Series: The Un Series by Izzy Sweet
Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Examining her injury with my eyes, it’s a not as bad as I first feared. Only a splinter of wood as big as my finger is sticking out of her pants.
The smell, though…
Slowly reaching toward her, so I don’t frighten her more, I touch the blood on the splinter.
And I’m instantly flooded with bile and disgust.
“Tainted,” I say quietly as I realize where the smell that was twisting my stomach was coming from.
My psyche doesn’t want to believe it, but the smell in the air proves I’m not wrong.
“You’re tainted,” I repeat in a horrified whisper.
How can we complete the bond?
Will we ever be able to complete the bond?
Standing up quickly, I stare at her as my worst fears come true.
I’ll never be able to fully have her…
We’ll always be incomplete with this taint standing between us.
She will never truly be mine.
And one day I will have to watch her die.
The world shatters around me and crushing pain eats away at my very sanity.
As the void opens its gaping maw and my beast breaks free…
My vision clouds over.
The same color of her blood.
FIVE
ALENA
Tainted.
The word pierces my weak, pitiful heart like a shard of ice.
Ripping open every old wound I had so carefully stitched closed over the years.
Tainted.
Even among the damned, I have been found lacking.
Unworthy and unwanted.
The man…
No.
The vampire that held me in his arms and reassured me I was safe, rips himself away with a look of horror on his beautiful face.
Staring into Raphael’s eyes, dark brown eyes filling with disgust and revulsion, pain floods through me.
A pain so great it feels as if my very heart is seizing.
I don’t know him, and he scares the living crap out of me, but to have him look at me in such a way somehow hurts more than every other pain I’ve ever experienced before combined.
It hurts more than every beating I’ve ever received from Sister Agatha and Jeffrey.
It hurts more than my mother never loving me.
More than my father abandoning me.
“Your blood is tainted,” he whispers again, twisting the shard of ice deeper.
And leaving no doubt he absolutely loathes me.
On his feet now, towering over me, he seems to swell up with fury.
And time slows down.
I watch his hands clench into fists, his dark eyes flash to red, and his fang-filled mouth open in a monstrous roar.
Shrinking back in terror, I slap my hands over my ears.
The other vampire, the one with the black medical bag, is suddenly standing between us. Moving faster than I can blink.
He seems to be trying to calm my furious rescuer down, lips moving fast and motioning toward me frantically.
But whatever he’s saying isn’t working.
Chin dropping, Raphael’s gaze meets mine again.
Red and burning with rage.
He glares at me like he wants to rip my head off.
It’s absolutely horrifying, but a dark part of me hopes he actually follows through.
A dark part of me wants him to end it all and put me out of my misery.
At this point, I have nothing to live for.
I’ve been rejected by everyone, even the monsters.
Pain suddenly flashes across his face, a pain that echoes all the pain I’m feeling, and he takes a step toward me.
But then the other vampire puts his hand on his chest to stop him.
What happens next happens so fast my eyes can’t process it.
The door explodes and the vampire that was between us is now sprawled beside me on the bed.
I search anxiously for any sign of Raphael, but he’s gone. Only destruction left in his wake.
The bed beneath me vibrates as another monstrous roar sounds out from somewhere deeper in the house.
Dropping my hands from my ears, I move away from the vampire that tried to protect me, sliding down until I’m on the floor.
Some ancient instinct warning me to put distance between us.
“What the fuck?!” someone shouts. “Someone subdue him!”
Out of thin air, another vampire appears in the doorway, the splinters of the shattered door crunching beneath his boots.
I recognize this vampire, with his honey-colored hair and striking features, as the one Raphael referred to as his sire.
Whatever that means.
Raphael’s sire looks at me then at the vampire still sprawled on the bed.
“Fuck,” he growls before disappearing as fast as he appeared.
Another male voice shouts, “I have him cornered in the—" only to suddenly cut off.
The foundation of the house shakes and it sounds like something massive slammed into the walls.
“Don’t try to stop him!” Raphael’s sire calls out in warning. “Let him go before he brings the whole house down on top of us!”
“Are you all right?” the vampire that was on the bed only a moment ago asks.
He’s kneeling down in front of me now, his keen eyes roaming over my body.
My heart jumps into my throat and my mind feels dangerously close to cracking.
This is just… too much.
Waking up in Raphael’s arms after who knows how long of being chained up and drugged… his rejection… and all these other vampires moving and acting faster than my brain can comprehend.