Page 5 of Blood So Brutal

“She has the power, Wolf. It would take a damned fool not to see that you’re in love with her. Anyone can see it.” He let go of my throat, but the turmoil in his eyes remained. “He’ll use her against you. You know he will.”

I gaped at my brother. “Don’t pretend like you know what you’re talking about. You weren’t the one who went to Moira to find her. You weren’t the one cursed into becoming a damn vampyre so we could make Father’s wicked dreams come true.”

“You act like that’s my fault,” he replied. “Father chose you, and there was nothing I could do about it.” He turned his back to me and slowly paced the large room. “If I could have helped you, trust me, I would have.”

“And where is your help now?” I asked. “Because I don’t see you with severed wings and a woman you care about in the dungeons.”

Jessiah turned to face me, and I saw my own eyes in his, simmering with power. It was our one physical sign of being born from one of the most powerful archangels in existence. “You want my help?” he asked. “Fine. Let’s go.”

He started toward the door.

“Go where?” I called out.

“We’re going to talk to your prisoner.”

Iwalked a few feet behind Jessiah. He was barely an inch taller than me, with those glorious wings and broad shoulders. Would Huntyr recognize that he was related to me? Would she hate him just as much?

The smell of her hit me as we turned down the hall to her cell. I bit my tongue to keep from reacting in front of Jessiah, to keep from showing any sign of my emotions. It would expose how much I really cared, as if everyone didn’t already fucking know.

“You must be Huntyr,” Jessiah announced as he stopped in front of her cell. I sidled up to him, only to see her hunched in the very back corner.

“Fuck off,” she groaned. Her voice didn’t have the fire it usually had, though. She sounded tired. Broken.

My chest tightened.

Jessiah laughed. “I heard you were a pain in the ass. I can respect that, honestly, but if you want to stay alive, you need to start talking.”

Huntyr lifted her head from where it rested on her bent knees, strands of her black curls plastered across her sweaty forehead. It killed me to see her like this. This was so, so wrong.

“How convincing, asshole, but I’m good. Thanks.”

Jessiah glanced at me once before stepping forward, closer to those bars. “Asmodeus will kill you for your power. You’re a smart girl; you survived Moira. You have to know that’s coming.”

“I only survived Moira because he practically dragged me through with him. But that was all part of your plan, wasn’t it?” She scoffed, dropping her head back to her knees and wrapping her arms around them. “Well, you should have left me to die out there, because I won’t help you.”

I clenched my jaw. “Huntyr, please, listen to us.”

I tried to push through our bond, tried to nudge her walls with the subtle urgency I was feeling.Listen to us. Let us help you.

For a single second, I thought she might let me in, but I was quickly corrected with her sharp walls forcing me back out. I physically flinched at the feeling.

Jessiah turned his attention to me, and for a second, I thought he would realize what just happened. The fact that we bonded was something only Huntyr and I knew, and I would do whatever it took to keep it that way.

“I told you to leave me alone,” she muttered. “After everything, can you please allow me that much?”

“This is my brother, Jessiah,” I said before she could keep pushing. “He wants to help us.”

She lifted her head again and her eyes landed on my brother. Jealousy tugged at my chest as I watched her gaze rise and fall across his body, taking in his wings. “Your brother gets an angelic name and you’re stuck with Wolf? Seems fitting.”

I clenched my jaw to keep my reaction at bay. That was just the beginning of how deep my father’s hatred for me ran. If Huntyr stayed here long enough, she would see how fitting those names were.

Huntyr rolled her eyes before adding, “If he’s anything like you, I’m not interested. Are you here to betray me too?”

Jessiah smiled as my fists clenched. “No, I’m not. My brother seems to care about you, however little of that you believe. You’d be right to listen to him. He wants to help you, Huntyr.”

Her eyes landed on me for the first time since our conversation began. “Wolf betrayed me. He let me think he was good, made me turn my back on everything I knew. That was all before he delivered me into the hands of your father in this grand, fucked-up scheme that everyone calls The Golden City. Now you want me to believe you’ll help me?”

“My father would have come for you, Huntyr,” I pushed. Hells, how did she still not see it? “I did what was necessary to keep youalive.”

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