Page 144 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

“I’m not calling off the bet. Feral needs to be taken down a few notches, and I have every intention of beating his ass.”

“But if you don’t win?”

The vampire’s expression darkened. “I will win.”

“But if you don’t?”

“I am a man of my word. If I don’t, I leave the coven. It won’t be forever. I’ll talk this out with Feral if I have to because I don’t plan on leaving you behind. You’re my mate. No matter what happens, I’ll be back for you.”

My chest tightened, filling with a tingling sensation that made my head go light. “Really? You mean it?”

“I mean it. I could never let you go, not after I’ve had a taste of you. You’re a drug, baby doll. An addiction. Feral thinks that leaving the coven will be enough to keep me away from you. He’s never been more wrong. When your father turned me, I was robbed of any chance of an afterlife. With you, I’ve got a second chance at eternal happiness. You’d think I’d throw that away on a stupid bet?”

Closing my eyes for a moment, I exhaled in relief. “I’m glad to hear that. I just wish you’d call it off completely.”

His hands clenched into fists on the locker beside my head. “I can’t. That bastard needs to be brought down a few levels. I need to do this, understand?”

I gave him a jerk of a nod and opened my eyes. “I understand. I don’t like it. But I understand.”

“Good.” His brown orbs blazed, banked with evident hunger as little red flecks stained his irises. “Now, how about a quickie for good luck?” He pressed his hips forward, the towel providing very little padding against the rock-hard erection that jabbed my leg.

My breath caught in my chest, and heat bloomed in my belly.

He wanted to take mehere, in the locker room? It wasn’t exactly a private space. And where was Vincent? He couldn’t be far off. What if he walked in on us?

At that thought, my panties were soaking on the next breath. Damn, why did I have to be so messed up?

“On one condition.”

The depraved prince arched a blond brow, the piercing there glinting in the fluorescent lights of the locker room. “Which is?”

“You tell me the truth. Did you murder Vincent’s father?”

Chapter sixty-seven

What's His

Eros’eyesturnedintodeadly slits, sharp enough to kill. “If you’re asking me if I murdered Feral’s father in cold blood, the answer is no. I didn’t.”

I breathed out a sigh, relaxing against the locker. “I knew you weren’t a murderer.”

The vampire canted his head, jaw ticking. “Murder is when you kill a man, and Feral’s father wasn’t anything of the sort, baby doll.” His voice dropped an octave, and his demeanor turned dark and violent. I gaped up at him in wide-eyed awe as he loomed over me, leaving no space between us. He kissed my jawline, then my ear, whispering, “He was a monster, Ruby. And Ibutcheredhim like the animal he was.”

Shuddering, I raised my hands to slam them down over his chest to push him away, but he caught my wrists, keeping my palms flushed with his reaper tattoo. “What’s the matter, doll? Scared of me now?” He clicked his tongue with a shake of his head. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. Not after you saw what I did to Allister. What you helped me do.”

“That’s different!”

His lip peeled back into a sneer. “Oh yeah? How?”

“He was going to hurt me, hurt the coven. He was evil!”

“Exactly! That’s what I’ve always done. I hunt down feral supernaturals, and I put them in the fucking ground so they can’t hurt anyone ever again. Feral calls me a monster. Maybe that’s true. But I use my abilities to hunt creatures bigger than myself. My job has always been to take down the bigger beast. Other than in the ring, I’ve never hurt a human in my life.” His hands began to shake against my wrists, and a vein jumped in his brow. An emotion I’d never seen before roiled behind his red-brown eyes like a miasma. When he spoke next, his voice was strained. “Even when I was turned into one of them, I’ve only hurt—really hurt—bastards who’ve had it coming.”

“But Vincent said—”

“Let me guess,” Eros spat, cutting me short with a twisted grin that was void of all warmth and humor. “He said his father was a ‘good man.’ What a load of steaming shit. Of course, a son holds his father on a pedestal. Seeing Feral so blind to the obvious, I’m almost glad I’ve never had one myself. He’s got a skewed perspective, Ruby. Feral only saw his father in his home realm when he was surrounded by his own kind. Here in the human realm, he was a predator. He hunted humans and used their energy for fuel.”

“I thought he was a diplomat.”

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