Nothing. Not a peep.

However, I do notice the small shift in the front window curtain and the two eyes that peep through. So sad. So pathetic.

“I won’t ask you again.” I’m positioned in front of the door, the only in and out the place has, except for a window in the rear that Cain is currently watching. To leave, she has to exit from here. “You have a minute before I enter.”

“You won,” Elise yells out from behind the door, and that pisses me off. Is this the kind of ire that Theodore feels when I’m wronged? When he’s disrespected? “You took everything from me and won…congratulations.”

“Thirty.”

“What more can you take? Let me live my life in peace here!”

“Nineteen.” My feet carry me closer, every step toward the cottage’s entrance making me shake. In anger. In disgust. “Ten.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“One.” Her steps retreat into the house, reminding me of a frightened rodent without an out. And I’m the cat in this scenario, kicking down the door with enough force that the wood shatters—the splinters flying across the room and one piece in particular embedding in her back.

She won’t die, but it does hurt.

“No…please. I’ll disappear.”

“You will,” I say, stepping over the threshold while the others stay outside. Not even Theo can be in the room, as we agreed. He wasn’t happy with it, but understood I needed to unleash my anger without distractions, and he is a very potent one. They also know to not interfere, no matter the circumstance. “I want you to regret your birth. To hate your father.”

Anger flashes in her eyes at the mention of him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Call him out for being a piece of shit who treated women as commodities, trophies to own and use at his discretion?” Her features harden, lip curling over her much smaller fangs. “Does that hurt? Having it shoved in your face that he didn’t love you, or is it that he used you as a way to further his own agenda?”

“Shut. Up,” she seethes, her claws extending. “He loved us. He took care of us.”

My tinkling laugh fills the small cottage. “He wanted to sell you to the highest bidder. The problem was that who he wanted had no interest in you. Theo always saw you as weak and superficial, Elise. Just another social-climbing whore who tried and failed to take what’s mine.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Like I snapped your daughter’s neck or how Theo murdered your son?”

“You bitch!” she lunges, going for my head, but I sidestep her. I’m faster. Stronger. Her body flies past me and hits the wall where the fireplace is, shattering the mantle.

“Is that the best you have?”

“You’re dead.”

I don’t bother to answer, because technically, I already am. Instead, I crouch and take notice of her foot placement. Elise leans heavily on the right, and when she jumps to tackle me, I kick out her leg, forcing her to fall into a split. Then, I’m on her and use a trick I picked up from watching Theodore dismember Detective Consuelos.

Digging my new claws in, I tear through her flesh and twist, breaking the bone and tossing her leg behind me. “Ouch. That does look painful.” Her whimper is a sweet little melody that I want more of, and I tear the other in the same manner. “Do you remember that day outside the café when you backhanded me, threatening to do more than that?”

“Please stop. You won.”

“I’m going to return the favor.” At my words, she tries to crawl away, but I reaffirm my position, dodging her hands as they come for my face. However, she’s not as fast and I have a chunk of her face in my hand before she can scream.

Her right cheek and half her lips are gone and blood seeps from the wounds: the same area she hit when I was defenseless.

Then again on her chest, exposing the muscles and ligaments below.

She might be a hybrid, but her human side is stronger in this instance than her vampire.

She’ll die like one.

Elise lays limp beneath me now, no fight left as the puddle beneath her grows.

“You once told me I was weak. Not worthy.” My fingers crawl over her exposed flesh toward her neck. Slowly. Meticulously, while also hoping she’d fight back. Elise doesn’t though. Instead, she shows me the scared girl she’s always been. “You could’ve had a beautiful life alongside your family. Watched them grow, have kids of their own, and now there will be no legacy left behind. Your name will be erased, and the last name Veltross dies with you.”

With that, I sink my nails in and tear out her throat, watching as the last of her life’s essence stains the ground and her breathing becomes shallow. Her heart stops beating. Her eyes are now lifeless, and I finally breathe out with peace settling into my bones.

Her death means a new beginning.

No more fighting. No more threats.

“Mortem,” I whisper low, my bloody hands touching the ground as I push the last tendrils of her energy toward death. She will no longer be of this world. She can no longer return.

I have no idea how long I sit here, lost in thought, when two strong hands lift me into a warm embrace. He will always be the right temperature to me. “Are you okay, pretty girl?”

His eyes are so warm. They hold so much love, and I cup his cheek with my blood-drenched hand and pull his mouth down to mine, kissing him with every bit of the love I hold for this wonderful man.

“I am.” And it’s the truth. I have my family back.

He may be a killer, but so am I.

He may be obsessed with me, but my need to possess might surpass his.

“And now?”

“And now…” another peck, a small bite to his bottom lip “…now we celebrate. I have over a hundred years of catching up to do, but tonight…tonight is for us.”

“For us?”

“Yes.” His eyes become hooded, the tip of his fang poking through his upper lip. “I have a king to spoil and a cock to ride.”

“Good girl.”

41

Epilogue

Queen