Page 97 of Our Sins in Shadows (Coven of Sin 2)

I gaped at the vampire. “What book did she recommend?”

Sterling chuckled softly and gestured to a stack of books across the room. I followed where he directed my gaze. His finger was a little off the mark, but the green and purple cover on the top of the heap jumped out at me.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was the book I’d picked up when I’d first met Sterling, and we’d had a brief conversation before my inner monster freaked out at my father’s mating mark.

“She introduced the series to me. Every night she came to the library, and we discussed the books. She loved to read, just like you. Apart from boy wizards and magical schools, we discussed the future. She spoke to me as if I had one. I found her optimism refreshing. Even though she was a Helsing, I couldn’t blame the vampire king for being so drawn to her.”

The priest blew out an airy sigh as he stared vacantly out the window. “I never loved your mother in the same way I love you. But she will always hold a piece of my heart for teaching me how to trust again. She was the first person I told about Elizabeth and our unborn baby.”

His voice went so quiet, laced with an icy quality that reminded me of the October breeze sweeping off the sea through the open window. “I told her how he raped me in front of the woman I loved and robbed me of any future chance to have a family. I even told her how he used me in front of the other coven members on occasion.”

I crawled to where Sterling sat on the foot of the bed and placed my head on his thigh. His muscles unwound at the contact, and his slender fingers stroked my hair idly.

“What did she say to that?” I whispered.

“She broke down crying, and when her tears dried, she told me she believed she was pregnant with his child, and for the longest time—” Sterling’s brows bunched together in a mystified expression as if all these years later he was still thrown off by the interaction. “We just...heldone another. The prince of the vampire king and a Helsing, embracing. We experienced trauma at the hand of the vampire king, and it erased the line between us. It was the closest I’d even been to a human since Elizabeth.”

I repositioned myself in Sterling’s lap so that my back was to the bedcovers with my face gazing up at his. He stared dead ahead as he looked at me with his hands. His fingers trailed from my hair to probe my features with gentle strokes. He traced my brows, the ridge of my nose, the apples of my cheeks. When he moved to stroke my lips, I caught his pointer finger between my teeth and gave it a playful nip. A silken growl rolled up from his chest.

I wanted to return the subtle mating call, but my monster was still dead asleep, grieving over the loss of her other mate. Everything still awake within me burned to touch this gorgeous male.

If anyone could rouse the thing inside me, it was Sterling. And Vincent, of course, but this whole thing was his fault. He didn’t deserve to touch me until I made him pay for hurting me.

There would always be that part of me that wouldn’t fully trust the creature I was. Thomas Knight and Sapphire Lockheart had created a powerful vampire with an unholy libido and the underlying urge to kill the same mates that libido attracted.

But Sterling was right, as usual. My love and lust for my princes would outweigh any urge to make good on some archaic, magical prophecy. I would just have to satisfy that murderous Helsing instinct when the time came to destroy Dagon.

“Sterling. I feel so empty. Like the thing inside me has died.”

“It hasn’t died, my love,” he crooned, his knuckles grazing over my brow. “It’s merely asleep, and I will do my best to awaken it. But first, I need you to hear the end of the story. You may not wish to complete our mating bond after you hear what I have to tell you next.”

Chapter forty

Numb

IeasedoutofSterling’s lap, positioning myself on the bed so I sat with my legs tucked up, my chin resting on my knees. Taking a hard breath, I prepared for some difficult to chew news, whatever it might be.

“What did you do to my mom? What could be so unforgivable that you’d think I wouldn’t want to be your mate?”

Sterling’s lip trembled, which left me flabbergasted. The oldest Knight prince was always so suave and smooth. Yet here he was, his eyes going glassy with unshed tears, his fangs gnashing together.

Whatever he did to my mother, he hated himself for it.

“Sapphire asked me to escape with her. Not only that, but she wanted me to start a life with her.”

“What?” My face scrunched with confusion. “But you’re a vampire. What was her plan? Did she think she’d just waltz into the Helsing Guild while preggers with the vampire king’s baby and his progeny and expect everything to be hunky-dory?”

“She wasn’t going back to the Guild. Not with you in her belly. She wanted to keep you. But she was terrified. She didn’t know how to even begin raising a child with the world’s most potent vampire blood running through its veins.”

“She wanted you to come with us to help her raise me, didn’t she?”

“Yes.” A pregnant silence settled over the room while Sterling allowed me a minute to digest this information. Obviously, my mom’s plan to have Sterling help raise me hadn’t panned out.

But if it had...

Fuck. That was an uncomfortable fact to unpack.

“So, you didn’t go with her. If you did, I’d probably be calling you daddy right about now and not in a sexy way.”

The vampire’s Adam’s apple dipped with a hard swallow. Propping his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands, making his white trusses spill over his fingers. “I couldn’t. I gave her the manor’s master key to escape, but I couldn’t go with her.”

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