Though he was speaking, my eyes were on the study door. I could feel her approach, and I licked my lips eagerly. I felt that same crazy smile, Arys’s smile, that I’d worn when I’d slaughtered David. It adorned my features so naturally. The blood hunger seemed to hone in on the creature in the house that I wanted the most.
I had a good mind to tear out Zoey’s throat while Raoul watched, before letting Arys go at him. Wouldn’t that just be the most delicious fight?
Zoey appeared in the doorway to the small office. Her black hair hung to hide most of her round face. She didn’t look much like the smiling young girl in her picture. This version of Zoey Roberts was anything but striking. She looked like a Japanese cinema ghost.
Her skin was whiter than Arys on a bad day. Dark circles lined her eyes, and her dark blue wolf eyes were glazed. Her clawed fingers were bloody but the absence of fangs was a good sign. If she went completely wolf on us, she’d never come back.
Her clothing was all black. The rips and dirt on her jeans marked her scuffle with Kylarai. I didn’t see a weapon, but I assumed it was there. A jagged, blood-caked slice marred the white skin of her throat. The inside of her forearm showed bone where Kylarai had got her.
Zoey held her injured arm carefully at her side as if trying to hide how much it hurt. Her strange, blue wolf eyes blinked at me appraisingly before going to Arys. She believed him to be the bigger threat. I loved how wrong she was.
“How dare you barge in here like you own the place?” Zoey spoke to me but seemed reluctant to take her gaze off Arys for longer than a split second. “This has nothing to do with you, Alpha bitch.”
“Oh no?” With a flick of my wrist the swirling blue and gold orb exploded against her and showered colorful sparks overhead. I grinned when she went down on her rear end with a pained cry.
“When was it going to involve me? When you decided that it was my turn to die for letting your daddy coerce me into bed? I don’t think so.”
“Alexa, stop!” Raoul made a move towards me, and I raised a hand in defense. Before I could throw another energy ball, my dark vampire took Raoul down with a foot to the back of the knee.
“Wasn’t it you that asked for Alexa’s involvement in the first place?” Arys hissed. He twisted the bigger man’s arm behind his back with an inhuman strength. “You’re at the root of this entire mess, so why don’t you keep quiet while the ladies fight it out? You’ll get yours.”
Raoul grunted in pain. His ebony eyes glared at me as he refused to acknowledge the vampire holding him immobile.
I’d winded Zoey with the psi ball, but she scrambled to her feet. “You don’t get to kill him!” She screamed like someone who hadn’t known sanity for a very long time. It made me stop to consider my plan of action.
“Who’s going to stop me?” I challenged.
Fangs filled my mouth. The sticky blood that adorned her wounds was sweetly human. I ached to taste her human blood, laced with the energy of the wolf. I wanted her to rush me, the final push to finish what Kylarai had begun.
I didn’t expect her to break so easily. A torrent of tears streamed down her face, and a sob broke from her. Her misery pained and confused me amidst my need to kill.
“I didn’t do all of this just to have you take it from me. Kill me if you must, but I’ll be damned before I die without killing him first.” The girl’s determination was admirable. All she wanted was to make Raoul hurt. I could relate to that.
“Does it really mean so much to you?” I met her gaze evenly with my own wolf eyes. “To kill your own father.”
I followed her eyes to where Raoul knelt, straining against Arys’s powerful hold.
“Yes,” she conceded with her chin held defiantly. “I thought I wanted to bring him down, have him locked away in some wretched facility like he did me. But now, I just want this over.”
“Zoey please,” Raoul ground out through clenched teeth. “We can talk about this. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
I couldn’t believe he was so convinced they could talk it out and live happily ever after like a sitcom family. His reaction was deeply disturbing on a level that I didn’t understand.
“You’re f**ked, old man.” Zoey scowled but didn’t attempt to pass me in order to reach him. “You never cared about my well-being before I murdered your bitches. Why would you start now?”
She sounded resigned, as if she’d anticipated this discussion for a long time. I wished I could erase the past week and never let Raoul drag me into this in the first place.
Hunger and instinct gnawed at me, and I fought the urge to shift. My mind was running in the “act now, think later” mode.
“I always cared about you. There has never been a day that passed when I haven’t thought about you.” Directing his temper at me, Raoul shouted, “For God’s sake Alexa, could you call off your vampire?”
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head and my dyed gold bangs fell in my eyes. “You both need serious help.”