Page 136 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

Squeezing my eyes shut, I braced myself for the bite I was sure would come. When it didn’t, I peeked at Corry and was stunned to find his ravenous red gaze had returned to calm, cerulean blue. Instead of hunger etched into the grooves of his pinched expression, there was only concern. Anger, even.

He reached to touch my cheeks, moving slowly, as if to wait for my consent. When I didn’t pull away, he swept both his thumbs over my tear-swollen cheeks.

“Who made you cry? I’ll kill them.” The grit in this tone, fraught with an emotion that made my throat convulse, caught me by surprise.

I couldn’t bring myself to answer. The words wouldn’t come, and even if I found the right way to describe what had just gone down between Feral and me, I didn’t want to talk about it.

Corry’s line of sight made a slow descent down my body, but there was no lust in his gaze. With scrunched eyebrows and hooded eyes, I knew he was trying to piece the puzzle together himself.

“Last I saw you, you were running after Vin. You carry his scent on…” His attention dropped to my thighs, where Vincent had bitten me. The puncture marks had healed, leaving only streaks of blood crusted to my flesh. Damn, it looked like a massacre down there, like I had given birth to Rosemary’s baby.

My nape prickled when I caught Corry’s horrified expression. “Ruby, did he…?”

“N–no!Nothing like that. He only bit me. It was consensual.”

The youngblood ran a hand through his hair as he blew out a sigh of relief. “The thought shouldn’t have even crossed my mind. Vin wouldn’t do something like that, but I know you two have been having explosive levels of—um… well, disagreement. And he’s changed a lot since you arrived.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever he is—that side of him that isn’t human or vampire—it’s changing. It’s growing restless now that you’re here. Like it wants to eat you or something. But not it the same way vampires eat.” As he spoke, he turned and went for his dresser, rooting around for something in the second drawer.

My eyes fluttered shut as I tried to gather all the fragments I had to this puzzle. Corry was right. Whatever Feral had been before he turned vampire couldn’t have been a friend to humankind.

It did feel like he wanted to eat me, and he was using every ounce of willpower he had to keep that from happening. It was making him a hangry asshole because of it. That also explained why he was so aggressive toward me when he had every reason to be kind to me so he could win the throne.

Whatever Feral was, he not only lusted for my blood, he wanted something else, too. Something I couldn’t afford to give him. With every glance, every bruising touch, every battering kiss, it was like he was trying to crawl inside me and devour my soul.

What in the bloody hellwashe? Was he some kind of soul-eating demon? Maybe an incubus? He sure had the sexual energy of a sex demon.

Whatever he was, that dark part of me lusted for him, brutality and all.

And if it was my soul he wanted, I was afraid the monster inside me would eventually give it to him.

“Here, you can wear this,” Corry said, turning away from the dresser to offer me a black t-shirt with the “Kawasaki Racing” logo stamped on the front. I tugged it on, the hem of the shirt falling about mid-thigh.

It smelled of denim and cologne and faintly of hair gel. Perfectly Corry.

“Thanks, Cor. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

The prince gave me a smile that made his eyes dance with something that had my chest filling with a fuzzy warmth. “Anything for you, Red.”

Those were the same words he’d said to me outside the burger place, right before I’d stolen his bike. After what I did to him that night, I’m surprised he still meant them.

“How did you do it? When you were turned, I mean. How did you handle the sudden shift in your life?”

He let out a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of his skull with the flat of his palm. “I didn’t. The night of my turning, I went on a bloody rampage, killing a few humans between here and my parents’ house. When I got there, I terrified them. I probably would have killed them, too, if it hadn’t been for Sterling and Master bursting in to clean up my mess. My whole family had their minds mesmerized within an inch of their life to forget what they’d seen. That’s not exactly what I’d called handling it.”

“Well, I haven’t exactly been great at handling this whole vampire thing either. I stole your bike and betrayed your trust.”

Corry gave my arm a comforting rub. “Hey, I get it. It’s not like our experiences are very comparable. It couldn’t have been easy finding out you’d been lied to your whole life, locked in your room because you’re a half-vampire, while not getting the benefits of either race. You never got to be human, to go to school and make friends and do dumb teenage shit. You never got to be a vampire and experience the companionship and support you get from a coven. You were alone, and the night we had together, you had a choice. Freedom or me and my brothers. I was angry that night not because you chose freedom, but because you didn’t understand that escaping us meant almost certain death for you.”

I pressed a smile, instantly feeling at ease with the youngest prince. Everyone always gave him shit, telling him he had no impulse control, and that was partially true. But Corry was good. Even if he was young and naïve, he made me feel normal. Understood.

With him, I never felt alone.

I knew the youngblood cared for me, and that fondness for me stretched deeper than his instincts ever could. When he’d seen me naked and covered in blood, any other youngblood would have probably bitten me. It had been the sight of my tears that had stopped him. His concern for my emotional wellbeing had triumphed over his bloodlust.

“I understand what you did for me that night, Corry. You didn’t screw me over. You saved me, and I’m thankful. I won’t try to escape the coven again. It’s safest for me here. But if I was to escape again, this time I’d ask you to come with me.”

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