28. Pulling Triggers Quickly With Full Blowback

The smile Liora wore was a rictus.

The strained smiles people performed while visiting an ailing loved one in hospice. They believed it made their sick family member feel better to see their false joy.

Lies. It always made it worse. It sat rigid and sore on her face as they wove through the busy street, Ash a ceaseless shadow behind her, leading to the bar.

He remained silent despite the glares he got from those still waiting once they saw he got to cut the line. She lifted her chin and daggered them with her own dirty look. Raymond knew she had come; she noted as the brawny, brown-eyed man guarding the door nodded at her.

His leering gaze trailed her scantily clad form and finally got a reaction from the phantom behind her. Ash’s hand, freezing, reluctant, and stiff, rested at the base of her spine.

Touching her warm skin as her dress was backless. She shoved down a shiver and scanned those in line, glancing between her and Ash with utter contempt and confusion.

One look at her snarled upper lip, and they all found somewhere else to stare. Ash didn’t seem to notice.

Or he didn’t care, was used to it. This leech, this man, had gone toe-to-toe with her from the start.

Never backed down, never broke...

this side of him made warnings flash in her head. Her shadows whispered in her ear, telling her of his nails cutting into his palms.

His eyes had glazed over, the silver in them besmirched and depthless, like coins on a dead man’s eyes. Even the hard line of his jaw had sharpened as they walked down the busy street.

Drunkards stumbled and hollered, cars pounded on their horns as stupid men and women fell into the road. The stench of them choked the air.

But Ash was somewhere else.

When she risked speaking, he just nodded after a heartbeat that stretched too long. Eyes focused on some faraway point only he could see.

Something vicious, helpless, and scorching clawed at her insides. And it had nothing to do with her demon for a change. She wanted to shake him.

Throttle him. Force him to explain. But as the guard opened the door for them, she pushed it aside and took a taut breath before entering Raymond’s den of sin.

Strobe lights blinded her as the pounding, pulsing music throbbed from the speakers and into her bones. Making them vibrate as she steeled her spine. A hostess, tall with ink-black hair and vibrant sapphire eyes, led them to a booth in a dark corner.

Her gaze lingered on Ash, on the bite Liora had left on his throat. Her claws unsheathed, but he didn’t pick up on the woman’s interest. She sighed and didn’t thank her as she left to fetch them drinks.

She slid into the booth, expecting her silent vampire to sit across from her. Frowning as he sat beside her but angled his body away, facing the edge of the table as if to make a quick getaway.

She bit her tongue as the hostess returned with two glasses of top-shelf whisky and the bottle. Her shoulders slumped at the sight, hand reaching for it without command.

Her senses went on overdrive as she marked the exits and pinpointed those who might cause trouble. Most were too busy openly groping each other or downing drinks laced with witch-crafted aphrodisiacs to bother with anyone else.

Liora downed her glass, refilling it and sipping on it as she considered her words.

Just grab him and demand he act like he wants to be around us! What the hell is wrong with him?

Her demon ranted.

Liora snorted, tucking her pale hair behind her ear just as Ash turned.

His entire frame petrified in place as he met her eye. Throat bobbing, mouth flattening before his head whipped back around to face the writhing crowd.

His fingers drummed on his thigh, staccato and out of rhythm with her pulse. The music drowned out the racket of her crazed hummingbird heartbeat. She slammed her empty glass down on the table and gripped his arm.

He wrenched it away from her. She recoiled as if burned and her shadows stilled as he said, “Don’t—Don’t touch me.”

“What the fuck is your problem? Why did you come if you were going to act like this?”

He still didn’t look at her. His back tensed even more. His voice was a low, fractured growl as he replied, “Nothing. I’m fine. Just do what you need to do and let’s go home.”

Everything inside her went quiet and froze.

Home.

What was home to a nomadic creature like her?

To a creature like him? Fire burned in her stomach, claws trembling as a vein in her forehead pulsed.

The grave dirt taste of fury flooded her whisky-stained mouth. “I don’t have a home. You won’t have a bed to sleep in either if you keep acting like this.”

