Page 166 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

I looked back over my garden. I felt the warmth of the sun on my face. I imagined sitting on a porch with Vesper when this wasall over, with Kylo inside showing off his culinary prowess while being terrorized by Blade and Harmony’s teasing, and Idris and his friends sparring in the distance.

Who knows? Maybe by then Vesper will have had a change of heart about looking for her daughter. Maybe after the war was won and Conrad was dead, she’d feel differently.

“Yes, I’ve prayed,” I finally answered. “They tend to go silent when paths split. They want me to make my own decisions, so long as I’m grounded in something higher than myself. Again, not very helpful.”

Vesper nodded. “Such is the unfortunate plight of being alive.”

I snorted. “Fuck.”

“Enough said, really.” Vesper followed my gaze to the garden. “You’re going to do the right thing. And if you don’t, you can always change course. As long as you understand that some consequences cannot be undone, especially when matters of the heart are involved. Or fragile mortality.”

I stared at my hands in my lap. I felt like a trapped and cornered animal, threatened from all angles. Which made me crave Kylo all the more.

Had he changed his mind in the middle of the night? Had he decided he couldn’t forgive me for my dishonesty?

“Are you excited for the rest of your clan to join you here?” I asked Vesper, desperate for a distraction.

Her eyes lit up from within, like an eternal flame. “Beyond words. I can’t wait for our families to converge. They’re going to love you.”

I smiled. “If they’re anything like you and Clarke, I know the feelings will be mutual.”

“The born have no idea what they’ve conjured through their apathy and abuse. Forget ripping open portals to Lillian’s hells.They’re about to witness an entire legion of monsters rise from the underground.”

A familiar vision flashed in my mind, for only a moment. The same as I’d seen during my first turning ritual.

Unmasked turned fighting in the streets. Shadows feasting. Hearts beating as one.

Kylo, covered in blood and grinning.

52

KYLO

“She made it,” Harmony said as she took a seat on the other side of my desk in the study. “She’s going to make a full recovery.”

I smiled, even if it didn’t reach my eyes. Harmony was reporting on the girl I’d saved from the borns’ demented altar.

I’d been working underground since I woke up in the middle of the night. Work was my first soothing addiction, before I’d met Evie.

If Princeton were still alive, I would’ve gone straight to him. He knew how to get my head screwed back on straight. He would know how to help me.

But he was gone. I had to figure my shit out on my own now.

When I’d roused in the middle of the night, Evie had been warm and sweet in my arms. I’d kissed her hair, listened to the steady beat of her heart. She’d become so strong in the past couple of months. And now, asleep in my hold, she looked like that wounded girl I’d first known—the girl who cried and yelled for Idris and her mother in her nightmares.

I couldn’t take it. Anxiety was eating me alive. Knowing Evie had agreed so instantly not to return to Aster because she loved me, and not because she truly wanted to stand down.

“I don’t know how to make her see that she doesn’t have to do this,” I said. “Since that first invitation fromhim, I believe she’s been operating out of misplaced guilt. She thinks she led Juliette to Princeton, and this is how she can atone for her sins. She can’t let it go.”

“Hmm, sounds like someone else I know…” Harmony said gently, reaching to rub the top of my hand before retracting her touch.

“I know what that bastard would say. I can hear it so clearly.”

I didn’t need to say Princeton’s name. Harmony knew.

“That this is exposure therapy,” I muttered. “Evie is provoking the most destructive part of me. The monster that was created when they killed Aisling.”

“That’s also thebestpart of you, Kylo,” Harmony said. “That’s what led you to become a vampire. To study and train and nurture the best version of yourself. You’re an obsessive fucker, but that comes with just as many strengths as weaknesses.”