Chapter 26

Charlotte Sanguinite

The last time I saw my father in person was the night he dragged me out of the compound while I begged and screamed. I still remember the disgust and satisfaction in his eyes as he closed the doors of the compound in my face.

Vampires age slowly after they hit a certain age.

There's not one additional wrinkle on his face, and for a moment, it sends me spiraling back to that night when my heart pounded in sick fear as I looked imploringly at him and he sent me to my death.

"Charlotte?" Jazz's confused voice has me snapping out of my daze.

Without a moment's hesitation, I grab her wrist and yank her toward me. "Go inside."

"Inside where?" She looks puzzled and then glances between me and the tall man standing by the front desk. Her voice lowering, she asks, "Is that your dad?"

"Inside, Jazz!" I snap, shoving her into the examination room and slamming the door shut behind her. I stand in front of it protectively.

I hear Ricky call out to me, but I ignore him, all my focus on the man who sired me.

"You keep defying me at every turn." When my father speaks, his voice is filled with displeasure.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I snarl at him, pushing away the fear and letting anger fill that space.

"I wanted to see how badly you're disgracing the family name. Selling your body to those animals, trying to show everyone how low the Nelo Clan has fallen. I should have killed you that night."

"Family name?" I scoff. "My name is Beaumont, not Sanguinite. And I know you struck me from the registry. So, I don't really understand why you're here, since you and I are no longer related."

"I'm here because of the stories you've been telling Terrence." My father takes a step toward me, menacingly. "If you wanted to survive, you should've kept living like a rat, out of my sight. But if you think you can stir the waters and try to steal what is rightfully your sister's, you are a bigger fool than I thought."

"Excuse me?" His words make no sense. "I haven't said anything to Terrence. He came looking for me. And even if I did say something, it would be the truth. I know that he wrote to me and sent me gifts; you hid the letters and gave those gifts to Arabella. The letters I wrote to him never made it to him. I don't understand what you were trying to do by getting in the way of our friendship. And to come here now thinking I've said something to him? I stay away from your clan. I've kept my distance for years. I'm not interested in Terrence or your precious daughter. So leave."

Zeno, still in my arms, is growling under his breath, probably sensing my tension.

"Leave? After the situation your shameless actions have put me in?" Beruth asks darkly. "Terrence was a fool ever to be besotted with you. His father and I dissuaded him, but he simply would not forget about you, going so far as to demand I declare a betrothal between the two of you when he was in Europe. You? The most useless, worthless thing in my clan? Arabella deserved him, not you. I was going to make Terrence my son-in-law, but never with you. But you just couldn't die. And now he's declaring he will marry you and no one else! I should have dealt with you the day Arabella saw you in the street."

I stare at him, stunned. "Is that why you threw me out that night? Because Terrence wanted you to declare our engagement and you wanted him to marry Arabella?! You thought that if I died, if you told him I ran off and got killed, he would happily accept Arabella?"

"Yes!" Beruth snarls. "One of the most promising individuals in our clan, married to you? Mated to an inferior creature who was rejected by her father? You can't even be called a vampire! And look at you now. You don't even have that energy anymore. You're a lesser being, an unworthy being, but as long as you are alive, Terrence will never stop wanting you. And I can't have that. This time, I intend to make sure you die."

Zeno is growling and wriggling in my arms. As I watch Beruth lock the door, I can hear Mano yowling and whimpering behind me in the closed examination room. I can hear Jazz and Ricky murmuring together.

"There are humans here," I hiss. "Have you lost your mind?!"

"Casualties," my father says, unconcerned. "You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Charlotte. A few humans are a small price to pay for getting rid of you."

My blood runs cold. He plans on killing Jazz and Ricky, too.

"I'm not going to let you do that." I bare my teeth at him. "Let them go. This is between the two of us!"

Beruth Sanguinite gives me a darkly amused look. "Spending time with that wolf Alpha seems to have made you arrogant. You're in no position to be making demands."

As an afterthought, he muses, "I've been looking into your life. These are the humans who are important to you. Pathetic and mediocre, just like you. At least your sister made something of herself. You chose to go into servitude. Today, a stain from this family's honor will be removed. But first, I want you to see your precious humans suffer. I want to break this arrogance of yours."

He moves toward the examination room door, and when I step in his path, he grabs me by my throat. However, I'm no longer weak and helpless. I kick him in the stomach, using every ounce of force within me. He goes crashing back, and the door behind me opens.

Jazz is pale. She has most likely heard the whole conversation. How could she not?

My father straightens up, and I see Ricky cast an anxious look at me as he holds a newborn kitten in his hands. My resolve strengthens.

"Jazz, there's a gun in my bag. Get it for me. Take my phone and call Robert. Tell him my father is trying to kill me. G—"

The backhanded slap I receive from Beruth has me flying into the examination room. My back hits the table, and as he enters, I shove Zeno into Jazz's hands and run toward my father. Grabbing him by the middle, I use my years of self-defense lessons to lock my legs with his and yank forward. He tumbles to the ground, and as he does, I scream at Ricky, "Get out! Take them and get out!"

Mano is still giving birth; she's hissing and snarling and staring at my father, all while yowling through the contractions.

"One of the kittens is stuck inside her!" Ricky yells back.

Jazz is trembling, and she looks at Ricky. "Y—You help Mano."

She quickly ties Zeno's leash to the table leg and begins rummaging through my bag. I elbow my father in the face and try to claw at his eyes.

"Hurry!"

I'm hurled to the side. My body flies through the air like a rag doll, slamming into the glass door. It shatters on impact, and I fall to the ground. Blood impairing my vision, I see my father stride toward the examination room.

