Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
“Stop it, you absolute miscreant!” Dom curses and manages to pin her on the ground, her wolf form heaving with rage.
“It is becoming increasingly difficult not to kill the pair of you,” he snarls, looking up at me under his brows. “It is as if you both court death, and would make a better pair of vampires than you do wolves.”
“A wolf cannot be a vampire,” I say. It is not much of a response, but the passage still contains the remains of my family. Elena and Vlad are gone together, strewn about like detritus. There is no dignity in death. And he is right, he could kill the pair of us in a flash if he wanted to. He is holding back because his twisted agenda forbids it.
I want Anya back, but if the vampire lets her go, she will likely try to tear his throat out again. She is not listening to either of us. I wish I was surprised, but she has always been wayward and willful, and frankly, wild. Her mother lived as a lone wolf much of her life. I think Anya could easily do the same.
“Are you sure?” Dom is busy holding Anya down as she thrashes and squirms, her animal body powerfully flailing, back claws raking at his body. “She just took a chunk of my flesh. She ingested my blood with it, you know, and she’s not sick as she should be. If anything, she’s stronger.”
“Wolves cannot metabolize vampire flesh.”
“She can. She has. Did you not wonder why I have taken an interest in her? The daughter of a servant who ran to America? Who then drew vampires to her, vampires who left her entirely alone when they came to kill her friends? Do you not remember that, Alexei? The incident that precipitated her arrival here in Russia?”
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying this girl has always had vampire in her. There’s always been more than a drop of the undead in this creature.”
I look at my mate, I look at the vampire, I breathe in the smell of blood and death, and I wonder if he is right. There has always been something unique about Anya, her inability to fall in line the way most mates would. I think Elena was trying to warn me, but she would never have dared to actually speak ill of my mate. Nobody could ever have said anything about her. I would not have heard it.
“What do you mean exactly?”
“I mean her father was a thrall. Not entirely a vampire, but he carried enough of the curse. He was one of mine. A cherished one, actually. His status inoculated her, in a way. Gave her just enough of the curse… it’s very interesting. If anyone were to study these things…”
“Elena studied these things,” I say. “But you killed her.”
“A pity. I could raise her again, if you like? I could raise both of them. Spare them eternal death?”
Suddenly, I understand the appeal of the vampire.
“But they are dead.”
“And so am I,” Dom smirks, scruffing Anya so tightly she whines, but stops fighting. “They are neither of them so dead they could not be rallied. I could return your brother, and I could take him, and your little scholar, and then we would be even more like a family. The uprising would stop.”
He is offering me a chance to undo the terrible things that have been done. He is offering a decision that would change everything forever. Elena and Vlad, restored to life. Their sacrifices rewarded with eternity.
I think Elena would like it. I think Vlad would hate it. And I know I will have this done, because their loss is too deep and too keen for me to bear.
“Do it,” I say. “And do it quickly, before I take the words back.”
“Then take your mate,” he says. “And contain her. I do not need a pup hanging off me as I make my new progeny.”
Anya has stopped being quite so fierce. I think she understands what is happening. I know she can hear it. The moment he started talking about her father she quietened a great deal. I am sure there will be much to discuss later. For now, I am glad she is shifted. Matters are simpler in the fur than they are in the human form.
“Come here, Anya,” I crook a finger at her, and she comes to me, crouching low, nearly belly-crawling. She knows she has been bad. She knows it, and yet she cannot help it. This is how she is.
Dom moves to do what should be unthinkable. I watch, holding onto Anya’s scruff and thinking how very terribly strange this day has turned out to be. I had no notion when I woke up this day that I would be watching my nearest and dearest suffering death.