Bending over Earl, Julian smiled as he sliced the man from his right temple to the corner of his eye. The cut was a mimicry of one of the wounds Earl had inflicted on Quinn when he’d tortured her while she’d still been human.
Quinn still bore that scar and all the others that Earl had left on her body. The wounds had healed when she made the transition into a vampire, but Quinn had continuously reopened them over the years to keep the scars from fading away. She no longer had to do that; the scars had been opened enough over the years that they were now permanent.
Quinn believed she deserved to wear those scars as punishment for having drained the rest of the blood from her dying uncle when she’d first awoken as a vampire. Julian knew she didn’t deserve them, or the guilt she carried for her actions; he could only hope that one day she would know it too.
Earl tried to turn away from him, but Julian seized hold of his chin and cut him from the bottom of his lip to under his chin. Much of the suffering Quinn had endured in her short life had been because of this man. And then this bastard had taken her from him. Earl had twisted her mind to his will and kept her imprisoned. It was bad enough Earl had dared to touch her the first time, that he’d done so again while knowing she belonged to him was something Earl would pay dearly for.
“Julian, you could be playing with fire if you do this,” Devon said.
Julian shrugged as he walked over to one of the workbenches lining the walls and grabbed three more knives. Clint’s room was fully stocked with all kinds of things capable of destroying a vamp, but for now, Julian only wanted the knives. “Then I’ll get burned, but I’ll be able to put the flames out.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I can do anything for her,” Julian replied.
Walking back over to the ugly little vamp, he grinned down at Earl before kneeling and gripping one of Earl’s feet. He turned Earl’s foot to the side before stabbing the knife through his ankle and deep into the earth. Earl howled and awkwardly struggled to break free, but there would be no escaping this.
Leaning over him, Julian grabbed Earl’s other foot and drove another knife through his ankle. He sat back on his heels and tilted his head to the side to admire his handiwork. Earl hadn’t pinned Quinn’s feet down like this, but he’d done the rest to her. Julian couldn’t resist inflicting this extra pain on him, and he was only getting started.
“You like making little displays,” Julian muttered as he ran another knife across Earl’s cheek.
While he’d been stalking Quinn, Earl had left a few repulsive displays of humans throughout the town to frighten her and remind Julian of his past. Earl was also the reason Quinn carried the added guilt of killing the Hunter, Zach. While under Earl’s mind control, Zach had staked Julian through the back. Quinn had drained Zach’s life from him in order to save Julian.
“How do you like this display?” Julian asked.
Unwilling to hear Earl’s reply, he drove the last knife through Earl’s throat, silencing the future screams he would make. Earl’s eyes bulged grotesquely from his head. His feet kicked on the ground as he jerked against the blades embedded within him, but he remained pinned.
Julian glanced at Devon as he walked by him to remove a chain from one of the walls. Devon remained standing at the bottom of the stairs, his gaze focused on Earl. Devon may be concerned Julian was walking a fine line between the murderous vamp he’d once been and the better one he labored daily to become, but Devon wouldn’t stop him from doing this.
Julian may not kill innocents anymore, but he was still a killer and nothing would change that. Devon understood that better than anyone. If it had been Cassie that Earl had tortured and stalked, Devon would be the one standing here with the knives and Julian would be worrying about him.
“I don’t think he likes it much,” Julian said as he wrapped the chain around Earl’s calves, just above the knives, and ran it toward one of the large metal hooks on the wall.
“I don’t think so either,” Devon replied.
Julian encircled the chain around Earl’s wrists next and ran them to another hook. Walking back over to Earl, he smiled down at him as he pressed his foot into his chest.
“I’d almost forgotten how entertaining this can be,” he said. He bent closer to Earl. The man gurgled and wiggled, but there was nowhere for him to go as Julian loomed over him. “You and I, we’re going to have some fun before I kill you. I am going to make you pay for everything you did to her, and then some.”
Earl wriggled against the chains and knives but only succeeded in tearing a bigger hole through his flesh and bone. He’d eventually succeed in ripping free of the knives, but the chains would keep Earl’s body bound and Devon would take control of his mind again.
“Take his mind back now,” he said to Devon. “Give him free will, but make sure he can’t latch onto anyone else’s mind or escape this room.”