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Two Hearts at War

NYX

S hock wove through every one of my cells as the pavement charged toward me viciously.

My arms flung out sideways, my knees bending so my feet were almost level with my ass. I clenched my teeth, bracing for the impact.

Instinct took over.

Just before I hit the ground, my legs straightened, but not all the way. I hit the sidewalk toes first, somehow flipping myself into a roll before the brunt of my weight crashed down. The world tumbled around me, my hands flying out impulsively.

Frozen in an inept but efficient crouch, I released a breathy, incredulous laugh.

I did it. I stuck the landing. ?? In six-inch stilettos.

Before I crossed the street, I glared up at the rooftop and gave Solaris the finger. I could have snapped my ankles off, for fuck sake. Did he seriously think that highly of me? Or was that supposed to shatter my legs and spine and make me forever dependent on his dark majesty?

I refused to focus on him, though. I’d get him back for that later. I only had one thing on my mind right now: get Jedidiah out of this degenerate hellhole.

A dull, throbbing ache in my chest told me something bad was going to happen.

What was he thinking, hunting vampires alone?

I schooled my features as I approached the club. I did my best to exude a moody, arrogant demeanor to match the people around me. Apparently, I didn’t miss a fucking beat. One look at me and the bouncer let me in right away, in front of the endless line. Pretty privilege in all its glory. And it was a damn good thing I’d changed into these leathers.

Loud, angsty music greeted me, the bass vibrating from my head to my toes. The dark red ambiance made it easy to be stealthy. I made my way to the bar, which I assumed would be a central point, and I’d be able to spot Jed the giant from there.

The vibe was insane. Most of the girls were wearing little more than lingerie. Everywhere I looked, pale breasts were busting out of leather corsets, and long legs were wrapped in fishnets and plunged into knee-high boots. Their makeup was extreme, with spidery long lashes, black plump lips, and hair pinned up into space buns or left long and straight down their backs.

They were sexy and Gothic and alluring. Men flocked to them, dying to touch them, dying for just a morsel of their attention. It made my stomach hurt. Why did he have to be here ?

I hated it.

The horrible, hot, stabbing sensation inside of me was completely foreign. Jealousy was by far the ugliest emotion.

Finding him, though? It hit like a white-hot iron to the chest. It stopped my fucking heart and snatched my soul from my body.

The music died. The edges of my vision blurred.

I was catapulted into an underwater dream where nothing felt real. He was sitting in a lounge area that was packed with people getting intimate with each other. Men sat back with women in their laps, their faces nuzzled into their necks. Jedidiah was in the middle of it all, leaning down over a glass table while he snorted a fat white line. He jolted back, sniffing harder, his eyes wired among his skull glamour. Then he leaned back on the sofa and glanced over at the woman sitting way too close to him.

She was fucking sex incarnate.

Older than me, with long black hair that fell to her hips, framing her pale, heart-shaped face. I could see the shade of blue of her eyes from here. She grinned at him as he offered her a line. She leaned over his lap, her breasts grazing his legs, and I wanted to die. But when I saw her plump lips painted in my shade of Wrath , that was my undoing.

She burst into flames. Screaming, writhing, turning to ash. Then I incinerated him. My furious, scorned cry exploded the light bulbs overhead, raining glass. Screams of terror spiked my blood with adrenaline, and soon the entire place was catching fire. People ran for their lives. I stood amid the inferno, unscathed. Watching the chaos, watching as Judgment Day came for all of them. Not a soul made it out alive.

I saw it so clearly in my mind. What I was capable of.

But I held it in, let it burn me from the inside out. My heart slammed in my throat.

I was no stranger to rage. It was my default setting most of the time. But this jealous rage, this was new.

And the betrayal . It sliced through me like a thousand daggers, shredding my skin until I was bloody and raw.

Two hours ago, he’d been making love to me. Now—

For a split second, his eyes gravitated to me, as if he sensed me.

But he looked away, his wired eyes not seeing past the glamour.

The woman stood up, offering her hand to Jed. He stared up at her. I couldn’t read the look on his skull-painted face. His eyes were hard, void of any emotion. My heart cleaved in two when he eventually rose to his feet, towering over her like he would me. She looked up at him through her lashes, leaning in a little. Her desire wasn’t feigned. He really did turn her on. How could he not? He was so tall and striking and tortured, radiating masculine power. I watched the way she submitted to him, sinking into her kittenish femininity. Ready to give it all to him.

