Page 14 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

My chest heaved with a fractured breath. My monster purred within me, reminding me of her presence prowling beneath the surface, ready to pounce, even though we were both terrified as fuck. I didn’t know if it was God smiling down on me or Satan, or maybe it was some of my father’s audacity shining through me. Whatever the cause, I summoned the sass it took to raise my head, look the vampire dead in the eye, andgrin.

“Touch him? I fuckingbathedin him.”

Chapter six

Believe in the Devil

Overthelastfewweeks, I’d become a pro at pissing off deadly vampires, specifically, the ones desperately needing to be taken down a few notches. It was becoming something of a hobby of mine. I blamed Vincent Feral for that one. Provoking the hybrid was like dancing with death, at least in the beginning. Turns out, getting on the Feral King’s bad side was fun and games compared to being on the vampire king’s shit list.

Broadly declaring that I’d gone to bed with my dad’s one-thousand-year-old obsession was more than stupid. It was as good as the signature on my death certificate if I didn’t hammer out a plan to kill daddy dearest before he could so much as think about laying another finger on the princes.

He’d fucked them up enough. It was my turn to be the sole reason for their headaches. At least my bullshit was good-hearted—where it counted. I’d be a good leader to the vampire people, one comparatively less brutal and sadistic than my predecessor.

I could just see the campaign posters now: “Ruby Renada for Vampire Queen. She doesn’t rape people.”

As messed up and overall “probably not a good thing” as my dad showing up in my brain was, it was a chance to gain a little clarity about how much power he possessed and what exactly he and my brother were plotting for their next steps.

After all, I was pretty certain this was all going down in my mind. How the snake had slithered his way inside my thoughts moments after learning he lived was beyond me. In addition to that curiosity, dwelling on the weird pain that sparked between us when he touched me was just too much to unpack at the moment.

I had to focus on one mystery at a time. Right now, I needed to know what kind of chance I stood against the vampire king. In all reality, I probably had the same shot of getting all five of us out alive as I did at winning the lottery—we were talking about the sort of odds you had by not bothering to buy a ticket.

So, what did I have to lose?

We were probably all going to die anyway, so I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to take this shot and let Daddy know I wasn’t about to sit by and watch him take away everything I’d come to love.

His “little gem” wasn’t going down without putting up the fight of her life first.

When he lunged for me, I unleashed the monster that had been stalking within me impatiently, waiting for her moment to raise hell. Razor-sharp claws shot from my nail beds, my fangs punched from my gums, and electric magic licked up my spine as mind-obliterating power coursed through my limbs.

I knew there was more to my darker side that I had yet to discover, such as the rush of magical energy that whirled around me, whipping at my hair and nipping at my exposed flesh. I knew nothing about it, let alone how to harness it. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that it knew me intimately.

Whatever it was, it made me feel untouchable. Safe.

Dangerous.

I slashed at the vampire’s face as he came near, my nails slicing ribbons down his cheek. The vampire king staggered back as he cupped his wound, dark mirth twinkling in his flint-sharp eyes as if I’d tickled him instead of cutting his fucking face open. He didn’t so much as bat an eyelash or twitch his lips. It made sense. He was being held together with nothing but magic.

Slimy, magical energy leaked from between his fingers where he held his cheek. His head lolled slightly as he regarded me with slow-rolling laughter that caught in the spiral of wind encircling me.

“You’re like your mother, little gem. Full of surprises. I’d nearly forgotten the chaotic and unpredictable abilities of hybrids. Beasts, the supernatural world calls them. Monstrosities.” He licked his lips as they screwed into a mangled grin. “That’s exactly what you are. Vampire princess to the original bloodline born of Satan’s will and birthed from the Helsing bloodline, destined to destroy the very family from which you’re born. What a miserable little fate.”

“Yeah. It sucks. My dildo-fuckhead of a daddy didn’t believe in condoms, I guess. Most rapists don’t, though, so…”

His upper lip peeled to reveal crooked teeth that were fitting for a vampire older than Jesus Christ.

“I see the conflict raging inside you. Cower behind your humor all you like. You’re frightened of the thing inside you.”

I shrugged. “Eh. Not so much anymore, now that I realize what a horrible fucking ruler you were. I’ll do much better than you, though it’s not like you set the bar high. All I have to do is keep my genitals and fangs out of people who haven’t given me their consent. I also do this new, hip thing where I don’t regard humans as cattle. So far, I’m doing a bang-up job. I think I have this queen thing in the bag.”

The amusement left his eyes, and his disposition hardened. His nostrils flared as he gave me another once-over. “You’re not my heir. I have no need for heirs, for I never truly die.”

“Tough tits, Pops. I actually am. And as a matter of fact, you do.”

I kept him talking, all while feeding into the storm of magical energy that wrapped around me, a throbbing, living thing that was trying to tell me how to wield it. Was it a Helsing power? Something more nefarious that I’d inherited from my father? Or was it a combination of both?

“Look at you, floundering in a power you can never hope to harness properly. You don’t even know what it is, do you? Even if you do, I doubt your slapped-together magic will give you any prayer of rivaling me.”

His taunt shouldn’t have cut me so deep. I was facing a heartless monster, and I had to shake whatever remained of the little girl inside me that longed for a father’s love. It was imperative to my survival.

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