Page 37 of Nyte

“I’m a vampyre slayer, did you know that?”

Wren’s eyes lit with excitement. He beamed, his mouth falling open. “You are?”

Cy held his finger out once more, encouraging Wren to wrap his own around it. “Yes. So I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

Wren’s grin was made of pure joy, his cheeks tinged with pink. He dove into Cy’s arms in an embrace, hugging him tight. Over the top of his head, Cy caught Summer’s eye. The look he saw on Summer’s face made his stomach clench painfully.

“You shouldn’t have said that to him,” Summer said later after Wren had exhausted himself and fallen asleep.

“Said what?”

“Any of it. You’re too flippant with your words.”

“I had…I had to say something. To keep him from living in fear.”

“Perhaps it’s the fear that keeps us alive,” Summer murmured.

A month into Cy’s captivity, he woke to find Wren missing.

“Lord Garrison came for him in the night,” Summer said, her voice cold. Hollow.

Cy nearly choked at the implication. “He’ll come back?”

Summer didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. They both knew he wouldn’t.

CHApTER SEvEn

Cypress

Cy was wellused to the sound of screams. The cries of death reverberated deeply, resonating and burrowing into his living memory. He clearly remembered the sounds his mother had made when her throat had been slit. She came to him in dreams. White eyes blotted out, clouded over, unseeing. Black hair matted with dried blood.

Her body on a spike, the tip of it protruding from her open mouth.

And now, beside her, in the landscape of his nightmares, was Wren.

His tiny body dangled in the air, legs jostled by the breeze. Once so radiant and exuberant in life, he hung there, a corpse, drained, mutilated.

It was Cy’s fault. All Cy’s fault. They’d come for him when Cy had been sleeping. They’d stolen him away right out from under Cy’s nose. Wren had been carried off, terrified, but no doubt thinking that Cy would save him. And Cy had failed yet again. As he’d failed his mother. As he would come to fail Summer and Jax. And maybe even himself.

“No,”he tried to scream. His legs were filled with lead. Though he struggled to get to them, he couldn’t move. “Not again. Not again. Please.”

His mother’s face turned to him, then caught him in a dead stare, and he faltered. This was wrong. So wrong.

She gasped, a horrid, shrill sound like the wail of a banshee. Again and again. Gasping as though she couldn’t get air. And then a low whimper. A sob.

Cy sat bolt upright, thrust once again in the pets’ quarters. His hands shook as his eyes fluttered open. It was dark. His eyes needed a moment to adjust, but still, he detected movement. He heard someone gasping, harsh and grating cries, muffled groans, struggling. Sounds of pain. A rattling in the mattress next to his, two bodies locked in hard, rough sex. Only one of the parties seemed to be enjoying it.

He blinked as he took in the sight before him.

Summer. Summer lying face down on the mattress, another’s hand over her mouth. A body spread on top of her, thrusting deep inside her. Her deep green eyes were glazed, glassy. And a mouth was buried in her exposed neck.

Merick. Merick was on top of her.

Not again. Not again.He’d just lost Wren. Failed him. He wouldn’t lose Summer too.

Cy didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate.

He shot up from his mattress and threw himself at Merick, attempting to knock him away from Summer’s shivering form.

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