I wanted to look away from.
Because I saw death in his eyes.
I also saw life.
I saw things he shouldn’t have been.
I saw things that were impossible to see.
I saw my own shame. I saw my faults. I saw everything that made me a bad vampire, a bad person. I saw histories and deaths. I saw diseases, destruction. I saw war.
Trust. I needed to trust Cassius.
But I had a bad feeling that I hadn’t just mated with Mason.
But a fallen.
MASON
The aftermath.
The awareness of her body was like a balm to my heart.
It was also the only reason I wasn’t yelling at the top of my lungs, the only reason I wasn’t cursing Cassius into the abyss.
Other. My. Ass.
I was no more other than Cassius was honest.
I gave my head a shake.
I wanted to be wrong.
But I saw her face.
It was not the face of trust. It was the face of fear.
“Serenity.” Even my voice sounded different to my own ears; everything had heightened from the way the air shifted and shaped words into existence to the power I felt at even uttering them.
Ultimate power.
I craved it like I craved her.
“Mason?” She said my name like a question.
“Yes?” I answered the only way I knew how as confusion filled my head, my heart.
“Do you… do you know what’s going on?”
I shook my head. “I know you’re mine. That is what I know.”
The house shook with my statement, and I could hear the very earth roar to life, as if it was waiting for me to create, to call something into existence.
I didn’t feel evil.
But I felt evil all around me, tempting me, telling me to give in, so that I could be free.
Serenity took a deep breath and pressed her hands onto my shoulders. “We need Cassius.”