Page 8 of Forsworn By The Vampire
Grabbing the hand towel, I dried my face, then left it lying on the small counter as I argued with myself. It couldn't be true. Lizzy just had me all fucking paranoid. Sure, I'd caught Angel sneaking around. And yeah, she was snippy with her answers. But why shouldn't she be? She didn't owe me anything. Hell, she barely knew me.
But...but. What if I was right? What if she was in some kind of trouble?
With a muttered oath, I got my coat out of the closet and slammed out of the house. "Fucking witches and their fucking problems. It's none of my fucking business, so why are they getting me involved?" Glancing up at the main house, I saw Lizzy at the side window. When she noticed me leaving, she ran to the back door...
But I was already gone.
Chapter 6
Jesse
Seattle, WA
Isat on a bench, my body angled so I was facing my sister. We were in a park in the middle of Seattle, bundled up against the cold. But it was a rare sunny day for this late in the year, and I'd talked her into coming out here with me for a while before the sunset, away from the eyes and ears of the others. "Ryan, you'll never be able to live a normal life if you don't learn how to control the voices."
"You mean I just have to show them who's boss?" A small smile flirted about her lips, and I found myself smiling back.
Separated from her since birth, getting to know her now has been a highlight of my life, right below meeting my Shea, yet she wasn't quite comfortable with me yet. Not like she was with the other witches. This was why even something as seemingly insignificant as a poor excuse for a joke and a shy smile caused joy to bloom in my chest.
"Something like that," I told her. "They'll listen to you if you stop being afraid of them and trying to push them away. If you can learn how to make them do your bidding, instead of just allowing yourself to hear them until they get out of hand, and then shutting them out again." By drinking her mate's vampire blood. At least it was better than the injections of opioids she used before she met him, and honestly, I didn't know how long it would continue to work for her. Would she develop a resistance to the effects? It was better for her to be prepared. "If you can master this, you can master anything. You'll be almost as scary as I am," I teased with a devilish smirk.
She glanced over at me, tucking a strand of bright red hair behind her ear. "How do you know that?"
"Because I can sense the power within you. You're stronger than anyone here, other than myself. Even Keira."
A woman and her dog walked by, a giant fluff of a thing, and Ryan gave them her attention, her expression and posture relaxed. But I could hear the fear and confusion in her mind. "The spirits, they really just want to help you, Ryan."
"Not all of them," she said without looking at me. "I heard about you and your demons in your mountain altar room."
"No, you're right," I said. "They didn't want to help me. They're demons." It was an offhand comment, but I didn't miss the stiffening of her shoulders by my saying the name so casually. "But they still did, because I'm more powerful than something that has no physical form. Just like you are. The spirits around you, my sister, they can work for you. If you'll let them."
The dog and its owner took a bend on the trail and walked out of sight. Leaning back on the bench, I tilted my head back, enjoying the subtle warmth of the winter sun as I gave her time to mull it all over. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard before, more or less, and not just from me, but the other witches, too. Yet, my sister remained resistant. I wasn't quite sure what the cause was, or how to convince her otherwise, and I was hoping by having some alone time with her I'd be able to get to the root of it.
Because I was going to need her help to kill our father.
As though she'd read my mind, a power I possessed but wasn't at all certain my sister was capable of, she asked, "Are you really going to do it? Kill the djinn?"
She refused to call him "father", but then again, she'd never known him. Hell, the word often stuck in my own throat. "I am," I told her with certainty. Because there was no doubt in my mind.
"Why kill him?" she still wouldn't look at me. Instead, she glanced around nervously, and with her next words, I knew exactly what she was worried about without having to delve into her mind. "Why not just...send him away?"
"They won't tell him, if that's what you're worried about. The spirits," I clarified. "They won't tell him."
Finally, her blue eyes met mine. It never ceased to surprise me, when she looked at me like this, how much she looked like our mother. "You're sure?"
"Yes. And even if they did, I would never allow him to hurt you. Or any of us." My tone and volume didn't change. I didn't need it to.
She stuck her hands deeper into her pockets and shivered. "Okay."
"We can go back if you're too cold," I offered.
"No," she said without hesitation. "Not just yet."
I was used to hiding my emotions. I'd gotten so good at it over the years that not so much as my heartbeat would give me away. It was a protective measure I'd had to master living amongst vampires who wouldn't hesitate to rip me apart in my sleep if I gave them the slightest cause to think they could possibly overcome me. However, first around my Shea...and now my sister...I found the feelings she provoked to be so profound it was impossible to quell my excitement that she trusted me enough to stay here with me. Not completely. And it was one of the reasons I wanted to be alone with her.
But I didn't want to overwhelm her, so I focused on the conversation and tried to explain. "I don't have the book to send him home to his own dimension, so killing him is the only choice I'm left with. He doesn't belong here in this world."
Ryan was quiet for a very long time. And then she turned to me again and asked, "Do we?"