He chuffed a laugh, but it ached again, scratched her ears raw. “Whatever. Just hurry. Please.”

Please.

That word struck her in a place that bled. He had never said it. He always took or demanded. It shut her up, and she stopped trying. She wanted to go back to the penthouse.

Call the night a failure and sleep it off alone. Raymond traipsed over just as she decided to leave.

His voice, like an oil slick, grated over the music.

“Layla. The years have been a thief, stealing you from us.”

Gods, what a creep. She suppressed a shudder as Raymond took her hand, his lips lingering on her knuckles a beat too long. His soft palm contrasted her calloused one and told of an easy life.

What was that like? She couldn’t imagine a world where constant vigilance, nomadic living, and weapons within arm’s reach wasn’t her normal. Ash abruptly slid closer, his thigh beginning a frantic bounce.

“Raymond.” She retrieved her hand, barely resisting the urge to wipe it off on her dress. The name was poison on her tongue. “The world keeps me busy. I see your... harem is still thriving.” She gestured vaguely at the opulent bar.

The incubus preened, his hazel gaze sliding from her to the tense vampire at her side. “It does. I’m actually in the market for an eighth.” His eyes locked back on her—smug, greasy, and knowing. “But I suppose you’re no longer on the menu?”

She flinched. Ice skated through her veins. The number slapped the air. Ash turned to her. His eyes dropped to her collarbone as if he could see the hidden VIII brand burning there.

“She’s not interested,” Ash cut in, his tone a low threat.

Liora forced a tinkling laugh, waving a dismissive hand. The poised portrait of bored amusement. “Pay him no mind. He’s feeling a little territorial tonight. It’s rather...

quaint.” She spat the last word at Ash.

He observed her as she spoke, but only offered a hollow, haunted half-smile that was more like a kick in the teeth as she met his gaze.

Raymond chuckled, a sound of pure condescension. Incubi were always sleazy. Off-putting. But none more so than this man. Most of his own kin avoided him. If he could sniff and kiss his own asshole, he would.

His ruddy cheeks darkened, thin mouth curling. He was always well groomed. Much too polished. He took better care of himself than any other demon she knew.

“No matter. To what do I owe the real pleasure, Layla? You don’t visit just for my charming company.”

“Information,” she said, leaning in, playing the game. It wasn’t fun anymore. None of this was. “You’re the first person I thought to ask. Nothing gets past you.”

“Of course. Ask away! Is it about the other one? The succubus who went missing last month?”

The air vanished. Her chest filled with static. Both she and Ash stared, wearing matching masks of shock.

A succubus. Missing?

Maya? No, that wasn’t her damn name. But she was the only other. The woman couldn’t be dead. She would have sensed that, or heard the echo of her demise ringing through the Shroud long before this night.

Still, the knowledge that someone might have captured a succubus settled in Liora’s gut like a ball of iron wrapped in barbed wire. Her hands wanted to curl into fists, all the magic inside her swelled.

The urge to go searching for her almost sent her feral.

She’s alive. She could be seeking new hunting grounds. Calm down, she ordered herself.

“It wasn’t but maybe it’s connected. Missing? How do you know she hasn’t just rewritten herself?”

Ash looked at her. Questions swam in his tarnished eyes. She let him wonder. This morning, she might have told him.

Too late for that now. She focused back on the smirking incubus. His oak moss and oud fragrance was a visible cloud around him. Raymond’s head shook again, face turning grave.

“She’d have turned up with a new skin by now. No one’s seen her.”

Liora inclined her head. True. She always resurfaced within a week or two of rewriting herself. Her public name and form always changed, but everyone eventually knew when a succubus was in town.

“Was it anything to do with the hunters regrouping?” She prodded.

Raymond loved being the center of attention. He all but bared his throat as she and Ash waited for his response. His grin grew so wide it was all pearly white teeth.

“They’re a nuisance! Worse than flies around shit.”

She wanted to tear the prick’s heart out, make him eat it, but managed to keep her sultry smile in place.

