Page 3 of Our Sins in Blood (Coven of Sin 1)

He was on the second floor.

There was a long pause. I swear I could smell him on the other side of the door, so he couldn’t have been more than a few steps away. His scent was so strange yet almost…familiar. I loved thunderstorms. On stormy nights I would slide my window open between the bars and just smell the electricity in the air, the rain-soaked asphalt, the salty tang of the storm-ravaged ocean that sat just out of sight from my bedroom window. He smelled like a dark and dangerous storm, and it sent a charge of energy down my spine like a clap of lightning, making the little hairs on my neck stand straight.

The whine of hinges sailed through my senses, and my heart went into another frenzy of potentially lethal beats.He’s going into my mom’s room!

Crouching down beside my door, I pressed my cheek to my carpet and lifted the food flap to peer into the hall. I lifted it oh-so-slowly so as not to make it creak. By the time I had a clear view of the bottom half of her door, he had opened it and gone inside.

No, no,no.This couldn’t be happening. What was he planning to do?

I had to warn her!

So I screamed.

I screamed as loud as I could, shrill and ragged. My mom’s voice, incoherent and hazy from sleep, began to call for me. “Ruby? What’s going on—”

But it was too late. She never finished her words. A muffled cry, silenced by maybe a hand, was smothered and died out as a male’s voice whispered something I couldn’t make out.

What was he saying to her?

Tears warped my vision.

No more sounds came save for his footsteps approaching. Large combat boots appeared in her doorway a second later. I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep any noise from leaking out, which was stupid since he already knew I was here, thanks to my scream.

And that’s when my heart monitor went off.

Beep, beep, beep!

The black band I wore around my wrist to alert me when my heart rate went too high blared like a warning. My heart thudded so hard I could feel it in my throat. My skin prickled in dread. So much stimulation, so many emotions, I could barely sort out what was going on.

I fumbled at the monitor and pressed the button to silence its shrill cries.

When I looked back at the flap, my heart nearly gave out right then and there. Through the square hole at the bottom of my door, two eyes filled the space.

Blood red eyes.

Strands of raven hair framed the sanguine orbs that ran me through, making my chest squeeze and my stomach flip with new levels of terror.

“Hello, Ruby,”the owner of the eyes cooed in a voice as dark as night and as deep as hell. “I was going to ask you to let me in, but it looks like someone so conveniently decided to install the locks on the wrong side of the door. So I’ll be letting myself in now.”

Chapter three

No Princess Should Live in a Cage

Theman’svoicewasstartling, not because of its deep timbre that could rival the Allstate man, but because of the way it immediately sank straight through my core, heating me in ways only fictional werewolves had accomplished up until now.

Which was completely stupid. This was an intruder. For all I knew, he could be a serial killer. Oh God,oh God. Was he going to kill my mom?

With my heart in my mouth, I backed away from the door. My hands searched for something in my room, anything to use as a weapon, while my attention remained anchored to the red eyes staring at me through the door flap.

Why couldn’t I look away from him?

My heart beat so fast, it rattled my skull and blurred my vision. Any moment it would give out. It was too weak for this.Too weak.

The last thing I’d ever see would be thoseeyesstaring into my soul and setting it on fire.

My heart condition was stressful enough without having to worry about a freaking house invader with eyes as red as the devil’s.

He slowly stood, his heavy combat boots now the only part of him I could see through the hole in the door. The clicks of a half dozen locks struck me like a slap, and I flinched with every one he unfastened.

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