I scramble to my feet just as I see Mano jump on his face, screaming. He grabs her by the neck, and his hand tightens. It'll take two seconds for him to take her away from me forever. The whole world slows down as I see my faithful companion begin to go limp.

Ricky is stepping forward, his lips moving.

So is Jazz.

They won't make it, I dimly realize.

Something burns inside me. It burns brighter and brighter before shattering. A sound leaves my throat, and when I blink, Mano is in my arms, making gurgling sounds and clinging to me, and I'm at the other end of the room.

My father is staring at me, his eyes wide in shock. He's not the only one.

"Ricky," I breathe, fury burning through me. This anger, it's not just mine. It's someone else's. I can feel another presence within me.

I don't even have to say anything. Newborns in one hand, Ricky rushes over and takes Mano from me.

"Go."

He runs toward the back of the shelter, and I turn to face my father.

"When did you get your abilities back?" he sputters.

My lips pull back in a sneer. "Once the poison I was given left my system."

"I can sense your energy again." He looks awestruck. "How did you get so powerful?"

His words barely register on me.

Aim to kill.

Robert's words are at the forefront of my mind. This man has to die. He's a threat to me and to the people I love.

"None of your fucking business," I hiss.

My father's lips purse in disapproval. "This doesn't change anything. You are not going to be welcome in our clan. I have put in a lot of effort for Terrence and Arabella to get engaged. For the future of the clan, you cannot be allowed to live."

"Be welcome? I wouldn't go back to that pathetic hellhole if you begged me!" My words are a vicious snarl, my body thrumming with this burning energy.

"If it were only the abilities that made you lacking, it would have been different. But you were unwanted from birth." My father snorts. "I would have killed you, but your mother begged for your life. Unremarkable. You were born unremarkable. No child of mine should have been born a healer. Weak! A disgrace! It doesn't matter if you've grown powerful over the years. You are still a healer, like the woman who birthed you!"

I stare at him, stunned.

A healer?

I've only ever met one vampire healer, an elderly woman in our clan. She was always kind to me but made it a point to avoid me as much as possible. Vampire healers aren't very strong. Like wolf shifters who are healers, vampires born as healers are empathetic. They lack the cruel edge that our kind usually have. Therefore, they are looked down upon. But I never thought about why there were so few healers in our clan.

An ugly thought intrudes in my mind, and I look at the man who is supposed to be my father. "You wanted to kill me because I was born a healer? How many other children like me have been sentenced to death?"

My father's jaw hardens. "Weakness is a sin among our kind!"

I have my answer. Disgust and anger rage within me. "You're a monster. I should be grateful you threw me out. No wonder Arabella is as twisted as she is. With a father like you, what else would she be?"

Beruth rushes forward, and I punch him in the neck. He easily deflects my blow, and the fact that I am anticipating his attacks is making him frustrated. But my father has always been sly.

I see movement behind him. Jazz is trembling like a leaf. She is holding Zeno now, my bag in her other hand. My father darts toward her.

"No!" I shout, trying to intercept him, but he suddenly turns around, piercing my stomach with his hand. I make a choked sound, white heat exploding within me. We stay like that for a second: Beruth's hand impaling me, a rushing sound filling my ears, Jazz's voice screaming my name in terror reaching me as if I'm underwater.

And then he withdraws it, and my body crumples to the ground.

There is a big, gaping hole in my stomach. I can feel it. What I can also feel is the instant healing kicking in.

My father looks down at me, revulsion in his eyes. "That alone won't kill you, but this will."

He removes a silver stake from his coat's inner pocket.

A silver stake to my heart will freeze it and stop any sort of healing, forcing me to die an agonizing death. It makes sense that my father would choose the most painful way to kill me. I've never been hated by someone as much as by this man.

He lifts the stake over his head, but before he can stab me with it, someone rushes at him, shoving him backward. I see raven black hair in a familiar braid.

My father hisses as Angie throws something in his eyes.

She's chanting something, and his cries of pain grow louder. Jazz stumbles over to me, half sobbing, half shaking, clutching a frantic Zeno and my bag. "Charlotte…I have to…The police…"

"R—Robert," I gurgle at her.

"The vet—The vet called him." Her head moves in jerky shakes.

"G—Gun."

Despite the pain, I move, reaching for the bag. Zeno suddenly goes wild, and as Jazz tries to hold on to him, my hand wraps around the gun, and I lift my head.

Only to see my father decapitate Angie.

Her head flies to the side, her body crumpling to the ground. I feel a hollow numbness in my chest. The woman who found me in the street that night, who bought me my first meal, listened to me, hugged me, let me sleep in her bed…The woman I considered an older sister in every sense of the word is gone.

I draw out the gun. My body is cold, the grief a hard ball in my chest, robbing me of my ability to breathe.

I shoot my father.

The gun has four rounds.

I empty them into his chest.

The shocked look in his eyes as death seizes him is not satisfying. As Beruth falls to the ground, there is Robert, suddenly appearing in the doorway, his face as white as a sheet.

I look at him and the dam breaks, the agony in my heart more vicious than the pain radiating from my wound.

The gun drops from my grip as I extend my arms toward him, an inhumane sound of grief leaving my mouth, tears spilling from my eyes. "Robert! Robert, Angie!"

He doesn't know who the dead woman on the ground is, or how much she meant to me. He doesn't know that I've lost someone so utterly precious to me. But he rushes over and wraps his arms around me. He soothes me as I wail like a child who has lost the only mother she ever knew.

He won the war, and I paid the price.