Page 80 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

I managed to peel my eyes open to see him crouched over me, examining his hand where the impressions of my teeth had already healed to create a silvery mark. Even though I hadjustbit him, It didn’t look like a fresh wound at all. It looked like a scar.

That’s when it dawned on me.

I had bitten him first.

He was inside me when my fangs had pierced him, marking him as my mate. Probably simply out of instinct, he had returned the favor.

This wasn’t his fault. As much as I wanted to be angry at him, this was my fault. What did I expect? When I decided to stay in the coven and play with these deadly princes, I knew something like this was going to happen. Yet it still hurt. And this wasn’t the kind of pain I enjoyed.

I wanted to curl in on myself. I wanted to cry and scream. The combination of the physical pain inside me and the confusion ravaging my body was just too damn much.

I couldn’t hold back the hot tears that dribbled down my cheeks. Eros, looking worried, pressed a kiss to my brow. Suddenly his skin felt so cold against my own. It was like my body had instantly come down with a horrifying fever. “Ruby, the pain will soon pass. It looks like your body isn’t reacting well to the mark because you’re half-human. But you can overcome it.”

The white-hot fire in my shoulder was so excruciating I couldn’t even speak. Which was a real bitch because Ineededto tell Eros to get the fuck off me and put his pants on. Any damn moment Vincent would be barreling through that door and with the scene of me naked, paralyzed, and crying beneath an equally naked Eros, his brother was going to be jumping to some pretty awful conclusions.

If Vincent thought Eros had forced himself on me, I knew he would kill him. So Ihadto regain control of my body before the door unlocked. But of course, me and my damn luck, it was that exact moment that the door’s timer clicked.

And the only thing keeping Feral out of the basementopened.

Chapter thirty-nine

Sibling Rivalry

Thebasementdoorslammedopen, leaving a very pissed-off-looking Feral darkening Eros’ doorway like some kind of scorned devil.

For several strained seconds, the whole room was filled with a lethal silence so palpable, it was hard to breathe as Vincent’s gaze fell to me on the bed where I was completely naked and rigid with pain.

My stomach swirled with a foreign emotion as I took in the way his expression twisted with violence as he first noticed the fresh mating mark on my shoulder, then his attention flicked down to my still spread thighs. My flushed flesh glistened with my arousal and to my horror,blood.

Giving an uneasy swallow, I took in the smears of red on my skin and the dark blots on the sheets. Had Eros accidentally nicked me while he was eating me out?

When I followed Vincent’s line of sight to his brother’s semi-hard cock, red with my blood, my throat constricted. It wasn’t from a bite, it was the evidence of my virginity, dripping from his dick. Easing off the bed, Eros jerked his camo pants over his hips, all while keeping his hate-filled glower fixed on Feral.

“I can already see in your eyes that you’re assuming the worst. It’s not how it looks.”

Vincent’s knuckles audibly cracked as his fist clenched at his sides. “You fucked-up bastard. She wasscreaming.You think a girl does that when she’s enjoying herself?”

Eros’ lip curled in a sneer, revealing pointed fangs. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“It wasn’t enough to hurt her, but you had to claim her against her will? That’s low, even for you.”

Deathwish’s glare turned sardonic as he held up his palm so his brother could see the silver puncture marks where my fangs had penetrated his flesh. “Hate to tell you this, but she bit me first. Guess that means game over for you. Maybe if you weren’t such a tool this would have gone differently.”

I didn’t care for the fact that Eros was using the bite I’d accidentally given him as a means to goad the other vampire into thinking I’d made my decision. But it was becoming painfully obvious how much he loved crawling under Feral’s skin. Their whole rivalry went way beyond me and the coven. According to Corry, it had started back before they were even turned, when they’d been rivals in the ring. But there had to be more to the story than that. What I was seeing now was a hatred that had grown over time, and me being smack in the middle of all this was just their violent rivalry coming to a head. And as much as I didn’t want to get caught up in it, someone was going to get seriously hurt if I didn’t do something.

“G-guys, stop,” I managed to choke out, but my waif-thin voice was lost to the chaos that broke out on the next breath.

Feral lurched across the room, grabbing a random bowie knife that was sitting on the dresser at the foot of the bed and brought it slamming down toward Eros. I wasn’t exactly an expert on vampire fights, but I knew he could have dodged long before the knife reached him. Instead, he held his ground for painfully long, a bored expression on his face. The point of the blade was about to come down right on the tip of the scythe tattoo beneath his jawline.

Vincent was aiming to slit his throat.

“No!”I managed to say loud enough to divert Vincent’s attention for a split second. Eros grabbed his wrist just as the knife was coming down, and using his temporary distraction he smashed his fist into Feral’s jaw so hard, he knocked him back into the dresser. His massive frame sent cigarettes and nefarious Deathwish-themed paraphernalia flying.

“Stop!” I shouted, this time my voice louder. By some miracle, I managed to prop myself up on an elbow, my strength already returning as the pain in my shoulder began to ebb away. Vincent paused on the dresser, his gaze catching mine. I felt my skin heat as the olive hue of his irises stained red.

It was just a fraction of a second that our eyes locked, but in a way, it felt like an eternity. It was as if someone had pressed pause on the world around us. In that single beat of time, the Feral King’s walls dropped and a series of emotions flickered across his face. First, concern. Then, as his attention scraped over my bare body, lust. When his line of sight clamped down on Eros’ mark, undiluted rage.

The electric moment was shattered and time seemed to return to normal when Eros grabbed him by the shoulders with a guttural growl of warning, like an animal trying to keep another male away from his mate.

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