Chapter 89
Morell
Someone skitters across the street, getting away from me.
My lip lifts as I glare at them.
Pitiful human.
I keep to my fucking self when I have to come into this godsforsaken town. They don’t need to act like I’m going to eat them.
My mood continues to sour the farther I go, as more bar doors open, allowing cheerful sounds to burst out onto the street.
No one here is trying to make the world better. They aren’t even trying to make their own existence better. Just humans laughing and drinking as they waste their disgustingly short lives.
I hate listening to them.
Hate smelling them.
I hate—
My steps falter.
And I stop.
Was that…?
Did I just hear his name?
My heart pounds as I slowly turn to face the large window beside me.
It’s a café. Nothing special. Another cesspit of humanity.
But someone…
I let my eyes trail over the tables, looking for a match to the voice I just heard.
And then, through the glass, over the noise of the street, I hear it again.
His name.
Volik.
Power twists inside my rib cage.
Volik has done something. Or… something has happened to him.
My mouth tries to smile at that thought.
At the idea that Volik might be dead.
But no. I would know.
Somehow, I would know.
No one has killed him.
And no one else will.
That’s my honor.
My skin prickles as I shove the café door open and step inside.
There are gasps as the mortals recoil from my presence.
It’s not my height. Or my attitude.
It’s my black eyes. My fangs. And the horns on the top of my head that nearly scrape the low ceiling.
My hands flex into fists at my sides as I think of the last time I saw Volik. How even back then, even when he was young, he was large.
Taller than me. Bigger.
I know what he thought.
He thought he was better than me.
He thought he was better than everyone.
Him and his fucking brother.
That twisting inside me increases. Because now his name is floating through the air in my town.
“He might be scary, but hear me out.” A feminine voice laughs from a table near the window.
Two women sit together, elbows on the table, both looking at a phone. Too consumed to notice my approach.
“What are you reading?” I demand.
They startle in unison, eyes widening as they look up at me.
“Wh-what?” the one holding the phone stammers.
A growl rolls out of my chest. And the scent of fear fills the room. “You said the name Volik. Why?”
“I… I…” Tears start to roll down the woman’s cheek.
The desire to drain her of all her blood roars through me.
So she knows I’m moving my attention to her, I turn my head toward the other woman.
She takes the phone out of her crying friend’s hands. “We were just reading the new ar-article about him.” The phone shakes as she holds it out to me. “We don’t know him or anything.”
I snatch the phone from her grip, and she jerks her empty hand back.
The café stays deathly silent as I read.
Rage, excitement, and grief build inside me.
Volik went to a reporter.
He willingly gave an update on himself to the world.
He should’ve kept this hidden. Should’ve thought this through.
But he didn’t.
And now, after more than a hundred years of waiting, the news has finally come.
My enemy has a mate.