Page 49 of Born Wicked

“Oh, this one is a doozy,” I say, letting out a sigh. “And I’ve never dealt with this situation, so I’m not exactly sure what to do.”

We step into the living area, and at the newcomer, Jason lets out a feral roar, once more trying to lunge, but he can’t move from his spot.

“Shit,” Jon roars, shock and anger instantly taking over his face. “You created a Bitten?”

“I swear, I didn’t mean to,” Mason says, the guilt tearing him apart. “I thought I stopped soon enough.”

It’s like I see Jon transform before my eyes. The calm, supportive, wonderful man I’ve barely begun to know sluffs away, and the dangerous pirate he was for more than a century emerges.

I barely see it happen. A snarl rips from Jon, terrifying and all-consuming. And then he darts forward.

I hear a wet, crunching sound, Jon’s mouth going to Jason’s throat. There’s another wet sound, meatier.

Jason lets out a wet gasp, his yellow eyes flying wide.

Jon whips his head to the side, spitting out a chunk of dripping, wet flesh. Jason’s throat. Jon yanks his hand back, and I all too well recognize the sound of a heart being ripped from a body.

A scream leaps out of me, it all happens so fast. Jason collapses to the floor in a puddle of blood.

“Jon!” his name rips from me in a horrified gasp. My hands cover my mouth, smothering another scream. Mason startles to his feet with a roar, but he doesn’t get any closer.

What? What? What the hell just happened?

My father looks back at us over his shoulder. His own eyes are violently red, black veins spreading out over his scarred face. And I’m reminded of what our kind is capable of. Vampires have power. Vampires are predators. Vampires are immeasurably dangerous.

“You should have known better,” Jon growls, his voice hardly human. “Their kind… They have no control. And the way they can be manipulated…”

“You just killed him!” I yelp out, still entirely shocked. “Jon…”

“You don’t understand, Juliet,” he says, shaking his head. He lifts a hand, dragging the back of it along his mouth, wiping the blood. There’s something dark in his eyes, maybe a little violent. “The Bitten, they’re a threat to the entire population.”

“He was just a man!” Mason says. His eyes are wide. He’s even paler than before. He’s trembling and can’t tear his eyes away from Jason’s body lying dead on the floor. “You can’t…”

“You can’t just go making Bitten when you don’t understand the danger they put everyone in,” Jon says, the muscles in his jaw tensing. I’ve never seen that look in his eyes. I’ve never seen such raw intensity coming from him.

“Why?” I ask, my voice hoarse. “Why would you just do that? Without taking two seconds to come up withanyother solutions?”

Jon walks into the kitchen, leaning over the sink. He turns the water on, puddling it in his hand before he washes his face off. He scrubs at his beard, rinsing his neck and the drips that run down it. There are splatters of blood on his shirt, but there’s nothing to be done about them. Finally, he straightens, grabbing a hand towel from the hook next to the sink. He dries himself, and by the time he turns back around, the black veins have disappeared from around his eyes, and the red glow is fading.

“I had just gotten into port in France,” he begins explaining as he stands above Jason’s lifeless body, looking down at the man. “I had met Louis Ducasse the previous year. He was an ambitious vampire. He wasn’t born a noble, but he swore he would gain titles all on his own. I’d been worried about the man before. But when I got back…” Jon shakes his head.

I still stand there, completely frozen, still trying to process the swift death I just witnessed.

“France was in the beginnings of a revolutionary war,” Jon continues. His eyes slide up to meet mine, and once again, I’m nearly breathless at the history a vampire can witness if they just live long enough. “Louis instigated much of it. Because in his quest to gain power, he’d created an army. An army that couldn’t do anything but obey him.”

Goosebumps instantly flash over my arms, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

“Louis was using them, and they were doing incredibly bad, horrible things,” Jon says. There’s darkness in his eyes, darkness that hints that things were so, so much worse than he’s depicting right now. “Death, power, money, women, he used his Bitten to carry out his evil will. And his army followed his every command. No matter if they wanted to or not, they carried out his orders.”

Jon walks across the penthouse to the floor-to-ceiling windows. He stares out into the darkening night. The sun set thirty minutes ago, and now it’s just the twinkling of lights out there. “The Royal Houses are tasked with keeping vampires under control. King Cyrus values secrecy over all else. So, when the House of Emile, the one that is based in and rules over France, got word, they came with force.”

Jon clasps his hands behind his back. I note the scars there. There are dozens of them.

“Louis tried to use his army to keep the Royals at bay,” he continues. “But they were uncoordinated. They could never hold their own against the Born. Enora Emile came, and with her House members, they slaughtered the Bitten, and they blended it right in with the war, no one the wiser.”

War. It’s such a foreign concept. It’s something I’ve never witnessed, except in the news in countries that nearly feel like another planet. But Jon has lived through it and has the scars to prove it.

“Louis was on the run, desperately trying to escape the Royals and the retribution they promised,” Jon continues. “For three months, he fled into the country, but the House of Emile never once stopped pursuing him. He created more Bitten along his way, sacrificing them, sending them to fight, to throw the Royals off. Hundreds of men died because of Louis. Hundreds more died at those Bitten’s hands. But finally, the day before Christmas, the Royals cornered Louis at the dock, where my own ship was moored.”

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