She murmured something to him before taking his hand and leading him away. Leading him behind a red curtain that led to Goddess knew where.

The only things that burned were my eyes and my chest as I spun on my heel and ran out of there.

It was a long walk to the Sun & Moon. I trudged down the dark streets alone, keeping my eyes down. I stopped only once when I found an open bar to drink my weight in cheap vodka. The place was a fucking dive. I smashed the bartender’s head off the bar when he asked me for money. I was out of there before anyone noticed, but I heard the chaos take off on my way out. I felt nothing.

My birthday was long over, my makeup smudged down my glamoured face.

I stumbled along, hiccuping, seeing shadows in my peripheral. They didn’t scare me tonight. No, I wished they’d try me. I needed a fight.

Good thing I knew where to find one.

Once I was safely inside the elevator of the Sun & Moon Hotel and the ascent began, I burst into flames.

The dragon leathers were fire-proof. Perfect.

I emerged from the smoking elevator with a vengeance. “SOLARIS!” I didn’t wait to catch sight of him. I conjured a ball of fire between my hands and hurled it fast and spinning at the glass wall. It exploded, spewing lethal shards while my fireball soared over the city like a comet.

For a beat, there was only silence.

“Solaris!” I cried again, conjuring another fireball, searching for his willowy frame.

I heard the beat of his wings from outside the shattered glass. He landed out on the terrace, silver eyes wild as he took in my destruction. He stormed at me, shards crunching under his black boots.

“What do you think you are doing?” he roared.

“Fuck you! You set me up!” I screamed, whirling the ball of fire between my hands. I glared into his fucking soul as I hurled it at him. He dodged it, though a few embers caught on his wing and ate at the feathers until they burnt out.

“Telling me Jedidiah was hunting ! You knew damn well what he was doing! You just wanted to hurt me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, feigning offense. “The Groundshaker is hunting.”

I shook my head, incredulous that he was sticking to his bullshit lie. “There were no vampires in there! He was hooking up with some girl!”

His brows jumped. Then he lifted a shoulder, waving his hand dismissively.

My jaw fell open. I stepped closer to him, my fire going crazy. Shadows danced on the walls, all teeth and claws and salivating jaws. Monsters, monsters everywhere. “Cut the shit, Solaris. You win, okay? You fucking win, just like always. You tricked me into walking in on that. Jedidiah and I are done, just like you planned. I have nowhere to turn now. Nowhere to go but here. You’re the only miserable creature left in my life.” I shoved his chest. Once, twice—I didn’t stop. I kept shoving him until he knocked into the armchair by the fireplace. “You win, you win, you win!”

He grabbed the tops of my arms and held them tight while I tried to keep wailing on him. His skin stayed unscathed by my flames, which only made me more feral. So he shook me. He actually fucking shook me. My heart rocketed out of control as he forced me to look into his fathomless eyes. “You’re wrong ,” he growled in my face. “You’re wrong about everything. Whatever you saw was just a strategy. That place was crawling with vampires. He had to fit in.”

My fire went out. I tore myself out of his grasp, backing away. “You’re defending him. You’re defending him ! Why ? He hates your guts! He wants you dead! But you’re defending him to me. I don’t fucking understand!”

“Then that’s your problem!” he thundered, veins of shadows rippling under his eyes. His wings flexed, his jaw hard. He pointed his finger at me. Oh, how I hated a finger in my face. “It’s no one’s fault but your own that you haven’t put the pieces together yet.”

“Gah!” I shrieked intelligibly, the liquor in my belly sloshing around with my rage. I fucking roundhouse kicked him in the gut, making him grunt for me before he crashed down into the armchair behind him. Then I dropped onto his lap, full panther mode, letting my eyes fall hooded while my chest rose and fell. His hands flew up to grip my hips, my hand finding its way to his throat. Nowhere near big enough to wrap around it, but I could apply pressure all the same.

“Tell me,” I purred, low and guttural, a threat ringing within each syllable. “Tell me what’s between you and Jedidiah Stone.”