“Easier to kill, though.” She sipped her whisky. Ash ignored his glass and grabbed the bottle.

She and Raymond watched as he sank a quarter of it. Her hand twitched to snatch it from him. The incubus raised an eyebrow at her.

“Have they troubled you much? Their base is well hidden,” She said, trying to salvage something from this awful night.

“A little bit of bother. Easy to clean up.” Raymond puffed his chest out, leaned closer and whispered, “You should take a trip to the Hamptons. You look like you need it!” The bastard had the gall to wink.

Before she could thank him, his group of infatuated lovers swarmed like horny locusts, and he said his farewells. “Must dash, Layla! My playthings have a new trick to show me. Enjoy your... pet.”

Liora smiled until the other man vanished. Letting it slide off with a clatter as Ash slid out of the booth and offered her his hand. She batted it away and rose to her feet, storming past him and to the door.

Knowing he followed, by the chill against her bare spine. She waited until they were in a dark alcove before she said, “Can I touch you now or do you want to walk back?”

He nodded. She took it to mean the former and grabbed his arm and phased when he didn’t yank it away. The silence screamed the whole ride back.

She dropped him at the penthouse and vanished again. Not giving him a chance to ask where she was going.

She went only to the rooftop. Bird droppings splattered the concrete as she sat down and leaned against the door leading inside.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm her rampant heartbeat. What the hell was going on with him?

What had happened between this morning and tonight to inspire this?

Her demon murmured, the glamor. That’s what started it.

She sighed. Of all the people she’d ever risked getting close to her, their fear of her had never stopped her from confronting them in the moment. This time, she had thought herself clever enough to avoid it happening at all.

Only to find herself tangled up in something she hadn’t considered as an option. Her monster—that cursed form she kept locked down—that’s what should’ve caused this.

Liora searched her memories for clues, avoiding all the blank spots she’d sold to Barbatos. And came up empty.

He hadn’t ever mentioned anyone called Claire. She stared up at the stars. And did not dare to make any more wishes.

She stayed like that for two hours. Hiding from him. Hiding from whatever truth he’d spit at her once he regained his voice.

A shameful, weak, and... no. For the first time, she was lost. Lost in a way that welded her to that rooftop.

Until she’d had enough of it. Her darkness swayed as she stood and left the skyline behind.

She took the mortal route back to the penthouse. Pausing outside the door to draw in a breath and steel herself. She expected a fight, but something told her a different storm had brewed. Her claws sheathed.

First, she’d get answers. Then she’d figure out the next step. She pushed her way inside, shadows coiling close and flying ahead. Smacked in the chest by the scent of bergamot, bourbon, and... salt?

She frowned and let the door slam shut behind her. Her heels muffled on the rug as she strode purposefully. She made no move to drop the glamor as she entered the living room.

If it was the trigger, she’d pull it. As many times as it took. He sat slumped in the leather armchair. A bottle in hand. Several lay empty at his feet.

All laced with her blood and venom. She didn’t look at him as she passed, heading for the sidebar.

Her hand was steady as she picked up the only bottle he hadn’t touched and poured a finger of whisky into a short crystal tumbler.

Then she deliberately sat across from him on the chaise, crossing her legs, and letting the stiletto dangle from her heel. She said nothing, staring at him. The marshmallow-vanilla scent of her perfume clung to her like a challenge.

She sipped her drink, resting it on her knee. He glanced up, eyes already hazy with drink as they widened briefly. Fresh pain flitting across his face until he looked away again.

“The silent treatment was an imaginative choice. Not one I expected from you,” she began, her voice dangerously calm. “It’s grown tedious. You have until I finish this glass to start talking. You can begin with ‘Claire.’”

Everything stopped in that moment. Their breathing, blinking, and her heart beating. Before it slammed back into motion.

The bottle in Ash’s hand cracked, black blood dripping and mingling with the bourbon. His expression distorted from agony to a marrow-deep predator’s rage, jumping back to empty in half a blink.

She waited for the torrent of cutting remarks. His response was almost as worn down as he looked.

