Page 45 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

She only grinned, thrilled by the show of violence.

Keeping her restrained with one hand, I drew my wicked dagger from my coat and pressed the silver blade to her throat. As a fledging vampire, she was blessed with incredible strength, but it was no match for mine.

“Don’t give me no choice but to end you,” I snarled, so close I could smell the lingering traces of her last victim on her breath.

For a stretched moment, Eliza stared back at me, lips still twisted in that mocking smile.

Then Eliza went slack in my grasp, her mocking smile fading. She raised her palms in a gesture of surrender.

Relief coursed through me as I inched back, lowering the blade slightly. Perhaps she’d finally regained some semblance of control over her feral urges. I opened my mouth, ready to order her to leave the area before—

My thoughts were cut off by Flynn’s squeak of terror as Eliza struck like a viper, lunging towards him. He tumbled backwards onto the ground, Eliza’s weight slamming on top of him as she pinned him down.

“No!” The anguished cry tore from my lips.

Eliza leaned down, her fangs extended towards the tender skin of Flynn’s throat as he thrashed beneath her.

In that moment, all restraint, all control, fled me. A crimson haze of fury descended as the predator within raged at the threat to what wasmine. My fingers found purchase on Eliza’s throat, wrenching her back with all my strength.

She didn’t even have time to react before I snapped her neck with a sickening crunch of bone. Her body went limp in my grasp, but it wasn’t enough. I had to be sure.

I slashed the silver blade across her throat in one vicious stroke, her head lolling to the side as I severed her spinal cord. Thick, cold arterial blood sprayed across my face and coat, but I barely registered it through the haze of wrath consuming me.

It was over in seconds, though it felt like an eternity. Silence descended once more over the marina as Eliza’s body crumpled to the ground.

I stared at my bloodied hands, the dagger still clutched in one fist. Slowly, far too slowly, the red haze receded from the edges of my vision.

Flynn.I had to get to Flynn.

I whirled to find him still sprawled on the ground where Eliza had tackled him, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and terror. For twelve beats of his terrified heart, we simply stared at one another across the distance, the night air crackling with tension.

Then Flynn scrambled up and backwards, boots scuffing against the concrete until his back hit the railing behind him. He stared at me—the monster I had so dramatically revealed myself to be.

“Flynn…” My voice faltered as I took a halting step towards him. “I… I need to explain… But please don’t run, it’s not safe.”

He flinched back violently, curling in on himself. I froze in place, something inside me shattering at his reaction.

Of course he would recoil from me. What human wouldn’t after witnessing such savagery?

As much as I wanted to attend to him, to focus only onhim, I had a rather pressing problem on my bloodied hands. With one arm, I wrenched Eliza’s body up, while with the other, I jammed the speed-dial button for Kit on my phone, that Felix had installed for me.

I easily lifted Eliza’s corpse and held it aloft, her head slouching sickeningly to the side.

“There’s been an incident,” I barked into my phone. “I need a body bag at my location immediately. Bring Terrier and the van.”

“On it.”

Kit hung up, and I turned my attention back to the body. I studied her face—the first time I’d seen it at peace rather than twisted with rage or hunger. A pang of sadness pierced through the storm raging inside me.

Eliza had been newly turned, just a fledgling struggling to adapt to her heightened senses and ravenous appetites. It was only the vaguest impression of a memory, but I could understand her torment from my own turbulent beginnings.

The thirst, the confusion, losing identity and purpose—it drove many new vampires into fits of violence and depravity before they learned control.

If only Marcus Vale cared enough about his loyal clan of worshippers to actually teach them…

No.I couldn’t dwell on what-ifs now. Eliza had made her choices, had refused my attempts to teach her restraint. Threatening an innocent human,myhuman, was unforgivable.

My human.

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