26. Twenty-Six

That Vampyr motherfucker!

I was ten seconds away from ripping his eyes out with my bare hands when he dropped that brick on me. Why did Alora tell him something that wasn”t true? She”d been nothing but loyal to me since I was eighteen. He bitched and moaned about trust—well, she fucking earned it.

And now I couldn’t even address her or the situation because Aryn was there.

Which meant we needed to run.

“Were you two fighting?” she whispered.

“No.” I slammed my jaw as tight as it would go, then walked into the bedroom. Vastian had already gathered some form of outfit, and the dresser drawer was open.

He must”ve been hiding in the washroom.

Dropping my towel, I dug through the dresser.

Everything in there was old, outdated, and unsuitable ‘run for your life…or lack of’ attire. What fucking gives?

“Sure looked that way.”

“Fuck off, Alora. Where is Aryn? Does he know we are here?” I asked, slugging on some brown pants. Brown! When did I even buy those? Wasn’t there anything else in here?

“I’d say so, considering he has a small army with him.”

“There goes the Isles of Dawn,” I muttered, sniffing the white shirt I held up.

Vastian walked in from the washroom wearing all black. Shooting him a glare, I located my boots and shoved my feet into them aggressively. He was so gorgeous that it was mildly distracting me from my irritation that he took the last half-decent outfit.

“We need to part ways,” he told Alora, not me.

“That’s not happening,” I grunted as I tied up the laces. Alora glanced between us with a raised eyebrow.

“Even immortals are no match for demons.” The way he said it puckered my asshole, and not in a fun way.

I hated that he was right. Aryn would make me scream like a little girl, and I’d beg for my death. Been there, done that. “You’re not leaving.”

He folded his big, delicious arms. “I’m prepared to meet my fate.”

“Oh, don’t start again!” I yelled, ripping at my hair.I was going to fuck and murder him. In that order. ”You”re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”

I should have let him leave. Let him go back to the Vampyr Queen. I was never going to be what he wanted. We weren’t mates. We weren’t anything! I played with his cock a little—that was it.

Yes, I liked the man. Yes, it physically gutted me to think of him leaving. And yes, I’d never admit that out loud. He even got the pet name to fly from my lips. Maybe I was insane. I was losing what little grasp on sanity I had left. But mark my words, Vastian was not leaving me.

“Calm down,” Alora snapped at me.

I growled at her, baring my teeth, and said, “You and I are talking once we get out of here. You’ve pissed on the wrong fucking person.”

She put up her hands, surrendering, then said, “I swear you are worse than any woman I’ve ever met.”

And the fact that you are a woman is the reason I’m not slapping your teeth out. Alright, I was mad, frustrated, and dangling on the edge of talking about Lucios, and the two of them were becoming unbearable. “Let’s go.”

Digging into the top drawer, I secured our coin purse and tied it to my belt loop. There would be no more crying into fish for free food. In fact—there would be no crying, period.

I was done. It was time for blood.

We made it a total of three streets before Alora disappeared. I wish I could say it shocked me as much as Vastian, but I was used to this with her. She enjoyed killing people when it was on her terms, and the woman was scared shitless of Aryn.

Vastian hovered at my side but didn’t touch me. That pissed me off.

Dawn was closer than I wanted—I couldn’t catch a break! He kept looking to the east, watching the skyline for any signs of the sun. Belfor was quiet, and the few beggars lying in the alleys still coiled in their dirty blankets.

We were sitting ducks.

“Do you trust her?” Vastian asked me.

“To a point,” I muttered, feeling like a thousand eyes watched me.

Aryn always knew where I was. He’d never explicitly said it, but I suspected that fucking brand was the way he did it. It made sense. A beacon in the ether that all but blinded him. Rubbing my arms, I wasn’t cold, but my skin pricked, and gooseflesh bubbled down them. Fuck, I was so afraid of that demon. Logically, it made no sense either. I couldn”t die.

“I don’t,” he said.

Glancing at him, I scoffed. “Because you’re jealous.”

“What if I am?” He cocked a brow.

“Join the fucking club.”

Turning down another street, I was hoping we could get to the city”s outer rim before the sun rose. Ankar, Ariel’s brother, had a little shop right before the gate. We could hole up there. It was probably futile, but it was the only option we had. As much as I’d like to think I could pick Vastian up and carry him, that wouldn’t happen.

“Stop.” Vastian slammed his arm across my chest, ushering me to the side of a building.

“Wha—” His palm cupped my mouth.

Pressing his chest against me, at first, I thought this was an attempt to kiss me or something. So we could move past our fight. The fight was still ongoing as far as I was concerned. Then he tilted his chin, nostrils flaring and his pupils dilated. Oh, fuck.

“Run,” he said through tight lips, then pushed off me.

A portal opened as soon as he stepped back into the dim lights of the street lamps.

The thick thud of Aryn’s feet hitting the stone road made my heart nose-dive somewhere between my legs. It wasn’t just Aryn either; he had his goons with him, too, including fucking Tanner.

Gods, I hated that ogre.

No matter how often I’d seen Aryn, it felt like the first time. When I was five years old, sitting in the mud puddle Lucios and I made. Dirt smeared across our faces, and he stalked up the path. I was so small compared to him. And I still fucking was. Even though I was a thirty-year-old man, even though I grew, got stronger, and learned to kill—this demon shriveled me up into a shell of a man with a single look.

