35
KYLO
I sensed something was off about fifteen minutes after Evie had gotten in the shower. At first, I chalked it up to my protectiveness, my deranged compulsion to always have my eyes on Evie. Especially now, when she was behaving increasingly erratically.
I knew she was still furious with me. Yet she was hiding it, which was even more concerning.
It made sense that she hid her true feelings in front of her family. Evie was self-sacrificing to a fault—unable to harm others even with her own suffering. But now that the sun was out, and she was free to confront me for crossing her boundaries, she was suddenly soft and yielding.
And sneaky. I could see it all over her face. Selena and Helia too, this precious girl was up to something.
Nevertheless, I made her breakfast and more coffee. Because I’d force Evie to let me take care of her regardless of her secret, murderous schemes. Even if it meant I might have to disarm her, tie her to a chair, and feed her myself.
I might do that, anyway. It was far too sexy of a mental image to pass up.
After thirty minutes, I knew for certain something was wrong. I knew how long Evie’s showers were. My stalking was nothing if not meticulous and detailed.
And this was officially abnormal, confirming the growing seed of intuition in my gut—intuition that was never fucking wrong.
I barely waited for Evie to answer my knocks and call before I barged through the door, already fully aware that I wouldn’t find her in the bathroom.
The open window drove a terrifying mix of panic and rage into my veins. My fangs ached. My bones rattled as I shook with fury, knowing she’d broken the singular rule I’d given her.
I told her to never hide from me.
She might’ve remembered that rule in order to punish me effectively. But she clearly hadn’t been listening carefully enough to the consequence I’d laid out.
She’d be remembering it soon enough.
I hastily activated my human glamour, but as soon as I stepped into the gardens, I realized I couldn’t scent Evie anywhere, in any direction. Her blood was so strong, so unique, that it was easy for me to trace.
But not now, as if she’d intentionally muted her scent.
Because of course she fucking did, the wickedly smart creature. Inserting myself into her brother and guardian’s lives had turned her into a frightened, devious, feral prey animal. She felt cornered and trapped. And now she was trying to take back control.
I slowed my breathing and closed my eyes. I would get nowhere operating from heightened emotions.
If my angel wanted to trigger my primal need to hunt, she’d better be prepared for what happened when her God finally found her.
Evie had been gone for five hours. The clouds had long since covered the sun, a storm on the horizon. She could be anywhere in the city, and I would have no way of tracking her without the scent of her blood.
I was out of my fucking mind. Because even if I knew she was only doing this to get back at me, I also knew the born were hunting witches like her, and she now had zero protection. She could’ve had her own forms of self-defense, if she hadn’t robbed herself of her own power.
Visions of spanking her bratty, misbehaving ass until it was cherry red was hardly a comforting mental image. Because that wasn’t nearly enough punishment. Not nearly enough of an assurance compared to what I had in mind.
Once I was done with her, my angel would never be able to leave me again.
After I’d been to all the obvious locations, I circled back to the land surrounding her estate.
I couldn’t stop imagining her in harm’s way. At a certain point I couldn’t discern my intuition from my panic, my complete helplessness to protect what I cherished most.
My shadows were beginning to escape my skin, and it took considerable effort to force them back inside before they could spread out in search of her.
When a crow landed a couple feet from where I stood, my power flickered in some strange way—as if in recognition.
It was a sensation that was uniquely… witchy.
My gaze narrowed on the bird, who only darted closer and closer, in a zigzag pattern. Then it leaped forward.
When it turned to look back at me, its beady black eyes all business, I sighed.
Because now I was following a fucking bird. That was how insane she’d made me, how deeply her absence had stabbed into my soul.
I followed the creature down a few cobblestone streets until we reached the edge of the neighborhood, in the opposite direction of the city.
The crow cawed. When it suddenly soared into the air, I noted a strange pattern of birds in the distance, circling a spot in the forest.
This was not ordinarily how I hunted and captured my prey. But as I disappeared into the dark woods, and the sky began to drizzle, I thought that perhaps this was the perfect atmosphere to claim my little witch for an eternity.
I scented her before I saw her—the ghost of a scent, as if her blood was just starting to reawaken after whatever little spell she’d cast wore off.
As soon as I heard a scream and smelled ripe fear, I tore through my glamour and ran.
The trees were a blur as I moved, precise and focused, my shadows starving. I slowed down as I made my final approach, pausing to assess the situation.
Evie was standing, her back against a pine tree, as three born vampires moved in.
Dark vines held her in place as she struggled. One of the born, a woman with shoulder-length red hair, attempted to snatch the book at Evie’s feet but yelped when it shocked her.
I smirked. One only needed to make that mistake once.
My smile turned into a feral snarl as one of the born men—the earth power wielder—tightened Evie’s bindings and pulled out a dagger.
“I can scent it in your blood,” he purred. “Power. Great power, even if hidden by some sort of binding enchantment. Did you think that would save you? Poor girl.”
“Maybe he’ll let us keep this one as a pet,” the other born man said, staring at Evie with lust.
As soon as one of the earthen vines crawled too high on Evie’s thigh, I stepped out of the shadows.
All of my buried rage and fear from the past five hours of searching for her bled from my skin.
In this moment, I didn’t think like a clan leader. I didn’t think as a skilled interrogator or a politician or a revolutionary.
I only thought as Evie’s protector.
I only thought of her.
My shadows extended like deathly limbs. The born turned away from the bound angel to face me.
I didn’t even bother with my fucking mask.
A deafening roar left my lips as I exploded. One of my shadows pulled the woman closest to Evie down to the ground and dragged her backward.
Another angled toward the man who wielded the vines, merely popping his head off his neck.
The vines instantly rotted, releasing a shaking, horrified Evie from their hold.
My dagger was in my palm the moment the third born rushed me, and I took the greatest of pleasure in throwing and landing the dagger straight into his neck. He gurgled and choked, my shadows rotting his insides from within.
I snapped, and the dagger flew back to me, just in time for the born woman to attempt her own attack. My shadows yanked her dagger from her palms as she writhed, and I slowly tightened the hold around her chest as she heaved for air. I sheathed my dagger back in its holster as she took her final breath, my shadows crushing all of her bones and guts until she was nothing but vampire mush.
Evie wrapped her arms around her stomach, panting and trembling. My gaze homed in on all the places the vines had left deep pink marks on her milky skin. The rain grew heavier.
I glowered at her, and she trembled harder, her teeth beginning to chatter. She glanced at her feet, then quickly rushed to place her books back in her bag and move them against the tree where it was dry.
Great. Glad she was able to protect her work from the rain before what came next.
“I’ll give you a five second head start, baby,” I said with a grin that didn’t meet my wrathful eyes.
Evie hesitated for half a second before she took off.