“Blond doesn’t suit you.”

She gave a humorless snort. Her fingers tightened around her glass. “Neither does self-pity. But here you are. Drunk and maudlin in my parlour. Explain.”

He surged to his feet, the bottle a blur as he flung it, shattering against the wall. “Leave it alone, Liora. I don’t want to... I can’t risk it!”

She didn’t flinch. Her pulse stayed steady. Claws sheathed. Platinum hair slid over her shoulder, and he tracked the movement like a cornered, injured wolf.

She scanned him. He clenched and unclenched his fists, panting as he tried to pull himself together. Was it her he feared? The glamor?

Or was it something much deeper? She straightened her spine and met fire with fire.

“You’ll do it or you’ll leave. Find some gutter to sleep in.” She let her words hang between them.

Heart beating like a snare. Tension snaked between them, thrumming under her skin. It was a living thing as he swayed.

She said, “Sit down before you fall.”

He chuckled. Even that was dead. “Make me.”

She did.

She flew at him. Shoved him, snarling in his face as she pinned him to the chair, her knee between his thighs. Her clawed hand splayed over his sternum as he closed his eyes, screwing them shut to avoid looking at her.

He was so precisely contained normally. That containment was failing—one wrong move, and he’d scatter in a million frosted pieces.

“You reek of bourbon and bullshit, Ashton. Who. Is. Claire?”

He shuddered. Scent muddied as her shadows wove through his mussed hair. There was something lurking just beneath his pallid surface.

Something she’d only caught glimpses of.

“Take it off first.

Please. Just take it off.”

Please.

There went that word again. It was so wrong. His tone was a shredded, forlorn thing.

Raw as her firing nerves. The hair on her nape lifted, stomach quivering as if the weight of the world balanced on a knife’s edge. She swallowed thickly, and let the glamor fall away.

Copper hair, black eyes, and creamy skin taking its place.

“Done. Speak.”

He cracked open an eye, checking to see if she was lying. She felt him deflate physically as he saw her usual form. Her shadows braided his wrists more in comfort than restraint.

What did they sense?

They stayed stubbornly quiet despite her internal interrogation. She made no move to back off. His head thudded back onto the chair. He sighed heavily through his nose as she waited.

His jaw clicked, mouth opened, and he shook his head. She growled, but he said, “Drop the wall and I’ll show you. I—I can’t explain it.”

She leaned back an inch. Scanning his face for the trick he wanted to play to get out of this. He spoke again when she didn’t find it.

“I won’t poke around. Just... let me show you. Then you can kick me out.”

Her chest tightened. How bad could it be that he thought that was the only outcome?

Her mind went back to the night they’d met. Right before they fucked, he’d said she wasn’t the first monster to hide behind a pretty mask.

She was the only one who bothered to keep it up. Had he meant Claire even then?

And she’d seen his mask, that infuriating jester’s cowl, had slipped once the primal hunger hit and their clothes came off. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know anymore. But he pleaded with those storm-cloud eyes.

Her shoulders slumped. She allowed the wall between their minds to collapse. He made a relieved sound, and his trembling hand rose to cup her jaw.

His chilly fingers soon warmed against her heat. His eyes closed again; hers did too. There was a moment of pressure, her consciousness resisting the intrusion.

She let him in. His memories detonated. She gasped as a flashbulb of images fused to her mind.

It was a complete reliving. His vampiric recall grafted itself onto her nerves, a psychic surgery suturing his past to her cerebral cortex.

Her skin crawled and stretched too tight over her bones in the present, ears ringing. She tasted it.

Mint and evergreen. But the taste wasn’t hers or his. It was hers.

The platinum blond writhing beneath him, long tresses fanned like streams of pale sunlight across the black silk, back arching and cunt clenching around his cock.

Claire.

Liora choked on the name. Choked on the phantom ache of Claire’s climax cresting. She was in his head in the vision. Ash’s transformation into the venomous virtuoso she’d seen when she first let him inside her.

It originated here.

