Unbound (Malus Vampire Family #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Ihold the bloody pendant limply in my hand. My lips part and my blood runs cold, as if ice water is being pumped through my body. It worked. The ritual is complete. Vaelric is free.

And standing right before me.

Crippling anxiety slowly makes its way over my body, creeping down like a thousand invisible hands holding me in place, paralyzing me and making it hard to breathe. Dark, negative energy surrounds me like a black fallout cloud, choking me.

My heartbeat echoes in my ears, sloshing my frigid blood through my body, begging me to breathe. React. Move. Do something other than stand here, rooted in horror to the spot as I look into the eyes of the woman who once claimed to be my mother.

“I’m a demon of my word,” Vaelric says, voice blending with Vivian’s as he talks, and suddenly my right hand feels warm and tingly.

I glance down, watching the red lines on my arm disappear.

The little pinprick in the middle of my palm heals instantly, leaving behind just a shadow of a scar, hidden beneath the fresh blood on the pendant.

Vivian’s head moves around as Vaelric looks through her eyes, taking it all in.

Slowly, her eyes glow yellow and then she looks right back at me, smiling.

Rolling her neck side to side, the smile grows and then Vivian—possessed by Vaelric—turns and runs away, moving so quickly I can’t tell if she’s moving as fast as a vampire or if she disappeared entirely, in a way only a demon can.

For a fleeting moment, no one moves.

Then Marco pushes up on his feet. I can feel Xavier tense behind me as he silently moves closer, his body brushing against mine.

“What the fuck did you do?” Marco demands, eyes narrowing so much they almost look demonic.

“Me?” I ask incredulously, rounding on Marco.

The panic and fear I’d been feeling for days finally melts away, and is instantly replaced with rage.

I push my shoulders back, nostrils flaring as I inhale.

Energy swirls around me. “What did I do?” I repeat his words with venom in my voice, anger burning hotter inside me.

Everything we went through, all the people who were hurt or killed in the process, was for their selfish gain.

From the moment I was born, this has been their plan.

Did they know my mom was pregnant? Were they counting down the days until my due date, just like my parents were?

Maybe they were excited too, but for very different reasons.

They knew from the start they were going to murder two innocent, brand-new parents and then kidnap a baby.

“How else did you think this was going to play out?” Xavier asks, voice calm and level. Something rips through me, tearing me in two. It’s a familiar feeling, yet done for different reasons.

Betrayal.

I didn’t want to free the demon.

I didn’t want to undo what my family had done.

Now Vaelric is out there, full-powered and dangerous. And we have no idea what his plan is.

“You let the demon out of the cage,” Antonio says, voice hollow. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him standing there, nearly swaying on his feet as he shuffles closer to me. “You used Wren to release a demon. That…that goes against everything we stand for.”

Blinking, I turn my gaze toward my brother and see the abhorrence on his face.

We always teased him for being such a rule follower, but this is who he is through and through: a good fucking hunter and, more importantly, a good person.

One could argue growing up in the Order brainwashed you to a certain extent, but there was never any doubt in my mind that Antonio would always choose to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t easy.

And right now, I know he’s feeling the sting and heartbreak that comes with betrayal too.

“We have to go after her!” Marco exclaims, looking at me almost as if he’s expecting me to help him. “We have to save her!”

“Save her?” I question, eyes narrowing as my fingers curl into tight fists against my palms. “We have to stop her.”

“If there is any her left,” Xavier says under his breath, but loud enough for everyone to hear. We all know how quickly demons burn through human bodies. I don’t know how quickly a demon as powerful as Vaelric would burn through one, but I imagine Vivian won’t last long.

“You made this mess,” I say as I shake my head, not quite able to make sense of the words coming out of my mouth.

I’m a demon hunter, and beyond that, Blackwood blood flows through my veins.

Stopping evil has been part of my family history for centuries, even if I didn’t know it.

The guilt of what I did weighs heavily on me, but for the life of me, I can’t bring myself to go after Vaelric.

It’s probably some sort of desperate compartmentalization, wanting to shake this off, wanting to wash my hands of this situation completely.

The Order used me, and they got exactly what they wanted.

The demon is free, and of course it’s not going to go according to plan.

My guess would be that Vaelric is headed to the Order headquarters, or wherever the higher-ups are hiding out.

Demons don’t like to be controlled, and now that he’s here on Earth with all of his powers, it won’t be hard to take them out.

I don’t even know if it’s possible to do a tracking spell on Vivian while she is fully possessed like this. But I have the sigil in my hand, still covered with my blood. Has the magic worn off? Could this be enough to track him? And what the hell would I do on my own if I found him?

It took an entire coven to lock him away. He could probably snap his fingers and eviscerate me.

“This isn’t Wren’s fault,” Antonio says hoarsely. He looks from Marco to the crack in the pavement in front of us, eyes slowly widening as everything flashes before him again.

The entire situation is beyond fucked up, and I know between the two of us, we would not only make a therapist happy, but could have several textbooks written about the messed-up Russo siblings.

My breath leaves in a ragged huff, and I let the sigil fall from my hand, clattering to the ground. Xavier snatches it up, holding it safely inside his grasp, as if he’s afraid something could happen to it.

