My lips twitched. “It’s not that bad.” I paused. “Plus, I think it’s more humane than the other idea I had of stabbing you twice a day to make sure you are who you’re supposed to be.”
They contemplated the choice between being stabbed, and wearing the items I held.
King Collins’s eyes were even amused for a moment, glancing at me covertly.
I peered back to the items. “Or maybe you would prefer hot pink, since that’s the only other color I have available—”
“I’ll wear it,” Frost interrupted, the thought of hot pink apparently undoing him. He held out his hand, taking one of the braided black leather bracelets I held.
I nodded curtly. “Just keep your sleeve over it so that no one will see it.” I dangled the other, identical bracelet in front of Farley’s contemplative eyesight. “Black, hot pink, being stabbed…or you could always go back to the Temple if this detail is too much for you.”
His lips pinched. He hesitated, then he stated in a rush, “I’d actually like the hot pink. My daughter might like it for her dolls when I get home.”
I blinked at him in the silence. “All right.” I wasn’t going to question if that statement was the truth or not. I turned back to my bedroom. “One hot pink bracelet coming up.”
Instant. “Her name’s Chloe.”
“Didn’t ask.” I waved a hand. “No worries.”
I heard him growl quietly, but he didn’t say anything else behind me.
As luck would have it, I found a hot pink bracelet with a ‘C’ on it—her first initial and mine. I gave him that one because I believed him. “Since she likes colors, tell her the outlaw Prodigy Elemental gave that to her. She’ll probably think it’s cool.”
“Thank you,” he stated humbly and placed it on his wrist carefully. “She’s…unique.”
My lips lifted. “Her differences will liberate her.” I flicked a finger at him. “Just make sure she has at least one good friend amongst the herd.”
That night, shouts and the sounds of breaking items twirled through my mind, becoming a part of my frenzied dreams, but when the bed under me began shaking, my eyes shot wide open, staring into my dark bedroom. With my breath caught in my throat, I managed to grab my gun off the bouncing nightstand before it fell to the ground. I tumbled out of bed to the shaking ground, which stopped quaking when I heard multiple gunshots.
From my retiring room, King Zeller bellowed, “It’s Sin! Don’t kill him!”
Eyes still huge, breathing not yet normal after the furious rumbling that had awoken me, I jumped to my feet and raced through the room, falling down once as I tripped over a shoe before I got the damn door open. I rushed out with gun in hand, eyes darting across my torn up retiring room. I noticed Frost first, lying on the ground with his eyes closed and a bloody nose, a cell phone still gripped in his hand. Farley was sprawled over the crooked couch and the broken wooden coffee table. His head was bleeding, and his eyes were closed. Furniture had been tossed everywhere and bullet holes peppered one wall.
King Zeller had his hands up, his expression calm as he stood inside the opened door of my room. He spoke in a smooth tone, “They’re still alive. I’m sure he didn’t realize they were protecting her. From what I heard, they attacked him as soon as he walked into the room.” The eavesdropping Vampire had been hard at work.
I turned to where he was speaking. My gaze stalled on the other side of the room.
Terror seized my throat and froze me solid.
Because the One, wearing only a pair of white pajama bottoms, his muscled back to me, knelt on the floor with Sin lying on his stomach between his legs. The One had a fistful of Sin’s green hair to hold his limp head back. Sin’s eyes were closed. He was out cold.
The One held a wickedly curved silver knife to his throat.
The One asked slowly, his voice deadly, “This is Sin?”
Instant reply from King Zeller. “Yes.”
“Shit,” the One muttered, and he quickly yanked his blade away from Sin’s vulnerable neck. “Let’s not tell her about this, all right? Help me wake him before she sees him like this.”
“How about we have your gunshot wounds looked at first?” King Zeller murmured casually, slowly dropping his hands. But he tilted his head in my direction. “And she already knows.”
The One’s head snapped in my direction and he blinked, his silver eyes staring at me as I labored to breathe. He started cursing profusely, setting aside his silver knife and placing Sin’s head softly on the floor. “Put the gun down, Ms Jules. I’m not going to hurt him.”
My hand started trembling, and I looked down at the gun I hadn’t even realized I had aimed at him, my finger cramped on the trigger. I swayed, my arm instantly dropping to set the gun on a tossed chair, and I placed a bracing arm on the wall before I fell over.
“Go help her,” the One barked.