Son of a Bite (Vampire Vendetta #1)

Chapter 1

Bam, Motherfucker

Heartbreak was a vicious bitch, who tormented when she wanted, how she wanted, any ol’ time the mood struck. She was as lethal as a s?nglure’s fangs puncturing a juicy, pumping vein, before sucking that sweet blood across an eager tongue, drinking its feeder dry.

She was like all the other demigods, mostly showing up only when they weren’t wanted and never when they were needed, and a killer, no doubt about it. She was in the process of killing me…

By bringing me alive.

Another time, I would have appreciated the irony. Right then, I was incapable of appreciating anything.

There was no gentle prodding to wake me from my unnatural slumber—so akin to death I may as well have been dead. No soothing coos or caresses. No goblin servant waiting for me with a kind smile, promising that a pleasant day lay ahead. Or even a tolerable one.

It was, BAM, MOTHERFUCKER, and I bolted awake as if I’d been punched in the head by a massive dragon. Pain, pain, and more pain radiated through my body, overpowering rational thought while I coughed to expel the water that filled my lungs.

Several terrible seconds raked their claws tauntingly along my flesh before I realized what had woken me. Not a dragon, no. I would have much preferred that, no matter how large or how violent or how angry…

Deep within my chest, cradled inside my ribs, the place where I always sensed Mateo like a warm, glowing ember … was empty.

So very horribly empty.

Fucking empty.

As if it had never been filled by my twin brother at all.

As if the sensation of feeling him close no matter where he was, or what we were doing, had been a dream, and now I was waking from it.

But this was all too real. I knew from the sheer agony alone.

My brother was gone from this world. Taken from me.

My Teo.

I’d failed him.

Just as I failed our baby sister Isi.

I keened into the water. It gobbled up my wails and offered me nothing in return.

I couldn’t live without him—wouldn’t, dammit!

I’d been bludgeoned awake only to die, miserably alone in my final moments.

Heartbreak gripped my heart and squeezed until stars flashed in my vision, the only light there was to see. Teo was killed while I … slept, apparently … completely submerged … underwater.

Imprisoned yet again.

My spasming heart coaxed a scream to end all screams from my throat.

It bubbled quietly, an insult to the magnitude of my suffering.

Water surrounded me, heavy, incessantly dark, and so fucking cold.

I didn’t understand much, only that I didn’t belong here, wherever I was.

I was no creature of the Wonderwater nations.

I belonged on land, with the sunshine gilding my skin.

I belonged with Mateo.

Only with him.

Always with him.

“Alright, Heartbreak,” I screamed into the pitch-black water. Though a barely decipherable warble, a demigod would understand. “Enough. Take me, already. I’m yours!”

I tried to fling my arms out to my sides, and when my arms didn’t budge, only then did I notice my circumstances beyond my all-consuming shattering heart.

I was chained. Whoever had imprisoned me here really didn’t want me to get free.

If my brother were alive, I would have escaped in great part just to prove I could. Not only would I escape, I would hunt down my captor, stare the fucker in the eyes, sing, Last time you’ll underestimate me, huh? and then murder them for their daring criminality.

But my brother was forever gone, and the glowing flame in my chest was smothered ashes.

I closed my unseeing eyes and whimpered into the water, “Claim me, Heartbreak. You’ve done your worst. My heart is fully broken. End me now.”

When interminable minutes passed and Heartbreak did not kill me, I channeled the entirety of my loss and my rage and my considerable power into my words. No longer a warble, it was a fucking sonic boom:

“Come get me, you miserable, cruel, sadistic cunt!”

I waited. The demigods were notorious for taking offense at any little slight, and then for self-righteously smiting their offenders.

“Unless you think I’m too powerful for you! Unless you’re a fucking coward!”

I waited and waited.

My only response was more emptiness.

More darkness.

More cold.

I was well and truly alone.