She flinched away from it as the woman’s hips bucked into his thrust. Sex was Liora’s domain. She required it to live. The scene before her...

It’s just not right. The succubus inside her sang harmonies, agreeing. Invisible many-legged bugs squirmed under her skin. This was a battle for him. She had no other way to put it into words.

She wanted to close her mental eyes, take a long bath with bleach, and drink until she blacked this out. Similar to mortals at the scene of a crash or crime, she couldn’t stop watching.

Claire’s false heartbeat was a poltergeist beating his sensitive ears bloody, nothing but a glacial, singular purpose locked his system down. This was the only way.

His only chance. She wouldn’t let him get close enough to try again if it failed. Liora’s breath hitched, sensing him tense in the present.

Her claws sank into his chest as the vision unfolded in cruel, crystalline detail.

She felt his rage simmering underneath his arousal. The scent of his desire was thinner than when he was inside her.

The thought was unwanted. Part of her eased by it, the rest of her cringing at it. His mind worked away the entire time.

The faces of his mother and his brother, safe and unaware Claire had threatened their lives, flashed behind his eyes. This was pest control.

She was a rabid animal he was putting down for the safety of the entire ecosystem, starting with his own.

Too many had suffered because of her. Even if he had to die with her, he’d ensure he was the last. She smirked as he leaned into the pierce of her claws in real time.

The scene played on. Claire’s nasal, desirous tone was a pumice stone scraped down Liora’s spine. Her own throat formed the phantom words.

“See, didn’t I tell you? You’re better like this. Like me—oh, fuck.”

Liora’s own pulse rattled in her neck as a jolt of adrenaline filtered through Ash at his ex’s claim.

“Better now you’re truly mine, Ashton. Forever.”

One thought rolled through his mind, and Liora’s heart stuttered as his actual body pressed even closer to her.

Forever has a short time limit.

That wasn’t what he said. He didn’t say a word. He fucked his ex harder and allowed a moan to fall from his mouth. His name spilled like a prayer from Claire’s lips again.

Liora detested the entitled sound. So did Ash. He never missed a beat. His disgust was a cold, sharpening stone for his will.

His stomach roiled, a confusing, sickening mixture of pleasure and determination. He let the bile rise, let the venom coat his throat.

It was all fuel for the perfect, predatory rhythm of his hips. He was giving the performance of his life, and his hatred was the script. Another layer of the monstrous plaything he was pretending to be for Claire.

He coaxed her along as she rippled along his length, fingers relentlessly circling her clit, pushing her to an orgasm she didn’t deserve.

Her eyes opened as her stomach tensed, lilac contacts dissolving to sulfuric yellow tinged green, pupils slitting before she slammed them shut again.

“There... right there.” Claire’s erotic cry hit harder than any blow.

Liora felt everything.

The friction of the sheets, every damned inch of his cock as he lunged deep inside Claire’s lukewarm cunt. Even the sting of his dead, quiescent heart behind his sternum as he reached under the pillow.

The yew stake he’d hidden there burned his palm as he slid it out. Its weight was cool, solid, and familiar, an extension of his will. The culmination of all she’d done.

Liora couldn’t breathe. She had killed so many this way. It was a horrendous metaphysical mirror as reality fragmented.

Claire’s hair melted like wax. Liora’s mind pulled away from the scene of Ash’s sire in sensual repose. And from the sweetened rot that emanated from her as she quivered and shouted his name without artifice.

The word “sire” descended like a hot stone down her throat, sinking lower and lower until it sizzled in her stomach. Roasting a hole through it. Ash’s resonant voice trickled through her ringing ears.

“You feel her, don’t you? How she shook for me?” His pupils had fragmented splodges of ink marring silver, a greyscale kaleidoscope. “She was too arrogant. So used to getting her own way, she considered no other outcome than my total submission.”

His fractured tone faded as his memory swallowed her again. It was as if someone had turned the ignition on in the past, shooting forward at breakneck speed. His hands drove the stake home as Claire’s orgasm tore through her.

Crack.

