Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
TALULLA
The words blur.
They blur and refocus and blur again, but they don’t change. They don’t disappear. They don’t transform into something that makes sense, something that doesn’t feel like a knife twisting in my chest.
The Original’s pet.
Not just a job.
Taking my grandmother was more than enough.
My heart stops. Or at least that’s what it feels like—like someone reached into my chest and squeezed until everything inside me went cold and still and dead.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
This isn’t real. This can’t be real. This is my father playing games, manipulating me like he always does, trying to get me back under his control because he can’t stand that I chose someone else. That I chose Flynn.
But the words are right there. Black ink on white paper. The Popescu Cross stamped in burgundy at the top like a brand, like a curse.
The Original’s pet.
The world tilts sideways, and suddenly I’m falling.
“What does this mean, Flynn?” The words come out of my mouth, but they don’t sound like me. They sound distant, hollow, like someone else is speaking through my body.
I look up at him, and his face—
Oh god, his face.
Icy-gray eyes stare at me, and his lips form a thin line. Guilt. That’s guilt on his face. That’s the expression of someone who’s been caught, someone who knows exactly what that letter says and what it means.
No. Please, no.
“That’s one of the things I was going to talk to you about,” he says, and his voice is so careful, so measured, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal.
One of the things.
One of the things he was going to talk to me about.
My mind starts racing, thoughts fragmenting and scattering like broken glass.
This isn’t happening, right? This has to be a terrible joke. Flynn isn’t connected to the Original. To the first vampire. He couldn’t be. He…he can’t be. He just can’t.
Because if he is—
Every moment I thought I was safe, that I was loved, that I was chosen—was a lie.
Was I just a job?
The thought hits me like a physical blow, and I actually stagger back a step. My stomach churns, bile rising in my throat.
Am I just a job to him?
All those nights. All those mornings. All those moments when he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered—
Was he just acting? Was he just playing a part, following orders from the Original, from the monster who’s been antagonizing my family for generations?
Oh god.
Oh god, I’m going to be sick.
My mind flashes back to every intimate moment. His hands on my body. His mouth on mine. His cock inside me while he whispered how much he loved me, how I was his red ruby, his precious thing—
Was any of it real?
The question tears through me, and I feel something inside me start to crack. Not just my heart—though that’s definitely shattering—but something deeper. Something fundamental. The foundation of who I thought I was, who I thought we were.
I thought he was on my side. I thought he understood who I was. My mate. And I was just a joke? All of it?
No.
I can’t think like this. I can’t—
But I can’t stop. The thoughts keep coming, relentless and vicious.
Every time he trained with me. Every time he fought by my side, to defend me from other vampires.
Was he just protecting his investment?
Every time he made me come, made me scream his name, made me feel like I was the center of his universe—
Was he just keeping me compliant?
The numbness spreads from my chest outward, creeping through my limbs like ice water in my veins. My fingers are tingling. My toes feel distant, disconnected.
Shock, some clinical part of my brain observes. You’re going into shock.
But I can’t care about that right now. I can’t care about anything except the man standing in front of me and the terrible, devastating possibility that everything I believed about him was wrong.
“Is Flynn Lancaster even your real name?”
The words come out cold. Detached. The voice of a hunter, not a lover. And I know it gets to him, because the way his eyes widen tells me I hit him just how I wanted to.
Good.
Let him hurt. Let him feel even a fraction of what I’m feeling right now.
But even as I think it, my heart shatters a little more. Because I don’t want to hurt him. Even now, even with this letter in my hand and these terrible suspicions in my mind, I don’t want to cause him pain.
What does that say about me?
What kind of pathetic, broken thing am I that I still love him even after this?
My mind races through every possible scenario, trying to find one—just one—where this makes sense. Where Flynn isn’t the monster my father says he is. Where I’m not the fool who fell in love with her family’s greatest enemy.
But every scenario leads back to the same conclusion. He lied to me. Flynn lied.
Maybe not about everything. Maybe not about his name or his feelings or the way he touches me in the dark.
But he lied about something. Something big enough that my father knows about it. Something connected to the Original, to my grandmother’s death.
This is too much. Not him. Anyone but him. Not when he…fuck.
Not when he made me believe I could have this. A life. A love. A future that wasn’t just blood and violence and the endless hunt.