But what’s done is done, and there’s no going back.

“You made your bed,” I say, voice low and void of emotion. “Now lie in it.”

Clamping my jaw shut, I suck in a breath through my nose and turn. I’m walking in the opposite direction of where I need to go, but I can’t think straight right now. I just stomp off, knowing Xavier is only inches behind me.

“Wren,” he says softly, but doesn’t stop me.

I go around a pile of burned rubble and close my eyes.

I want to scream and summon energy and blow everything up.

But I also want to sink down onto the ground and cry.

Not just because the demon is free, but because there is no denying anything anymore.

This has been planned since before I was born.

My parents were murdered so their child could be used to unlock the very door their bloodline risked everything to close.

Slowing to a stop, I let my eyes fall closed as voices in the back of my mind start screaming all at once. Doing my best to quiet them, I shake my head and then feel Xavier’s hand land on my shoulder. Usually, his touch is welcome and instantly relaxes me.

This time, I jerk away, eyes narrowing as I look at him.

The hurt on his face is almost palpable, but he keeps his shoulders back, refusing to regret what he did.

He was well aware when he put the sigil in my blood hand it wouldn’t be good for us—for our relationship.

And the logical part of me is yelling louder than anything else that my relationship status is the last thing I should worry about right now, but that abandonment and rejection wound is hurting.

But he didn’t abandon me. He didn’t reject me.

It’s different this time, and I should be happy he loves me enough to risk everything to keep me.

And yet, for some reason, I feel violated and disrespected.

Maybe love really isn’t a desperation to keep someone.

Maybe love is actually respect and consideration.

Maybe it’s putting your own needs aside for the other person.

Because it’s making me wonder, who does Xavier love more: me or himself?

It’s the same moral dilemma that came up when I brought Antonio back, and I knew I acted selfishly, no matter how much I tried to justify it. I didn’t want to live without my brother. I didn’t want to have to face the pain.

But is that true love?

“You’re on your own,” Antonio tells Marco, and I swallow back the lump in my throat, this time allowing Xavier to turn me around gently so we can leave. Marco stands there, stunned, watching us walk out of the charred remains of the warehouse.

The sunlight has faded to almost nothing, casting an eerie glow over the burned warehouse.

The smell of smoke and fire hangs in the air, and I keep my eyes down as we walk, the three of us climbing into Xavier’s car.

Antonio says something about the car we came in, and Xavier tells him not to worry about it .

Their voices echo in my head, and I get into the front passenger seat, pulling the seatbelt into place on autopilot.

The guilt of what I just did presses on my chest, and I fight against it by saying I don’t fucking care.

More people live in this world, not even knowing demons exist, than people who fight them, and they are very much okay.

Most people live very normal and full lives, never crossing paths with a demon.

Maybe this is a situation like when you have six cats.

Is getting cat number seven even going to be noticeable?

We drive home in silence, and I get out before the G-Wagon is even off. Tears burn in my eyes, and everything I’ve been holding back the last few weeks threatens to bubble to the surface. I should let it out. I should cry, scream—anything to process.

Instead, I stomp angrily into the house like a dramatic teenager, not stopping until I’m in the front foyer.

“Wren!” Xavier says, voice desperate more than angry.

“You said I can hate you,” I spit, whirling around and staring right at him. I blink once, twice, tearing my eyes away from the vein in his neck to look back into his storm-blue eye.

“I did,” he says calmly, but I can tell he didn’t think I’d actually be upset with him. “You forced me to release the demon.”

“I forced you to save yourself,” he counters.

“You took that choice away from me.”

“Your choice was the wrong choice.”

“It doesn’t matter!” The light above us flicker, and I can hear Mabel, who’s been listening upstairs next to the banister, scuttle away. “It was mine, and you took that from me.”

“Should I be sorry?” Xavier’s eyes flash and a vein in his neck pops out despite his lack of heartbeat. I look at it, brain disconnecting from reality by thinking about how odd that is instead of what’s actually happening.

Because what’s happening is the man I love, who loves me, forced me to release a dangerous demon into the world, possessing Vivian Russo, gaining all the knowledge Vivian has.

Which is a lot about me, about my siblings, and about how the Order works.

And she knows what other demons the Order has been using—well, attempting to use—and knows where the keys are.

Which means Vaelric does now too.

I look back into Xavier’s eyes and blink. “Yes,” I say like it’s obvious. “Yes, you should be sorry. I didn’t want to release Vaelric.”

Xavier slowly shakes his head back and forth, unable to understand why I would do that. “You would have died, Wren.”

“Maybe,” I say, shaking my head again as tears roll down my cheeks. Xavier makes a move to wipe them away but stops himself, remembering how I pulled away at the last time he touched me.

Theo appears in the hall, stopping for just a moment, looking from me to Xavier. “We have a problem with the coalition.”

“You deal with it,” Xavier tells him.

“Don’t you think I would if I could?” Theo replies back in his usually sassy tone.

“Go,” I tell Xavier and blink, sending more tears cascading down my face. “Just go.”

Without another word, I turn and go upstairs, but not into our shared room. I step into the room I had when I first arrived and sink onto the bed, telekinetically slamming the door behind me.