Page 28 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

Roger’s face reddened, one of the first signs of his true emotions I’d ever seen from him. “This whole neighborhood knows what you are, girl,” he hissed. “They will know who harmed us. You and your criminal boyfriend will be hung up in the streets.”

There was that carefully concealed venom.

I grinned. “But if given the chance, I’d bet you’d still try to fuck me, huh Roger?”

Kylo was glued to my side in an instant, his hand on the back of my neck in a clear show of dominant possession. Heat radiated from his every pore.

“Remember how you tried to take advantage of me? When I was in tears after Jacob mistreated me yet again?”

“I offered youcomfort,” Roger stammered, pretending to be appalled by the notion. “And I would never involve myself with a vampire clan’s whore.”

Kylo threw his dagger. It collided with Roger’s shoulder with such force that he slid backward, hitting the wall as he yelled in pain.

I glanced up at Kylo, the menacing cold of his blue eyes and dilated pupils. The flash of his shiny fangs.

“My hand slipped,” he said with a shrug.

His hand gripped my neck harder, but not enough to reduce my airflow. My core turned molten.

Yep, those sex and violence wires were definitely crossed.

Oh well. One of my shadows yanked the dagger out of Roger’s shoulder and delivered it back to Kylo’s waiting hand. Cindy was wailing in that irritating way she did, pressing on Roger’s wound. Blood still dribbled from Roger’s cheek where he’d been slashed.

I kept them both pinned against the wall, shadows curling around every limb. I moved closer now, soaking up their hatred as the whispers grew louder in my ears.

My shadows were hungry. Not for violence for violence’s sake. But for retribution, for the eliminating of soulless creatures devoid of humanity. People who would sentence an innocent human boy to death without a second thought.

Loyalists who defended cruelty so long as it kept them comfortable in their tacky, haunted mansions.

They both writhed against their bindings. In them, I saw my parents, offering up their children as tithing.

I didn’t feel remorse when my shadows grew uncomfortably tight, inching closer to their necks and faces.

“You had my brother kidnapped, tortured, and then killed in cold blood. Everything you accusedmeof.” I crouched in front of them, spitting out each syllable.

“Well then I guess we’re just as good as you are, aren’t we?” Roger asked, his mask finally all the way off. His brown eyes were nearly black now, like two empty voids.

I thought I wanted to see them beg. Or admit what they’d done, what they were truly capable of. Like a trial before an execution.

But now that I was here, absorbing the cool emptiness of their gray, useless souls, I realized that I didn’t really want to talk it out.

There was nothing left to say. I understood everything about them.

“You were probably just a victim, at one point,” I said to Cindy as a shadow reached for her eyeballs. “I do feel sorry for you, on some level. But you’re not the only one who has been abused by narcissistic men. And instead of wanting better for your son, you chose to stay comfortable. You let him become another monster.”

“I don’t think she was ever merely a victim,” Kylo said from behind me, his body heat at my back. “I know her family. But I do love your empathy and optimism as always, baby.”

I shrugged. “Anyway…”

Roger’s evil hissing and insults transformed quickly into terrified sobs as the shadows entered his ears and mouth.

“You killed my brother, and you don’t give a fuck. If I had it my way, this would’ve been an execution worthy of artistic immortalization. Your entire estate would’ve been returned to Lillian. But we have to keep thingsneat and tidy.” I jutted my bottom lip with a cock of my head.

I let the shadows plunge into Cindy’s eyes, showing her the truth of what she’d done to my brother—a loop of his suffering that played over and over—before she stopped fighting, and life was drained from her.

Roger only saw himself, eaten alive, as shadows stole his last breaths. A man like him had never considered his own death. I bet he’d deluded himself into thinking he’d live forever.

“Death, the great equalizer,” I murmured.