Solaris was not as helpless under my attack this time. His pulse thrashed in his throat, and his eyes were wild, but he kept up with me. He straightened his spine, eyes locked with mine, cruel desire swirling in his silver. Our lips were a breath away. “What fun would that be? I love it when you’re crazy like this.”

A fire lit in my lower belly. But I snarled, refusing to back down. I pressed my hand harder, but he only chuckled.

“You’re asking the wrong question,” he offered. “Ask me something else.”

I searched his face, my brows narrowed together. His face, so impossibly sharp and ethereal. A mystery. Yet… it had always seemed familiar . From the first time I ever laid eyes on him, I knew there was something in him that I’d seen before.

Ice and fire stormed in my abdomen, the truth charging the air between us. Close now. So, so close. On my tongue, dissolving like a snowflake. “Like what, Solaris?”

He dug his fingers harder into my flesh, making me cry out. He pressed me down against him. Leaned in, brought his lips to my ear. A rush of goosebumps whispered down my cheek, my baby hairs standing on end. “Ask me who my father is.”

Silence punched its fist down my throat.

My mind ruptured.

A thousand pieces of me floated off like dandelion seeds in the wind. Leaving me stripped. Bare and defenceless.

No.

I was blind. A fucking blind girl feeling her way through this miserable darkness.

I couldn’t see it. No. Not in the way he was carved in the image of malice and secrets. Not in his hair, how it was kissed with a glow of deep, threatening red. Or the way he carried himself, tortured and entitled and burdened. Arrogant, oppressive, mythic . Bearing a Divine Trait. A cruel god among men.

No. No.

Solaris had not felt familiar because of this .

“Yes,” he whispered, as if he could hear my thoughts. “There it is. You finally see.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Yes, beautiful. Yes .” His nose brushed mine, silver eyes blurring into one. I tried to lean back—to get away from him—but he had my hips in a death grip. And then he started to laugh, deep and mocking.

The tornado in my head corrupted my ability to physically react. Everything was hot, fuzzy.

I could see it.

Perhaps I had seen it from the very beginning.

The elevator dinged. The Goddess and her cruel, ironic timing.

The charge in the air shifted and intensified. I didn’t need to turn around to know whose heavy footfalls were coming for us.

Jedidiah scoffed in fervent disgust. “You wasted no time, huh Princess?”

The winged male between my thighs loosened his hold on my hips, letting go completely so he could lean back in the chair, looking so damn smug I wanted to burn his face off.

But I didn’t scurry off his lap. I owned this moment.

It took every fiber of my strength to school my features, but I fucking did it. I slowly turned my head to lock eyes with the skull-faced, blood-soaked creature collapsing on the sofa adjacent to the armchair.

His eyes . Massive and vacant. Dark. So dark. A midnight ocean ringed with fire.

Splatters of blackish-red blood stained his hands, jacket, and throat. Everything about him screamed violence. From the disheveled hair to the deranged glamour, his very aura. He reeked of death.

He had been hunting after all.

“You think I didn’t see you in there?” His words stirred something molten inside me. “Your glamour was good, but the dragon leathers and blind rage in your eyes gave you away.”

It felt like I had two hearts at war in my chest.

He sneered at me, his glare raking down my body, lingering low where my thighs straddled Solaris. I thought Jedidiah would lunge forward and rip me off of him. I thought he’d turn feral and claim me. But instead, he reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a baggy of fucking drugs and a small dagger.

My lips popped open, my brows furrowing with disdain. He poured the whitish-pink powder onto the glossy black coffee table. Chopped it up into two lines with the dagger which scratched the tabletop and made a sound that had my insides curling up. Then he leaned down and sniffed them both with one long snort. Shot back up with wide, unhinged eyes.

Solaris made a distasteful sound.

Acidic, unwelcome tears burned my eyes. I climbed off of Solaris, feeling like an absolute fool .

Everything clicked. Jed’s boundless fury, his mania, his ups and downs.

He stared into my soul, unapologetic. He waved a hand over his face, dismantling the skull, his true features hitting like a kick to the gut.

Standing between the two of them now, it was so clear.

The maliciously designed face of Lord Aries Vanderbilt invaded my mind’s eye and it felt like an assault. The red thread that tied them together.

Brothers .