Page 63 of Twisted
CHAPTER26
“Are they demons, too?”Mabel asks, leaning in so I can hear her over the music.
“No,” I say back, voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper.If she wasn’t a vampire, she wouldn’t be able to hear me.“That’s Vivian and Marco Russo.”
Mabel gasps.“Your adoptive parents who sold you out!I’m glad they did because we’re friends now, but how dare they!”She steps in front of me, fangs drawn.“We should tell them they’re terrible people!”
I want to be mature and tell her they’re not worth my time or energy, but fuck, I want to look Vivian in the eyes and tell her that I know everything.But we’re also trying to save innocent drunk guys from getting their souls sucked out while they get sucked off.
“Later,” I say and grab Mabel’s hand.Marco pushes Vivian forward and I grit my teeth, realizing we’re all going after the same demons.
“How do you kill a succubus?”Mabel asks as we hurry down the stairs.
“With a special blade,” I say shortly.“Which I don’t have, but I promise you, Vivian does.We can take it from her.”
“Are they here for the demons or here for you?”
“How would they—?”I start to ask but then stop myself.Mabel posted us getting ready on her social media stories, saying we’re heading to the particular club.She went live in the car and stayed on live for a good twenty minutes, talking to her followers as we stood outside.It’s not hard to figure out where we are even if she didn’t tag the location.
Shaking my head, I push forward, having to go around a group of girls here to celebrate a twenty-first birthday.
“You think you can get us into a private room?”I ask Mabel.
“Of course!”She beams, retracts her fangs, and pulls her phone from her little clutch purse that’s hanging on her wrist.Vivian and Marco are ahead of us, but they get hung up when a bouncer stops them from going into the back.Technically, anyone can get a room—if you pay.Mabel, on the other hand, just shows the bouncer an email from the club manager who invited her here for “the press” and lets us back.
I turn, eyes narrowing as I look Vivian dead in the eyes.Unable to help myself, I mouth the words, “I know,” before turning and going down the hall behind Mabel.We go through double doors that are covered in bright red pleather, looking like headboards in a cheap hotel.The music quiets as the doors swing shut behind us.
“This place might be a little skeezier than I thought,” Mabel says, wrinkling her nose as she inhales.
“Yeah, it’s giving sex worker vibes.But hey, sex work is real work, no judgement.”
“True.What’s the plan?”Mabel slows, turning to look at me with bright eyes.She’d been forced to the sidelines as a hunter and even after all this time, she’s eager to get in on the action.
“We need to figure out which room they went into and go in, acting like we’re drunk and got lost.I don’t know if they’ll be able to sense you’re a vampire right away or not, so get the humans out and I’ll distract the demons.Then, we kill them.”
Mabel’s fangs come down and she claps her hands together, looking like a kid excited to wake up and see all the presents under the tree on Christmas morning.She tips her head, listening.“They’re in the second to last room.”
“We make a good team,” I tell her, and her smile grows.“Never would I have thought—” I’m cut off when the doors open and Vivian and Marco come marching in.I don’t think.I just act.
Whirling around, I rush forward.
“You’ve got some nerve,” I say through gritted teeth.Vivian puts her hands up, trying to let me know she’s not going to hurt me.Her face is pale, and she looks like she might cry.But it’s not from her guilt of selling me out, it’s from how fucking screwed she is that things didn’t go as planned.
No one expected Xavier to marry me.
I was supposed to be used like a breeder, locked away and hidden from the world, silencing the truth and making it just quietly go away.
“We’re just here for the demons,” Marco says, reaching into his jacket for a weapon.
Not even giving him a chance, I throw my hand out, eyes narrowing as I look at Marco.My fingers land on his forehead.“Somnum,”I say and he slumps forward.I grab him, not wanting him to collapse on his knife, and lower him to the ground.Using magic on my “parents” has always been strictly forbidden.It was a rule I understood at the time, and it was one that made sense.
But these people aren’t my parents.Not anymore.
“You kidnapped me.”I round on Vivian.She’s looking from Marco, to me, to Mabel and back.“Everything you said was a lie.My whole life.”Tears burn in the corners of my eyes.“You didn’t save me.You took me.”
“Wren, please, I can explain,” she tries.I can sense Mabel slowly moving closer and I can only imagine how unhinged she looks, pressed up like a 90s TV vampire slayer, moving effortlessly down the dim hall behind me.
“It won’t change anything.You took me from my family and told me they were murdered.I grew up as an outcast amongst outcasts and I devoted my life to you!”The lights above me start to flicker as the anger surges through me.“Everything I did was for you and the fucking Order and now, I.Know.Everything.”
