Page 159 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

His brows furrowed with mild irritation. “Who else would it be?”

“Hmm… I don’t know. Maybe the mysterious monster who would have mated me in the ring under the noses of everyone if I hadn’t subdued him?”

Vincent let out a great snort. “We are the same person, Princess. It’s just been hidden away until now. You bring out that side of me.” He lumbered closer, his eyes darting down the hall to make sure the coast was clear before looking back at me with a twisted sneer. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

I jutted my chin out, lifting my head to meet his glare with one of my own. It didn’t matter that he was the size of a truck, Vincent Feral didn’t scare me, and he never would.

“I already told you, monsters aren’t scared of other monsters. Besides, I made you submit to me, remember?”

Maybe it was a trick of the dark, but if I wasn’t mistaken, his lips twitched with the ghost of a smirk. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”

“So why did you come back?”

He squared his shoulders and readjusted Eros in his grip before turning away from me, stomping down the tunnel in search of an escape route. “I shouldn’t have ever left you.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. And you can’t ever leave again, not now that we know this Dagon Knight is capable of necromancy.” I paused, tamping down on an ugly emotion that tried to unfurl in my belly. “Do you really think he can bring my dad back from the dead?”

Every muscle in Vincent’s body clenched. He tilted his face in my direction, his expression hard and filled with shadows. “I don’t know. All I know is we have to get you back to the Cape. We can’t let them get their hands on you. I don’t know what kind of ‘ritual’ they need you for, but whatever it is, it sounds like you’re the key to bringing him back.”

“With this new ability—or I guess—your reawakened ability, we have to have some sort of advantage. You seem perfectly in control of your instincts—”

The sound of gunfire cut my words short. Vincent grabbed me and flung us into the nearest room. “Fuck!”

My heart sunk to my feet, seeing he’d found yet another dead end. It was like someone had specifically manufactured this place for a horror movie.

There was no time to double back and find an alternative path. If we went back into the hallway, we’d be shot. We had to find a way out of here.

The room Vincent had thrown us into looked to be some sort of garage, and at the end sat a large roll-up style metal door. It had to be the same one I saw from the outside. That meant this would make for a perfect escape. That is if it wasn’t for the fact that the door was completely blocked from the inside with huge shelving units, machinery, and other junk.

Vincent set Eros and me carefully on the floor and frantically started to tear apart the barricade, heaving random pieces of junk over his shoulder.

Since this stuff was too heavy for me to move, all I could do was watch as he dug through the mess, freeing the path to the door piece by piece.

His strength was impressive, seeing him hurl huge chunks of metal that were easily bigger than my whole body as if they were made of balsa wood.

Would he free the entrance in time?

The seconds were counting down, and I felt like every breath leaving my body brought us closer to what could very well be our end.

My heart thundered hard in my chest, making me think of how just over a week ago, my biggest fear was not letting my pulse climb too high. My whole life had been completely flipped on its head. I had been so resistant to my new life at first, now I couldn’t imagine living any other way.

I would be the vampire queen. It was my destiny, and I didn’t need a king by my side to rule. But I would need all four of my father’s progeny by my side, as my mates. Together we would figure out a way to kill this Dagon Knight before he could resurrect my father.

They all made me strong in different ways. I couldn’t do it without them.

I could hear heavy footsteps stomping closer.

“Bloody hell, Vincent, hurry!”

“Working on it,” he grunted as he lifted an enormous piece of equipment—a forklift—and tossed it aside with a deafening clatter. It was the last item to be removed. The way was now clear. All we had to do was open the door.

Just as Vincent reached to snatch off the padlock holding the roller door shut, Sharpe’s men poured into the room.

“Kill him!” the doctor commanded, the two syllables sinking to the bottom of my gut like a thousand-ton anchor.

The room lit up with the light coming from the guns.

Bullets hailed down on us.

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