Her scream of pleasure transfigured to one of purest agony as it ruptured her ribs. The crackling of bones, snap of tension in Ash, and Claire’s glamor breaking was like a shotgun blast.

Ash smiled, grim and grateful, as fireless smoke ribboned out from it. He focused barely on his own pleasure.

Too busy admiring his brutal revenge as black veins spidered out from the carved wood sticking out of her. The woman’s scream turned to pleading.

She showered him with a hail of promises never to harm his family. Apologizing for all her past threats toward them. They pelted him as he twisted the stake. He almost believed her.

He almost felt guilty, Liora sensed. Claire’s feigned remorse changed into a croaking laugh as splinters of yew coursed through her system.

Burgundy blood bubbled from her blue lips, stinking of wilting roses and chlorophyll.

“You idiot,” she crooned despite the thick, dark veins bursting across her face and neck. Her trembling hands cupped Ash’s face even as she crumbled. “You’re as fucked as I am. You’ll never know peace again. I’ll always be in you.”

Silence fell with a resounding crash as she slumped and all her borrowed life force drained from her.

It was a silence so loud it may as well have been a shriek. The memory disintegrated into snowy static, but the stench lingered—rotten roses and sweetened vampire decay. It faded to black as Ashton spoke again.

“She wanted a pet, something that could never leave her.” His voice shook. “She leveraged everything I cared about to get it. I let her think she had me just long enough to make sure she could never try again.”

His voice bled back into the past for a strained heartbeat—Claire’s parents’ choked screams, the wet snap of his own neck when she turned him. And the brutal sanity and humanity corroding hunger that followed.

The bodies he drained while training himself not to fall victim to bloodlust. To keep the part of him that had assassinated Claire without remorse dormant.

A struggle he kept hidden behind his jokes, taunts, and pet names. The monster had come out again when he lost or had to give up everything he loved, anyway.

It had all been for nothing. She watched him running from town to town, state to state, whenever the hunters caught wind of him.

Abruptly, It all ended, leaving her reeling. His mind peeled away; hers spun. She couldn’t believe the little bat had been so ruthless.

She was breathless as her vision cleared and found him watching her. Wary eyes restless. The echo of his past had seemed real.

The slick, middling warmth between Claire’s thighs, the yew’s poisonous bite, and the lethal fury of a newborn vampire who shouldn’t bleed anything but frost. He seemed to await some foul judgement.

“You should have drained her veins while you were at it,” she said, claws sheathing, pulling free of his skin.

He gave a wry laugh that was little more than a gelid puff of air. Then his shoulders relaxed.

His eyes shone a little brighter. The silver blurred by a fatigue that had nothing to do with the bourbon he’d sunk all night.

It was bone-deep exhaustion of an atrocious secret finally laid bare. A partial exorcism of a demon he’d invited in, and carried with him through his forced second life.

She chewed on her lip as the fight went out of him in a visible, weighty wave. The rigid line of his spine gentled, melting into the soft leather as though someone had cut his strings.

His head lolled back in a slow, gravity-fed capitulation. Her lungs expanded with the first deep breath she’d been able to take since they’d left for the bar. Her feverish hand had wrapped around the side of his chilled neck.

She couldn’t remember doing it, but didn’t pull it away. A long, ragged sigh hissed through his teeth.

It carried the ghosts of evergreen, ash, and rotting roses—his usual scent buried beneath it as his body gave into sleep.

The alcohol wasn’t the sedative here. She knew what this was. The ultimate weight on a scale already overloaded with memory. The one that tipped it over and sent his usual strong-will into a tailspin.

Her stomach was a nest of snakes. Her thumb idly stroked the bite mark she’d given him as the battle waged on his face. The urge to stay present.

To guard himself against anything anyone might do to him while he was vulnerable. And the sheer, crushing weight of the relief that came after confession—all of it was clear in his body language as the latter won.

His eyelids fluttered, opening a shade before they grew too heavy and glued together. Her shoulders curved, throat tightened, and her tongue felt too big for her mouth. He was letting go. Consciously and completely, trusting her.

