Page 147 of Midnight Coven

She waited until he walked right up to her, when he’d reached for her arm possessively, smiling at her with a look that made Nick’s blood curl.

Apparently Wynter didn’t much like the look either.

When he got close enough, she spat in the other Nick’s face, really going for it and telling him to fuck off as soon as the glob of spit left her lips. The other Nick smiled, wiping the saliva off his cheek, but through that sick connection they shared, Nick felt the other’s anger.

He felt the cold, bitter anger her disgust evoked.

That awareness of her disgust, of her utter contempt for him scared Nick.

He could feel the fury building there, in that other Nick, already.

How long before he acted on that, once they were alone?

How long before the other Nick angry for real?

How long before he let himself go into that anger, before he got too resentful, too bitter, too hungry, too sad, too guilty… and decided to break Wynter’s neck as a solution. The thought made Nick sick with fear, frustrated beyond the ability to scream.

He knew it wouldn’t be long.

It wouldn’t be long for any of those things.

There wasn’t enough humanity left in the doppelganger for anything else.

Nick didn’t know what to do to stop it. He could feel it coming, even now. He could feel Wynter’s death at the hands of this aggrieved psychopath speeding towards him like a runaway train. Nick didn’t know what to fucking do to pull her out of the way.

He didn’t know what to do, and he was out of time.

He stood next to Morley, both of them surrounded by newborns.

Both of them handcuffed, but out of the sun at least.

To Nick’s right, he saw Forrest Keanu Walker, attorney at law. The tall, blond, green-eyed half-seer stood expressionless next to some of the vampires he brought with him on the helicopter. They’d been stripped of weapons, but all of them looked like Nick felt. Like they were waiting, angry, looking for an opening to fight. Looking across the fierce faces of the six or seven female vampires around Forrest, Nick wondered which of them was his girlfriend. Nick guessed it was the one in front with the blue and black hair, the one who stood in front of him protectively, like she was ready to take on the entire newborn army by herself.

Male vampires stood around Forrest too, looking as angry as the rest, and just as ready to join the fray once I started.

Nick hadn’t seen any of them in the painting either.

Like him, Forrest Walker and his vampire posse were too low to be inside the frame, too much in the shadows under the trees.

Further along that side of Nick’s view however, the sight was so familiar it caught his breath. All of the figures from Mal’s painting stood there, every single one of them, in the exact order Nick remembered from Malek’s art.

Wynter, Malek, Tai, St. Maarten, Kit.

Even Jordan stood there.

Nick had no idea how it happened, but Jordan and Charlie both ended up on that helicopter with Forrest and his friends. Maybe Jordan begged Charlie to let him come. Maybe he begged Forrest and Forrest couldn’t see the harm in bringing along another newborn, figuring the rest of the vamps could keep him in line.

However it happened, Damon Jordan stood inside the painting’s frame, looking exactly the way he had when Malek painted it.

He stood at a slant, half-held up by newborns, looking just as furious and pale and confused and full of mind-numbing rage as Nick remembered from Mal’s careful brushstrokes. The two newborns holding him looked at him smugly as he growled viciously at the Nick doppelganger, fangs extended, crystal eyes flushed red. From everything Nick could see in him right then, Jordan wanted nothing more than to rip off the other Nick’s face and throat with his teeth and bare hands.

Nick hadn’t realized that while looking at the painting before.

He hadn’t looked carefully enough at what Damon was staring at as he snarled.

He hadn’t realized that hatred and fury and rage was aimed solely at one person.

In Mal’s captured image, Damon Jordan had been looking at the doppelganger. He’d been snarling at the male vampire who turned him, the vampire who killed him and left him to die. Now Nick saw it all come to life. He saw the promise in Damon’s eyes.

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