Page 5 of Can't Bite This Feeling
We plan to run. We steal coin from her father’s study. She hides a pair of boots and a compass beneath the stable floorboards. I gather horses, food, names of safe houses far beyond the border.
One more night, we say. Just one.
But the gods are never kind to men like me.
I feel it before I hear it.
A scream. Not in my ears, but my soul. A tether ripped loose. A bond torn in two.
I drop the saddle I’m lifting. I run faster than I’ve ever run. My feet barely touch the ground.
By the time I reach the temple, she’s gone. Her body lies crumpled on the gleaming black marble of the altar, gilded by the moonlight spilling through the high, arched opening. A stake is buried deep in her chest, her mouth frozen in a gasp that will never end. Blood stains the silk of her robe, blooming like roses across her breast.
I drop to my knees and gather her into my arms.
She’s still warm.
I press my forehead to hers and whisper every prayer I’ve ever known. Every curse. Every bargain I’m willing to make. My tears stain her cheeks. My voice cracks. My body shakes with the weight of what I’ve lost.
I would give anything—anything—to bring her back.
But the gods are silent.
Gently removing the locket I gave her after we first made love, I pull it over my head—a symbol of our love I will carry always.
I bury her beneath the cliffs where I first kissed her. I mark the grave with stones shaped like stars and place lavender on her tomb.
I walk into the night with vengeance in my heart. Only one person would do this to her.
Cassian.
Her father.
I don’t hunt him like a soldier. I hunt him like a wolf.
For days, I track his movements through the city. I watch him parade through the streets like a god in polished armor, accepting praises carved from fear. He thinks her death made him stronger. Made him clean again.
I may be a vampire, but he made me a monster. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of, what I’m willing to become to avenge her death.
On the seventh night, I strike.
The villa is silent when I slip through the shadows. His guards are loyal but slow. They don’t even have a chance to scream. I leave their blood soaking into the marble. I don’t care who sees.
I want him to know it’s me.
I find him in his study, where he once beat her for reading scrolls not meant for women. The room reeks of wine and power and old blood.
He looks up from his desk, utterly calm. “I wondered when you’d come.”
I bare my fangs. “You murdered her.”
“She was mine to discipline.”
“You chained her. Starved her. Beat her.”
“I raised her to be adaughter of Rome. You turned her into ablasphemy.”
My laughter is cold. “She chose me. That’s what you couldn’t stand.”
