Page 114 of Our Sins in Shadows (Coven of Sin 2)

Sterling continued to dodge each of Vincent’s attacks, gliding around the piles of books. Vin grew progressively more frustrated and charged through the books without a second thought to what or who stood in his way.

“You’re making a mess of my things, Feral. Your hybrid tantrums are even more temperamental than Miss Baxter’s.” Moving to one of his dusty bookshelves, Sterling reached for a dark wood box and flipped the lid open. His fingers curled around the item inside as he placed the box back.

It was a small dagger. There was no way something tiny like that would do any kind of damage to Feral. He’d heal within seconds.

This time, when the male charged him yet again, Sterling held his ground.

What was he doing? He was going to get crushed! He might as well wield a piece of paper for the cut that dinky blade was going to inflict.

Just as Vincent was within arm’s reach, Sterling used the bookcase, climbing it like a ladder. He launched off the top and flipped in the air to land behind the fae in a crouch. Springing to his feet, he jammed the blade between Vin’s shoulder blades and sliced it down his spine. His skin sizzled and bubbled, and an agonized howl that sunk straight to my marrow made the tower quake.

It was an iron dagger.

When Vincent collapsed to a knee, Sterling’s slender and pale fingers seized him by his inky hair and wrenched his head back, holding the point of the dagger to his throat.

“Shift. Back.” The priest’s velvety voice was filled with venom. “You’re stronger than your race’s instincts that drive you to feed and breed. No longer are you that male. There is no returning to that life. Not if you hope to remain worthy of Ruby.”

Sterling was trying his best to lure Feral out of his primal stupor. I knew before Vincent even twitched a muscle that his attempts were in vain.

“You think your sagely dribble is enough to make me yield?” The unsettling laugh that rolled from Vin’s chest filled me with a disquieting chill. “You’ve always been a sentimental old fuck.”

Vincent hurled all his weight backward onto the prince, who was too close now to dodge out of the way. Hundreds of pounds of monstrous male crushed Sterling into the paper-strewn floorboards. Dazed and winded, he coughed and sputtered as Feral spun around, slapping the dagger from his grip and collaring his slender throat with a gargantuan hand.

Vincent stretched slowly to his feet, raising Sterling into the air by his throat. “You want to know what happens in my culture when a male challenges another for his mate? The victor rips the loser apart piece by piece before his mate so she knows who the alpha is. You’ve lost, priest.”

There was no time for Vincent to make good on his threat.

Just like that, I released the last grip on my darkest and most dangerous instincts. Even if I hadn’t let go willingly, she would have shoved herself in the driver’s seat no matter what. My high-pitched, demonic screech splintered the air, coming out sharp and more shrill than ever. My pheromones seemed to excrete from every pore with more potency than even before I had the IUD.

Eros was the first to curl up, kneeling at my feet as he held his crotch, groaning. “Fuck, I think I just came.”

Vincent dropped Sterling, who scrambled up only to kneel before me like his brother, emanating a masculine purr that struck a chord with me, like some kind of mating call.

Feral was more resistant to yield to me. He swayed dangerously on his feet. The tendons in his neck tightened and his cock leaked pre-cum as his body seemed to respond to my feminine demand for submission.

“Submit to your queen!” I snarled at him, striding over to where he stood. The sheer power rolling off of me, wave after wave of magical energy, was so potent, it scoured my skin like a sandstorm.

The male braced himself, battling my influence.

“I am the alpha here, not you, little monster.”

To prove how wrong he was, I swiped my claws over his face, gouging deep ribbons of black down the side of his chiseled features.

“Vicious little bitch!” He reached for me—to cut me, bite me, hold me down as he forced himself into my body so he could demonstrate just how much of a big bad alpha he was.

I wasn’t sure.

I didn’t give him a chance to hurt me more than he already had. The fury that siphoned through my veins was like poison. It made my head swim and my vision go fuzzy as my limbs seemed to move of their own volition.

I tore into him, claws shredding through his torso, swipe after unrelenting swipe. I screamed and cried as I burrowed into his chest in a spray of blood, ripping it to find and destroy his heart as he had so casually destroyed mine.

He stumbled backward, and his frame collided into a heap of encyclopedias. Before he could catch himself, I was leaping on top of him, riding his body to the ground.

With my claws clutching his shoulders, I stripped away the flesh at his chest with my fangs.

“S–stop, I–I yield,” he gasped, too weak to fight me. His body went limp on the pile of books, the pages and loose fae feathers soaking up his blood.

“Shift back!” I ordered again.

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