Page 17 of Oath of Blood and Joy

Anger flared in her eyes, transforming her from the vulnerable woman in my arms to something fierce and unfamiliar. “No, I won’t let them die.” Her voice resonated with a conviction I hadn’t expected, each word charged with determination.

Her body shook violently, tremors running through her small frame like electrical currents. Then the shadows from every corner of the room began to move, drawn toward her by an invisible force. They slid around her body in a dark, pulsing aura that clung to her like a second skin. From her fingertips, tendrils of pure, living darkness extended outward, filling the room with shadows that seemed to devour the light itself. The temperature plummeted, the air becoming dense and heavy as night incarnate radiated from her form in undulating waves.

I could barely see with my vampire eyes, the unnatural darkness overwhelming even my enhanced vision. All our suspicions about her not being entirely human crashed into certainty, but this... this was beyond anything I had imagined. For the first time in centuries, I felt the disorientation of blindness, my other senses strained to compensate as I tried to comprehend what I was witnessing.

She ran from the room, and I took off after her, dropping the phone. The plastic clattered against the wooden floor, Angelo’s orders a distant concern compared to the revelation unfolding before me.

“Enzo,” Angelo’s voice boomed over the phone, anger and confusion echoing in the empty room behind me.

I caught Joy at the door to the deck, my hands closing around her waist as she tried to flee into the night. She fought me like a wild cat, scratching and kicking with unexpected strength. Her nails drew blood across my forearm, the pain barely registering against the shock of what I’d just discovered.

“No, let me go. Let me go.” Her pleading turned to demands, each word punctuated by another attempt to break free. The darkness continued to pour from her, a power I had no frame of reference for—ancient, primal, and completely unexpected. Whatever Joy was, she was far more dangerous and valuable than any of us had realized.

Chapter Twelve

Joy

Panic hugged me, cutting off my air, as Enzo restrained me against his broad chest. His arms formed an unbreakable cage around me, his supernatural strength evident in how effortlessly he held me despite my struggles. I hadn’t meant for the shadows to come out, but I didn’t have any control over them. It was as if they had a mind of their own, responding to my desperation like loyal pets to their master’s distress.

He shifted me around to face him, his movements swift and fluid. His eyes burned crimson, twin flames in the darkness, boring into mine with an intensity that made my heart stutter. His fingers gripped my arms firmly, not enough to bruise but with a certainty that left no possibility of escape. The scent of him—cedar and something metallic—filled my senses as his face hovered inches from mine.

“How long have you been able to do this?” His voice emerged as a rough whisper, wonder and wariness battling in his tone.

“Let me go, please.” The shadows around us pulsed in response to my fear, darkening further. “You’re scaring me.”

Something flickered across his features—regret, perhaps—and he abruptly released me. Without his support, I stumbled backward, my legs wobbling beneath me like a newborn colt’s.

“I’m sorry.” The red in his eyes faded to their normal deep brown as he closed the distance between us in a single step. Before I could react, he carried me to the couch. The sudden shift from restraint to tenderness left me disoriented. “I never want to frighten you.”

I panted, trying to catch my breath, my heart still racing like a trapped bird. My hand moved to my throat, feeling the rapid pulse beneath my fingertips. The remnants of shadows curled around my fingers before dissipating into the air.

“Please,” he said, as he knelt before me. “Tell me about this ability.” His eyes searched mine, no longer frightening but filled with something that looked almost like awe.

“Not… not long. Marsha cast some kind of spell and that’s when… it happened.”

He clasped my hand and squeezed gently. “What exactly did she say? It’s important.”

I wasn’t sure why that mattered, but since lying wasn’t my strength I told him the truth. “She said she unleashed a power inside me… and she said I was an Unseelie. But that’s a lie.” I lifted my chin up high, the soft cotton of the borrowed T-shirt brushing against my collarbone as I straightened my posture defensively. “I know who my parents are.” The word Unseelie still echoed uncomfortably in my mind.

He stared into my eyes, his gaze penetrating as if he could see through the layers of certainty I was trying to wrap around myself. The intensity of his focus made the room feel smaller. “Are you sure about that?” His question hung in the air between us, weighted with implications I didn’t want to consider.

“Yes.” I swallowed hard, my fingers fidgeting with the hem of my T-shirt. “Louis and Marie DuPont were my parents. I havethe birth certificate saying that. And Steve is my half-brother.” The memories of my childhood home flickered through my mind—sunlight through kitchen windows, my mother’s laugh, my father’s steady hand on my shoulder—real, tangible memories that couldn’t be lies.

He cocked his eyebrow, a small furrow appearing between his brows. “Half-brother?”

“Yes, Louis wasn’t his father, but mother never said who his was.” The familiar old family secret suddenly felt different in this new context, a puzzle piece that might fit into a picture I hadn’t seen before.

“Steve is human, that I know for sure.” His shoulders tensed slightly, a subtle shift that nonetheless set off warning bells in my mind.

He hesitated and avoided my gaze, his attention focusing on some point beyond my shoulder. The houseboat creaked gently beneath us, the sound filling the sudden silence.

A cold dread pooled in my stomach. “Why? Who made my brother a vampire? Tell me the truth.” My hands clenched into fists, the shadows in the corners of the room deepening in response to my rising anxiety.

He met my gaze, his expression grave, eyes no longer avoiding mine but steady with purpose. “You asked me to save him and the only way to do that was to turn him.”

The memory crashed over me in vivid detail—Steve appearing out of nowhere, the gleam of a blade, Enzo’s fangs at my brother’s throat. I could still hear my own voice, raw with panic: “Stop! Enzo, please! You’re killing him!”

“I remember,” I whispered, my hand rising to my throat as if I could feel the phantom pain of Enzo’s fangs there instead of at my brother’s neck. “Steve stabbed you in the back. He tried to kill you while you were trying to reach me.”

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