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Head cocked to one side, Elena smiled. “This is the part where you very dramatically tell me whatthe truthis before I kill you. Let’s move this along, I have dinner plans.”

“With your witch and that?—”

This time, it was Elena’s kick that cut him short. He was not going to speak of Zuri or Marisol. He was not going to so much as conjure their images in his addled mind.

“What the fuck is this?” One of her sons was peering into a cabinet set into the wall.

Baylor stiffened a second before the cabinet door swung open and then another and another. In one of the most chillingdisplays Elena had ever seen, row after row of human skulls sat on the shelves like macabre wedding china.

“Those deaths are all on you. If you’d only taught anyone else how to–”

“There’s nothing to teach you, you fucking terrorist,” she roared, understanding that they’d killed all those people in a doomed attempt to turn them. Scores and scores of lives cut short for nothing. Elena had no faith that they’d found people deserving death. They’d probably picked off the easiest prey. The isolated. The weak. The unlikely to be missed.

Baylor’s lip curled with something like self-righteousness. “To the oppressors, freedom fighters always look like insurgents, don’t they?”

“You have seconds left of breathing on this planet.” Elena gritted her teeth. She wanted to know what conspiracy he’d been spreading, but she only had so much tolerance for the sound of his voice.

He looked up at her, face marred with blood and hate. “For time immemorial, we’ve been fed the story that the natural order of things is female leadership, but there is no biological reason women are superior?—”

“It’s not superiority, you wart. We serve different roles. You want me to teach a horse to fly. A fish to run. A matriarchy?—”

“Is against nature itself.” He spat blood on the ground and fragments of a broken tooth along with it. “Look at the order of predators. When they are not solitary, they’re led by the strongest, smartest male.”

Elena laughed, anger leaving her body. He didn’t deserve her ire. He deserved absolutely nothing from her. “And you presume that to be you?” She was still laughing when she stared down at the most pathetic creature she’d ever seen. “Assuming you were correct and elephants, hyenas, killer whales, and lions didn’texist to poke a little hole in your theory, you believe you are stronger than me?”

With all the conviction of a person too willfully blind to the truth, Baylor looked up at her and sneered. “Absolutely.”

“You believe what? That I hold my position by chance? That I failed-up to it?”

His unwavering expression said yes.

“Get up,” she demanded. “Do you have more revolting blood bags?”

He stood, gaze flashing to a storage area fashioned out of industrial shelves and plastic crates. Gods, he was going to be so easy to kill.

Elena waited for him to drink as much disgusting blood full of additives and preservatives as he wanted. Waited until he said he was healed. She didn’t want whatever sliver of soul he might have left to spend the afterlife convinced he could have won if he’d been at full strength.

“Now’s your chance to test your little theory,” Elena said, arms widespread. “But first, you’ll tell me where the rest of your disciples are.”

“There are no others?—”

Elena reached into his weak mind and compelled him. Breaking in seconds, he revealed the names and locations of three vampires who hadn’t been at the church when they arrived. After confirming their lack of poisoned weapons, she sent all her blood sons after them.

“You’re not really going to fight me,” Baylor said when he’d recovered from the brief mental incursion. “The moment I start to best you, they’re going to intervene.”

Elena looked behind her as if she didn’t know to whom he was referring. “They will not. Because you will not so much as touch me.”

“How do I know?—”

“Baylor, you’re already dead and have absolutely no power. I can kill you or I can kill you. The choice is yours.”

Fangs extended, he positioned himself in what Elena guessed was a fighting stance. A fighting stance learned from martial arts movies rather than reality.

In that moment, she decided Baylor’s humiliation would be swift. She was ready to put this behind her. To put an end to the nightmare and go home.

When he finally made his move, teeth barred and hands outstretched, she crouched. In a fluid motion, she kicked his legs out from under him. When he fell to the ground, she decided to show him again that he’d never touch her. To show him his staggering inadequacy.

Elena stood, hands behind her back and waited for a second attack. It came, more angry and clumsy than the first. This time, she dodged his fists and lunges with her hands still clasped behind her until he screamed in frustration and punched a table in half.