Page 72 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

“Dagon Knight is coming.”

“You already said that,” he snapped.

“There are rumors that he is trying to awaken the old king.”

A chill settled over me. The old king... as in my father? I didn’t like the sound of that, I didn't like it at all.

“That's impossible, vampires can't cast magic like that. He'd have to have witches' blood running through his veins.”

“All I’m telling you is what I’ve heard.”

“Let's pretend for a second that he's capable of magic like that. Why would he want to resurrect the old king?”

The smile that Allister flashed me while addressing Deathwish at his back was one that sent chills skittering down my spine. “Dunno. Something to do with clearing his way to the throne. You better be careful. He might just take your little half-blood cunt here and claim her as his own mate and queen.”

For the first time since I’d stepped into this room, I felt like I might actually be sick. Yet surprisingly it had nothing to do with all the torture. God, I hoped it was only a rumor. But something settled in my belly, a sharp foreboding that suggested that it was all too real. And that whoever this Dagon Knight was, he was coming for me.

I had so many questions. But right now, my vision shrunk to pinpoints and all I could focus on was the fact that the man who’d assaulted me tonight was still breathing. Going to the workbench, I picked up one of the wooden stakes, and moving faster than I ever had before, I was slamming it into Allister’s chest cavity before his shrill scream could leave him. His mouth was affixed into a silent cry and his face was etched with the deepest pain a creature could ever know.

Right before my eyes, his body began to shrivel in on itself, as if his corpse had been mummified hundreds of years ago. For a second, Eros and I stared at each other with a new kind of weight heavy in the air. Blowing out a steady exhale, he began to break apart Allister’s brittle body and toss it into the fire.

I watched the planes of his bare back as he burned the final traces of the enemy, a bitter taste in my mouth. It was almost like I could taste Al’s ashes. I didn’t feel regret.

I only felt scared.

“How come Mal didn’t turn to jerky when I killed him?” I asked in a whisper, trying to distract myself from the troubling information we had extracted.

Eros’ shoulders tightened but he didn’t turn to face me. “There are two ways to kill a vampire. Rip off his head, or stake him. When you stake him, they turn to ‘jerky.’” He chuckled as he repeated my phrasing, and finally turned to look at me with a grin on his face. It slipped when he saw my expression.

“You’re shaking.”

“I just killed a man.”

Deathwish's expression darkened. "That wasn’t a man. He was a monster and he would have done worse to you if you’d let him.”

“But doesn’t it bother you what he said? About this Dagon Knight coming to—” I couldn’t even repeat the words. Thankfully, Eros spoke before I forced myself to say them.

“No,” he said firmly on a deadly growl. He prowled over to me and paused with his face inches from my own. Standing directly in front of me, his stature was formidable. My mouth went dry as my gaze drifted over his piercings, down his blood-spattered, tattooed chest. I ached to reach out and touch him.

But I couldn’t. I was frozen under his intense stare as he reached to touch my lips with a gloved finger, as if he was just as entranced with me as I was with him.

“I don’t think it’s true,” he said after a moment, his gravelly voice stirring the tension. “I don’t know much about Dagon but I do know he was one of your dad’s progeny, turned around the sixteenth century. He was one of many who didn’t survive him. He’s nothing but a ghost story. Don’t let it scare you.”

“I am scared,” I admitted.

“Are you scared of me?”

“No, not you.”

“Then nothing should frighten you, baby doll. Nothing.”

I couldn’t hold back for another damn second. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face into his chest, inhaling his smokey, spicy scent like it was a drug.

He stilled, almost like he was shocked by the display of affection. Whether Dagon Knight was a rumor or not, other covens were coming for me. I already knew the princes’ solution. They’d want me to pick a mate and king to protect me. Hell, I’d even heard it right from Eros’ lips.

Even if Dagon was more than a ghost story, he wasn’t worried because he was going to be king before he could get here.

The cocky bastard.

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