Page 44 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

“I didn’t think Deathwish was a fighter too.”

“Oh yeah. They were both at the top of their game in the MMA long before they were turned. They’d always had this brutal rivalry thing going on. And Master got such a huge kick out of it he turned them both right around the same time. Now they’re forever at each other’s throats. Their hatred for one another pulls in a ton of dough. You should see the fights. Vicious as fuck. Humans go crazy betting on those two. Vin likes to think he’s the strongest, but Eros gives him a run for his money once in a blood moon.”

“But doesn’t anyone notice that they look different now? They’re both as pale as death and Vincent’s got his bulgy black arm veins going on. And don’t people get weirded out by all the black blood?”

“If they were still in the MMA, sure. But these fights are different. They are underground, literally. The place is dark, filled with all sorts of creeps who just want to see bloodshed. they thrive off the gritty theatrics of it, and they don’t ask questions. They don’t grapple for the logical. Besides, even if they did suspect anything, they wouldn’t dare spread rumors. People in that world disappear all the time for asking too many questions.”

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the two vampires on the flyer, throwing punches meant to maim, their muscles flexing beneath sweat-slick skin. They looked deadly, and as much as I hated to admit it, hot as fuck.

“You don’t want to get caught between those two, Red,” Corry said, reading my pinched expression. “And you don’t have to. Sterling doesn’t want the throne or a mate, so expect him to sit out this whole suitor thing, but those two will fight for you, and it won’t be pretty.”

It was obvious what Corry was getting at. I was pretty sure this whole night was just one big “Corry for King” campaign.

I had the youngblood wrapped around my finger. Which was exactly where I wanted him.

Feigning a shiver, I wrapped my arms around myself. “Shit, it’s cold.”

On the next breath, Corry was shrugging off his jacket and draping it over my shoulders. I could feel the bulk of his motorcycle keys weighing down his pocket.

Bingo.

Just one last thing to do. And that would be it, that would be the last I saw of Corry. Of any of them.

That would be the end of my short-lived life as a vampire princess.

I stared at my half-eaten burger, trying my best to ignore the hallow cavern in my chest.

There was still so much I wanted to learn, but there was no time. Unanswered questions about my father swam to the surface of my mind. This was basically my only chance at getting some answers to the questions that had been hanging over my head.

“Can you tell me a little bit about my dad, Corry?”

The youngblood’s expression stretched with surprise. “Er, I’m not really the person to ask, Red. I only knew him for six months.”

I fully intended leaving the cape—hell—probably Massachusetts altogether. I had no intention of coming back, so this was my only shot to fill in some blanks.

“Tell me what you can. I get that he was a horrible monster. But for someone as old as him, there had to be more depth than that.Someshred of good in him.”

Corry sent me an indecipherable look and shifted uncomfortably on the curb, balancing his elbows on his knees. “I dunno, Red. I didn’t know him like the others did. I know bits and pieces of what he did to Sterling and Vincent, and…” his voice quivered and died, seemingly unable to say the next words. “Horrible things.Unspeakablethings. His favorite hobby was turning the strongest men unfortunate enough to cross his path and making them his playthings. He delighted in breaking them down until they were nothing more than dust. He kept alive only the ones strong enough to survive him.”

My blood ran cold, and I inhaled on the question, “There were others he turned?”

“Countless others. Sterling, Vincent, Eros, and I are the only ones he bothered to keep alive.”

“All men?”

Corry gave me a nod.

I pulled his jacket tighter around me as an actual chill shuddered through me. To think the vampire king, my father, stole the lives of countless men over the course of his stupid long life, turning them into monsters, and killing the ones who didn’t measure up.

Maybe Vincent Feral had been a soft, kind man before he was made to suffer through whatever it was the vampire king had done to him.

Regardless of what kind of person he’d been before, Vincent had had a life. A promising career in the MMA, and all of that was robbed from him. I wondered if my father had tipped over Vincent’s world as swiftly as he had tipped over mine.

Then there was Sterling, who I barely knew. But something told me the silver-haired prince had been broken so many times that he eventually became unbreakable, unshakable, like a proud and picturesque statue, untouched by time while the world around him shifted and changed.

My gaze went back to the pierced, blond-haired man on the poster who looked every bit as vicious as his dark-haired brother. Deathwish seemed to be the most like my father, a typical monster who got off on the suffering of others.

And Corry was a perfect counterbalance to all of them. I wondered what he’d experienced under the cruel hand of Thomas Knight.

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