Page 93 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

“Such a lonely little grave, you are,” she said, a feline smile pursed around the mouthpiece of her smoking implement. “I remember when you were dug so long ago. Can’t even remember who for. Someone insignificant, surely. Don’t worry, though. You’ll be filled soon enough. And with a royal.” With a tap on the cigarette holder, she knocked a clump of ash into the grave.

“Normally, they’d bury one of the precious Knight spawn in a mausoleum, but your future occupant won’t have such an honor.” The soft orange light of her next drag illuminated the harsh counters of her angular face. “Not after what he’s done.”

Lexi seemed to follow a typical archetype for older vampires. Gothic, graceful, and dramatic as all get-out. Or, that’s how a twenty-four-year-old goth girl perceived centuries-old vampires. If this had been anyone other than that cold bitch trying to have my mate executed, I might appreciate her theatrics a bit more.

Sadly, thiswasLexi. The next viper in our nest I needed to take care of.

I lunged. By the time she spun around, I was already behind her with my fist hurling toward her face. I might’ve moved faster than her if I’d shifted just a hair of a second earlier, but there was a delay in getting the message from my mind to the part of me where my most primal self lurked.

The succubus hybrid bowed backward. My claws unsheathed from my fingers as they hissed through the air. My timing was a sliver off, just enough for the agile demoness to dodge the attack.

Bloody hell, was she fast. I remembered her oil portrait I’d found in the library, crusted and yellowed with age. Older vampires were hard to kill. But being part Helsing, I wasn’t worried. I was made for putting ancient vampires back in the ground. How convenient that she’d already picked out the perfect hole to bury her.

We stood on opposite ends of the open grave, staring one another down through slitted eyes.

“You followed me? You’re so pathetic. If you’re here to grovel, save your breath. I won’t be retracting any part of my statement to the Elders.”

Vincent came out of hiding and lounged against the gravestone, a caustic sneer playing at his lips.

“I don’t think our princess has any intention of letting you see the Elders again.” The fae stooped to pick up the cigarette holder she’d dropped, plucked out the half-shriveled stub and tossed the holder into the grave. He jammed the remnants of the cigarette into his mouth. It was eerie seeing the way his onyx eyes glinted with the glowing embers that danced on his inhale.

Fuck me.

The way his lips pursed into a grin, I found myself wishing I was that cigarette. “Actually, I’m pretty sure she has no intention of letting you leave this cemetery.”

Lexi glared stakes at me. Even under the sheet of rain, I saw the unmistakable flash of fear buried under the hatred in her eyes. “You’ll be lucky if they don’t throw you both into this grave. Then your corpses can fuck each other for eternity!” she bleated, her voice frantic and laced with panic.

Feral’s gaze flicked down to the yawning darkness stretching into the earth. I wondered if he was thinking about the ruthless kiss we’d shared at the bottom. “I can get into that. What do you say, Princess?”

“I’m down.” My unleashed monster was loving the way we were toying with our food. “We’ll have to find a different grave, though. Since this one’s for you, bitch.”

All her snake-like confidence seemed to dissolve in that moment because, right then, she turned and sprinted away as fast as her feet could carry her.

I glanced at Vin with a coarse snicker. “Terrible hunter, huh? Watch this.”

Before he could say anything else, I took off after Lexi.

Chapter forty-one

Monster's Feast

ThecoldMassachusettsseabreeze lashed my cheeks as I ran through the graveyard in a full-speed bitch hunt.

I don’t know how she did it, but the succubus moved through the mud like it was nothing. With the quicksand-like ground suckling at my feet and slowing me down, I opted for hopping from tombstone to tombstone.

My monstrous strength made me a lethal predator. The thrill of the hunt made me fast. And my kill in view made me ravenous. Yet somehow, the succubus was still faster than me. Maybe it was her hybrid combination, or it was also totally possible that she was outpacing me because she was literally fleeing for her life.

I pushed off one gravestone and slashed my claws down her entire back. They cut so deep, her bones grated against my nails, and the shudder of her core reverberated up my arm.

She lost her balance, pitching forward with a scream and skidding through the mud in a spray of wet grass and clumps of dirt.

The moon peeked through a hole in the cloud cover, casting her body in a silver spotlight.

Chest heaving, I approached her tentatively. “Get up.”

When she didn’t so much as twitch, I crouched down and reached for her.

She lurched, and again I was too slow. Her nails swiped over my torso, cutting an even deeper neckline in my dress, made obscene with the way it stretched all the way to my pelvic bone.

---