His black eyes narrowed on me, then Vastian. “Leave him be,” Vastian ordered.

With a smirk, Aryn inclined his head. One of the demons flanking him stepped forward. His fist opened. “You fucker!” I growled, immediately spotting the tether that thrashed like a viper rearing to strike.

Vastian didn’t acknowledge me. Instead, he dropped to his knees and held out his hands. “It seems the Vampyr has some common sense. You should learn from him, Atreyis.” Aryn’s guttural voice said to me.

Stepping forward, I didn’t know what to do, but they weren’t taking Vastian. Not while I still breathed. “He isn’t the one you want,” I said as calmly as I could manage.

“Back off,” a female demon growled.

Throwing her a vulgar gesture, I lifted my chin. “I’d think I would know if he was some all-powerful being.”

“Like you knew which vial contained the Paletree root?” Aryn glared at me. His wings rustled against his back, and the cord in his neck pulsed.

Fucker. “If it”s revenge you want, just get it over with already!” I screamed, unable to contain it.

The demon holding the tether handed it over to Aryn. “Revenge,” he looked at Vastian inquisitively, “is not achieved with a swift death. Revenge is drawn out. Calculated and the most effective with suffering. You will suffer. You will never stop suffering.” He stepped closer to Vastian, who hadn’t moved an inch.

Sweat pooled in my crotch, armpits, neck, and a few drops on my upper lip. The muscles in my neck seized, my tongue went dry, and my heart hammered against my ribs. “No matter where you go. No matter what you do. No matter who you fuck, this will remain, Atreyis. You can never fix it.” Every word and sentence was like a thousand lightning bolts to my gut.

Tears stung my eyelids; I tried to swallow but couldn’t. My mind screamed to walk, to stop him, but I was stone. “Atreyis, please, just go.” Vastian’s voice cracked.

“Such a pathetic waste. A putrid disappointment to your kind. I don’t think Queen Velari will ever forgive this treason.” Aryn spat a wad of demon saliva into Vastian’s face.

“Don’t fucking touch him!” I shrieked, and my legs jumped forward.

Rushing to Vastian, I grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet. In the time it took for him to look at me with horror-filled eyes, the tether dropped to the floor. Aryn darted for me, his clawed fingers gripping my throat. The pressure forced a strangled gasp out of me. Vastian bellowed, falling to the floor. My feet dangled above the ground as I beat against Aryn’s trunk-like arm.

“You killed him because he wouldn’t succumb to your twisted ways. He wouldn’t suck your cock, and you killed him. You will not corrupt another. You will not distort another promising man’s life for your vile desires.” Spit flung from his thin lips when Aryn spoke. “My mate died because of you. If you think death will claim you, think again. If I cannot know peace, you will only know pain.”A searing sensation where the brand rested between my shoulder blades had me whimpering.

Squeezing so that my trachea caved in, my eyes bulged out of my head, and a second later, he threw me so hard that I went through the wall of the building behind me. The force blew a hole straight through it, and everything washed away in the darkness.

Pain radiated through muscle and bone.

The clay rubble from the building buried my legs. Groaning, I sat up. When I pulled my hand back from my aching head, I froze when thick red coated it. I was still bleeding. Cuts trailed up my forearms; my elbow was scraped, and as I bent over to push the bulk of my limbs, white-hot scorched through my ribs. Why wasn’t I fucking healing?

Pulling myself from the wreckage, I was met with a pair of big, round, yellow eyes.

Tanner.

“Not so unstoppable now, are you?” he sneered, folding his puke-green arms.

The braid that ran along the top of his head swayed back and forth while he laughed. “A few bumps and bruises never stopped me before.”

“Without your freak healing, you’re just a normal man. If one could even call you that.”

Curling my lip, I stood on shaky legs. Going through a wall wasn’t an unusual thing for me, but I’d never not bounced back. This would make things tricky. Most people in this situation would stall him with stupid monologues. ‘I’ll kill you. You’re dead. Blah blah.’

Vastian’s voice flooded my head as I took in what sort of establishment I”d been thrown into.

Fate is an odd force of divinity.It was my beautiful Vampyr because Aryn threw me into a Smith shop. Endless blades and pistols were separated behind a thin sheet of glass. Lunging, I punched it—momentarily forgetting that I wouldn’t heal. Shards bit into my knuckles and stuck into my fingers, but I slammed my teeth down on my lip. This was the least of my problems.

Vastian was now at Aryn”s mercy, and I had no idea what the demon would do to him.

Wielding a rather pointy knife, I faced Tanner. “Well?” I blew a wad of snot out of my nostril.

Tanner made Aryn look like a baby. Ogres were massive creatures, but this made them slow. They didn’t have magic oozing through their fucking pores like demons did. I’d tangled with a few of these guys in the past, but Tanner was easily the tallest. I think he was supposed to be a prince or something. His tusks jutted out as he shouldered through the hole, making it even more gaping. The movement made me think of a beast. Honestly, all he was missing was a club. The mound around his gut jiggled with each step.

It was going to hurt, I was probably going to cry a little, but it was time I”d killed this mindless cunt.

I’m coming, Vastian.