“Meaning we get to help break him of all those fucking rules and commandments?” Caden asks with a devilish laugh.
An elbow from Maddox has Caden looking at his twin. “No, I don’t mean fucking sheep, you sick fuck!”
At that, every single eye turns to Maddox and just stares.
Fuck.
Isaac looks utterly distraught now.
Maddox glares at Caden so forcefully I can feel the war between them in their own private connection.
Finally Maddox shoots Caden the middle finger and walks over to stand by Kian.
“I should have left you both at the bottom of the river,” I grumble.
“That was a joke.” Caden laughs at Isaac’s reaction.
Raphael snarls at the room and moves menacingly toward Isaac. “Time for questions and answers.”
“Easy, Raphael,” Andrei says, slipping between the two of them.
Pushing firmly through my connection to my coven, I make sure each and every one of my children heeds my words.
“No more violence,” I say, pointedly looking at Isaac. “We have little time, and even less patience. We’re in uncharted territory right now with you in our camp, and you’ll be helping us fill in a great many of the blanks we have.”
Isaac looks to me and leans back against a wall. His upper lip twitches with the hint of a sneer as he asks, “You want me to betray the Order?”
“Yes, just like you betrayed the friendship Chloe entrusted you with,” I say.
Isaac continues to stare hard into my eyes. He’s warring within himself. He knows I’m right, but he’s got years of indoctrination to free himself from.
“You wanted to protect her then,” I say not too unkindly. “If you still honor that friendship, assist us in protecting her now.”
“I failed!” he screams. “Look at the mess I’ve already made of things. She’s… She’s one of you now!”
Chuckles fill the room, my children amused by his outburst.
Save for Raphael.
“Just like you are,” Raphael growls. “We’ve all vowed to protect her from anything that would hurt her. Have you?”
“You won’t be free to return to the Order, if that’s what you’re hoping,” I say. “They’d never accept you back. You’d be killed on the spot. Unless… Unless they’re accepting vampires now like they have been accepting witches.”
His face reveals nothing, but I can feel his fear rippling into the room like a wave of black tar. He knows of witches at least, that much is sure. Did he directly work with one? I doubt it.
“I know nothing of witches,” Isaac growls, but it lacks the bite. “I’ve been told of your association with them enough to know that’s a lie.”
“Us?” A cold, dark laugh comes from Raphael. “Consorting with witches? Do you even know of the Witch Wars, boy? The ones we vampires fought to save this fucking world? Your Order wouldn’t even step in against them. No, they left it up to us monsters to fight true evil, and we lost countless lives. Humans and vampires, men and women died. Two of my own coven brothers died!”
Justin and Jeremiah, good men, good children of mine. We lost Jeremiah at the beginning of the wars, and Justin at the end. I think out of all of us, Raphael took it the hardest. He was closest to them. Raphael damn near died himself. It took almost three years for his body to heal from the wounds he received in those wars.
That’s the thing about witches, they don’t just murder vamps, humans, and whatever else that goes against them. No, they like to corrupt, to twist and infest. Vampires can glamour and use our wiles to get what we want.
A witch shatters minds.
They turn you against your own kind and force you to do awful things to your family and friends. So many things have been said about witches it’s hard to separate fact from fiction, but the one thing that’s true is all need to die.
Kian’s phone rings as we contemplate what’s been said. None of us are happy that the Order is accusing us of working with a witch.
Not when we’ve sacrificed and died to eradicate them.
Glancing down at his phone, Kian twists his head slightly and says, “Be right back.”
I turn my full focus back to Isaac. “How long were you drinking Chloe’s blood?”
“Since her first…” he starts but hesitates.
I’d probe his mind deeper, but whatever it is… even I feel repugnance.
“Her first what?” I ask.
“Her first period.” He shudders. “She was considered impure the moment she could bear a child.”
Fucking hell. Chloe is nearly twenty-one years old now. They’d been bloodletting her and feeding it to this fucking hunter for how long? I know our research says that most soulmarked are late bloomers, but I believe, from her memories, Chloe was sixteen when she came to maturity.
“Foul fucking beast,” Matthias yells angrily at Isaac. “A vile fucking beast you are!”
Nodding his head slowly, Isaac says quietly, “I wasn’t the only one who drank.”