For the first time in years, he wasn’t holding the horror alone. He’d entrusted her with it. The knowledge was a knife at her throat even as that festering thing in her chest warmed, swelled, and shivered.

In true Ash fashion, he didn’t succumb without having the last say. He slurred the words, but they were intentional. His last anchor thrown to the waking world—to her.

“Don’t wear that glamor again.”

The last dregs of tension left him so suddenly she almost toppled into him. Catching herself with a hand on his broad shoulder. She nodded, not trusting her voice, hoping he felt her agreement.

He went wholly still. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest broke the unnatural motionlessness. She waited a few minutes, studying his face for any sign he might wake.

He slept on. Body demanding a rest it hadn’t received for over five years.

Her heart pitched a fit in her chest as she disentangled herself from him and sat back down on the chaise. Heat flickered under her skin. A hot, frothing beast paced and clawed her sternum as she began her vigil.

And a sickening, knotting sensation pulled at her internal organs as her thoughts spiralled. Her glamor earlier could’ve been Claire’s sister, not quite twins but close enough that it had caused this. Caused his usual fearless, reckless self to shut down and act like a wounded animal.

His last attempt to keep the darkness caged after she’d accidentally unleashed it. If she knew where Claire’s ashes had been left to rot, she’d go piss on them. She wasn’t easy to be around; she wasn’t sweet, and she definitely wasn’t soft.

But she wasn’t Claire either. She did not want to make a pet of him. The past made fools of them all. History was a spiteful composer, and they were its instruments.

Commanded to endure the same agonizing symphony whenever it decided it was time to play. Its conductor cared not about the violation, only that they heard it. She observed Ash as she finished the whisky she’d poured earlier.

Savouring the slow, smoky burn as it trickled down her throat. His mind was open as he slept. The mask he usually wore still lay in pieces on the floor.

The practiced charm, the sardonic grin... its evaporation had left behind something Liora had never seen in him and couldn’t be leashed in sleep. His broken, tortured screaming started sooner than she anticipated.

Her shadows draped over him as though to soothe him. They could heal physical wounds, but not the internal. And his still bled. What poured into the bond finished his story.

The true root of his well-hidden anguish. It hadn’t belonged to Claire, not really.

She was the catalyst. The chain of events he’d tried to prevent by killing his sire played out with the brutal, unedited clarity of a death knell. Speeding from scene to soul-destroying scene.

The brother he couldn’t save. The hunters who broke him. She went rigid. Joints creaking as she tried to fathom why they’d done it. She hated them for all they’d done to her, to her world.

She had known they wanted him. They wouldn’t stop trying to catch him, even with her around. They had succeeded in the past.

They never relented once they had caught him. Scalpels sliced, serums sank deep, and their exsanguination experiments to see if he survived went on for what seemed like forever.

Their surgical instruments aimed at his body again and again, all those scars... Her claws sank into her thighs, relishing the piercing pain, needing it to anchor herself. All those bioluminescent veins he never explained.

She saw why now. The lengths they’d gone to shatter him were beyond her scope of their operation.

The people his dreams focused on weren’t the hunters she’d been exterminating. They could complete their tests without worrying about their budgets because they had somehow fully equipped their lab. Something wasn’t adding up.

Someone was funding this. Enabling these pests to autopsy and mutilate monsters while awake and able to feel every ounce of agony the mortals introduced.

Her teeth squeaked as she gritted them, claws trembling and sharpening, lengthening. She rose to her feet in a slow, fluid, shivering motion.

Her shadows shook, hissing and forming into her umbral vipers as they slid off Ash and wreathed around her. Hellfire filled her marrow, body heating and her eyes hardening as he screamed again.

The sound speared her ears. The air warped around her as the noise cracked into a torn rasping. And something in her, something cold, old, and fucking furious, finally snapped.

She phased out of the room, leaving him to his nightmares. He had fought his war alone. She had thought to train him to wage her own against them. No, he didn’t deserve that fate.

She would fight this round for him. They’d fight the rest together.