“Talulla.” His voice breaks through my spiraling thoughts, and he tries to touch my arm.
But I’m faster. I jerk away from him like his touch burns, and maybe it does. Maybe everything about him burns now, tainted by this revelation.
I feel numb and cold at the same time. My blood sugar drops—I can feel it happening, that familiar lightheaded sensation that means I’m about to faint. And I’m fighting with my senses, trying not to give in, trying to stay conscious and present because I need answers.
I need to know.
“You know my name is Flynn Lancaster. I haven’t lied to you, my love, not once,” he says, and his voice is cracking, desperate.
My love.
The endearment feels like a slap.
But some part of me—some stupid, naive, desperately-in-love part of me—wants to believe him. Needs to believe him.
Because if Flynn lied about his name, about who he is, then what else did he lie about?
And if he didn’t lie—if Flynn Lancaster really is his name, if that much at least is true—then maybe, just maybe, there’s an explanation for the rest of it.
Please let there be an explanation.
Please let this be a misunderstanding.
Please don’t let everything we had be a lie.
“Then explain what this means.” My voice is shaking now, all that cold detachment crumbling. “Am I a job to you? Why would you fill me with lies, fuck, am I even your mate? Flynn, why?”
The questions pour out of me, each one more desperate than the last.
I feel as if the world slips under my feet. The floor isn’t solid anymore. Nothing is solid anymore. Everything I thought I knew, everything I believed, it’s all dissolving like smoke.
But that’s what my father wants, right?
The thought cuts through the panic like a knife.
That’s what he wants.
He manipulates me and confuses me. He always has. Ever since I was a child, he’s been playing these games, twisting reality, making me doubt myself and everyone around me.
Flynn could be telling the truth and the one lying could be my father.
But why?
Just to get me back? He despises me, what I became. He made that clear when he disowned me, when he told me I was dead to him for choosing Flynn over the family.
But I’m blood of his blood, am I not?
I know what blood means to my father. Blood is everything. Blood is loyalty and legacy and the only thing that truly matters in his world.
Would he really let me go? Would he really accept that I chose a vampire over him?
Or would he do exactly this?
Would he send a letter designed to destroy my trust in Flynn, to make me doubt everything, to drive a wedge between us so deep that I’d have no choice but to come crawling back?
My mind is spinning, thoughts fragmenting and reforming in different patterns.
Trust Flynn. Don’t trust Flynn. Trust your father. Don’t trust your father.
Who’s lying? Who’s telling the truth?
How do I know? How can I possibly know?
“I don’t know what to believe,” I whisper, and the admission feels like defeat.
Because I should know. I should be able to look at Flynn and just know if he’s lying. I should be able to trust my instincts, my training, my hunter senses.
But all I feel is confusion and fear and a love so deep it’s drowning me.
“Believe your gut, Talulla, please come back to me.”
His voice is soft, pleading. And when I finally look at him—really look at him—I see something in his eyes that makes my chest ache.
Fear.
Flynn is afraid. Not of my father, not of the letter, but of me. Of losing me.
And that fear looks real. It looks raw and genuine and utterly devastating.
But how do I know it’s not just another act?
“How can I believe you when you lied to me?”
I’m screaming now. I don’t remember deciding to scream, but suddenly the words are tearing out of my throat, desperate and broken.
Desperation hits my throat and turns it into a knot of needles. Every breath hurts. Every word hurts. Everything hurts.
“Do not accuse me of deception, Talulla, look at me, please.”
Flynn’s eyes are searching mine, and I just can’t get myself to look back. Because if I do, I’ll break completely. I’ll shatter into a thousand pieces and I won’t be able to put myself back together.
And I can’t afford that. Not now. Not when I need to be strong, need to be a hunter, need to protect myself from whatever this is.
“You know I needed time to tell you all of my past, and you know I was going to do it now.”
He was going to tell me.
The thought cuts through the panic.
He was going to tell me. This morning. That’s why he made breakfast. That’s why he made sure I had the morning off. That’s why he was being so tender, so careful.
He was going to confess.
And if he was going to confess, then maybe—just maybe—this isn’t what my father is making it seem. Maybe there’s context. Maybe there’s an explanation.
Maybe Flynn isn’t the monster in this story.