Page 47 of Sun-Kissed Fangs
Maya was his one success. And there were dozens of failures. Others who hadn’t survived his plentiful experiments.
He hadn’t even known what he was doing. He had just carved, punctured, and injected her with toxins untilsomethinghappened. The sun not burning her skin wasn’t even intentional. He hadn’t wanted aday-walkingvampire. Just a pretty toy he could show off.
The Chains had intervened. Had killed him and unleashed her in the process. Her first minutes of freedom were nothing more than a frenzy, with her losing herself to hunger and then murdering a group of borderline teenagers.
Thatwas who she was.Whatshe was. These past weeks she had suppressed all those monstrous aspects of herself and pretended to be normal, but doing so was a goddamn lie. The urge still flaring through her canines made it obvious.
She wanted more than the kiss. Wanted to find Harper again, pull her close, and make her come apart while sinking her teethinto her neck. Wanted to mark her soft, warm skin with aligned scars. To let everyone know Harper washers.
That should disgust her. But it didn’t. Instead, it just…was. It made her feel whole.
Made her feel like a vampire.
“Stop it.”
She buried her fingers in her hair, pulling at it as she started pacing.
This was wrong. So fuckingwrong. She had scars of vampiric possession on her own skin, and now she was fantasizing about producing them herself?
It was twisted.Selfish. As was what she had just done. When she saw Harper drive off, she had been too stuck in the present to see more than a few minutes beyond it. To see how messed up this was.
She’d done her job in the most sickening way. Had gained Harper’s trust, worn down her defenses, and with a few more days of sweet-talking, Maya could lure her away from this place.
And then Harper would learn everything.
She’d feel betrayed at first. Then angry. And then she would be as scared as everyone else.
Could she even be blamed for that? With what Maya was wishing for? These intense, constant,violentthoughts had no business being anywhere near Harper. She deserved more than that. Safer than that.
And despite it, the thought of anyone else giving her that safety started a furious fire in Maya’s chest.
A loud crunch sounded under her feet. Something hard scraping against asphalt, and it pulled her out of her spiral enough that her attention could shift.
Mortal eyes wouldn’t have seen anything of note. The snow and darkness would have masked it. But she saw it. Strewn all over the ground, covered by a thin layer of frost.
Broken glass.
A year ago, she wouldn’t have given it any thought. This wasn’t a great neighborhood, so it could easily be dismissed as petty vandalism.
But a year ago, she’d been human. The predator inside her saw this scene for what it really was.
An empty parking lot. A recently broken streetlight, right above Harper’s car. A manufactured darkness, fit for hunters to lie in wait.
Maya let her eyes drift over the nearby shadows. Concrete dividers and thick shrubbery lined the parking lot, both providing decent cover. But only from people who didn’t know what they were looking for.
She should have seen this sooner, but her attention had been on Harper rather than the monsters still snapping at her heels. She had not only forgotten why she had been sent to this city but also why she was therealone.
Fangs extended, Maya rushed forward, breaking through the snow-covered branches. They swiped at her exposed skin, stinging, but she barely noticed. Her entire focus was on the glowing eyes she’d spotted in the dark.
She crashed through the shrubbery, colliding with Kieran so hard they both got knocked to the ground. Shocked gasps followed as the group of people around him started back so fast that a few of them slipped in the snow.
She knew why they were there. What they had planned. And if Harper had left before Maya went to check on her and walkedto her car on her own, they would have succeeded in their sickening goal.
“You fuckingcoward.”
She twisted Kieran’s head to the side, baring his neck, but he wrenched free from her grip before she could do anything more than scratch him.
With a snarl, he reversed their positions. He pushed her onto her back, pinning her to the ground by shoving his arm against her throat. Searing pain followed. It pulsed from her stomach as though a flaming torch had been driven into her flesh.
