stopped yourself, and you fought your way back to me. That’s what matters.That’swho you really are.”
“I don’t know if that’s enough…”
“It is to me,” Byrd said, brushing her thumb beneath my eyes to catch my tears as they fell.
“I’m a monster, Byrd. I really am.”
“Good,” Byrd said, a smile curling her lips. “So am I.”
“I’m being serious.”
“I am, too. You, me, Cooper, Lilah, we’re all monsters. We’ve all got blood under our nails that’ll never wash out completely because of those we have slain. The difference is that Cooper and Lilah would do anything to get what they want. You and I? We’ll do anything to keep those we love safe.”
I arched an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying we’re just the morally gray hot ones? Like the difference between the murderous vampire lady inBlood Between Usand a serial killer like Elizabeth Báthory?”
Byrd blinked for a moment before her eyes widened in shock. She pulled back, mouth agape. The most delicious blush bloomed across her tawny cheeks. “Wait. How do you?—?”
I shrugged, feigning innocence and fighting off a smirk. “I saw it on your shelf, so I read it and a few of your other books while you were sleeping yesterday. It felt like a crime tonotgo through your little library.”
She gasped, scandalized, and gave my shoulder a playful smack. “You can’t just read my books without asking!”
“Why not?” I teased, grinning wolfishly at her. “You read quite the smutty stuff. They give me someexcellentideas for what we could do once all of this is over.”
Her blush deepened, spreading down her neck and teasingly under her hoodie collar. Through the bond, I felt the familiar and divine thrum of desire pulse like a heartbeat between us, making my stomach flip. It was so bright and comforting. Forjust a moment, the guilt and the weight of our losses all quieted all over again. We weren’t battered warriors clawing their way from war, or killers feeling guilty for their choices, or grieving lovers missing their loved ones, or victims with healing wounds. We were just two women who were so in love with each other that we could stop time itself and create a bubble of our own outside of reality to cocoon ourselves in. For a single moment, the darkness in her didn’t feel like it was devouring her. It just sat quietly in a corner, letting her breathe. Letting her smile. Letting the stars return to her eyes.
And I, sitting with my hands on her hips as I held her close so her warmth soaked through every cold crack inside me, couldn’t ask for more.
Fire Drill
QUINN
The tires of Everett’s SUV crunched on the pavement like breaking bones as I turned onto the circular driveway of the familiar sprawling house.
The Cape Cod-inspired estate stretched wide and imposing. The oversized windows stared out like silent sentinels, unblinking, all-seeing, holding the secrets that had passed through before. The sun was beginning her early afternoon dip, spilling orange and red across the maniured lawn like spilled blood. There were bruised shadows cast across the green, too, but these turned the glass panes into dark mirrors. It looked like a home in a painting, while feeling like a mausoleum. It all felt fitting, really.
Inside the mansion, there was something that could fulfill every need and desire, and some that you had never thought of. It had everything from an orchestra room to an arcade to even a pickleball court in the back. I still remembered Byrd’s wide eyes as she counted how many TVs we had compared to charcoal grills. I could see how someone would think the place was a dream home. But I always thought it was just a luxurious prison with my father as the warden. There were rules for everything, and if you wanted something, you had better be ready to paya price. For every item supplied, I could think of five insults my father had lobbed at it, the person who bought it, or the person who was using it. Even my room before I moved into the apartment behind the house offered no escape, with the marks on the walls still present to prove it. Where one might see posh and luxury, I saw one of many times when my father had raised his voice, insulted me, or when he had tried to do it to the cousins and I had intervened.
No, this house was a warzone. It wasnevera home.
Any warmth within had always been because of my mother, who could brighten up any space just by walking into it. Of the few small glimpses of happiness in my childhood, my mother and cousins were often in them. There was a time when I couldn’t imagine finding that joy in someone else. Back then, I couldn’t imagine moving out and away from Mama and the family. Now, I hadn’t set foot in the house since early December, almost a month ago, but it already felt like a lifetime ago. Dread curdled in my gut.
Fuck, I wished I could just turn around and go back to my girl.
Hell, I would rather deal with the aftermath of Lilah’s attack all over again than go into this minefield.
“Looks like they aren’t home,” Cole muttered, looking around from his spot in the passenger seat. He was right. As I parked, I noticed that there were no cars in the driveway or flickers of movement in the windows.
“Of course,” I said, eyes rolling. “They’reneveraround when it’s convenient. Only when it’s catastrophic and unnecessary.”
Still, we moved quickly.
Cole and I slipped around to the back of the SUV. Cooper’s body was still in the black bag that Ayrie had provided. This close to the bag, I could see the magical sigils written there that kept the body preserved. Clinical and detached just like Cooper.He had just been reduced to a body now. Not the boy who threw a Hover Disc at his birthday and somehow landed it right on his cake just as Aunt CK was lighting his candles. Not the boy who used to love making us watch superhero movies so he could explain the lore to us just to show off how much of an expert he was. Not the boy who used to let me practice my throwing knives with an apple on his head. Cooper and I were never close. In fact, we clashed and fought the most. He was always questioning and challenging me, and I was always putting him on his ass to remind him that two places he was not going to catch me going were back and forth with a man who didn’t know fuck-all. But there were some good memories with him. I never hated him before, no matter how much he annoyed the fuck out of me.
But that Cooper had died long before the Holidays in Montana.
“Where are we taking him? The cellar?” Cole asked me, running his hand through his blond hair as he stared at what remained of his brother.
Nat wrinkled her freckled nose as she got out of the SUV. “That place is definitely haunted. I’m happy I’m not going down there.”
