Page 9 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

“Touch me again, and I’ll break something else, fucker.”

“Are you going to behave yourself and come with me?”

“Go fuck yourself!”

Heaving a sigh, he started to advance on me, consuming the distance between us with long-legged strides. “Then I am going to have to touch you again, Princess. And you’re not going to like it.”

He lunged at me.

I dodged out of the way, quicker than I thought I could ever move, because I’d never tried before. My heart slammed into my ribs with a force that should have already had me dead on the floor. But I was beginning to believe everything this asshole was telling me. How could I not? The evidence was too strong, and I wasn’t fucking stupid. Naive maybe. But not stupid.

My body moved at an impressive speed, but he was still faster, stronger. He caught my forearm and wrenched it behind my back so hard my eyes watered. Thrashing against him, I slammed back into his chest, and a satisfying rush of his breath left his lungs, feathered my neck.

We stumbled into my dresser.

Drawers rattled, and the vanity mirror mounted to the dresser toppled to the ground, cracking.

He wrestled me to the ground like we were on the set of WrestleMania. He was using moves I recognized from ESPN, and I realized that the vampire had to be some kind of trained fighter because he had me pinned to the carpet in a rear-naked chokehold.

“Calm thefuckdown,” he hissed in my ear.

And I did. Not because I cared at all to obey a single command this asshole gave me, but because of what I saw in the mirror laying on the ground beside us.

In the cracked glass, my blonde hair had come undone from its bun and lay across my face in a tangled mess. My brown eyes burned with a fury that felt good to unleash for the first time ever. My breasts heaved in the thin, white cami I wore.

If I knew to expect company, I would have put on a bra, at least.

I felt something hard press into my leg. The apex between my thighs heated, knowing what it was.

“Do you always get off on holding down weak, defenseless girls, you sick fuck?”

“I’m gettingreallytired of you calling yourself weak,” he hissed in my ear.

I lifted my gaze in the mirror, looking over my shoulder to meet his. My heart stilled as I was met with only my own reflection.

“You’re not real,” I gasped.

“Not real? You mean like one of your ‘book boyfriends?’” He let out a mocking chuckle as he reached around and pinched one of my nipples.

Biting my lip, I smothered the hot moan that burned in my throat. I didn’t want him to know how much I liked the touch when all it should have done was make me mad.

My nipple pebbled, straining against the cotton fabric of my top.

He chuckled again. “See how your body reacts to me? I’m very real, Princess. You can’t see me in your mirror because I’m a fucking vampire.”

“Then I’m not like you because I can see myself.”

“You’re a halfling. How many times do I have to repeat myself? You can also stand in the sun. You can probably even touch silver. You bleed red, and you’ve got a delicious pulse.” His nose pressed against my jugular, and my skin became stained with his black blood in the mirror.

“But you still thirst for blood, and you can feed on humans just like the rest of us. Only you don’t need it for survival. You will live a long time, but one day you’ll die of old age.”

“No…” I screwed my eyes tight as if this entire nightmare would fade away, and I would wake up back in the normalcy that was my life, where I was still just a girl with a heart condition and nothing else.

That was the less complicated reality. Because in this one, I was a monster. A monster who’d had everything taken away from me, and I hadn’t even known it.

Gathering my hair, he wrapped it around his wrist like a freaking leash and hauled me to my feet. He dragged me from the room and being too tired to fight anymore, I let him.

He dragged me into my mom’s room.

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