“All right,” I say.“Tell me what I need to do to break the blood tie to you.”
“You can’t do it here.We have to go to Chicago.To my office.”
“For God’s sake.Are you kidding me?”
“No, Hannah, I’m not kidding you.You’ll have to cut yourself with the sacred blade, and I didn’t bother bringing it with me here to Las Vegas.”
“Can’t you...consecrate another blade or something?”
He shakes his head.“You really know nothing of your vampire side, do you?”
“I never wanted to.Knowing I had to be at your beck and call is enough.”
“All vampires are at my beck and call, Hannah.Did you ever stop to think why I choose you for such important tasks?”
“Yeah.To punish me.To drive me insane.”
He shakes his head again.“I choose you because you’re the smartest person I know.You have the intelligence of your mother and you have my shrewdness and cunning.And Hannah, there’s something else you’re forgetting.”
“I’m forgetting nothing, Dad.I want out.”
“You’ve made that clear, and I won’t stop you.But you realize, then, that when I die, the council will take your sister as monarch to the Brotherhood.”
A brick hits my gut, knocks the breath from me.“What?”
“What did you think?That the vampire heir could leave to join the enemy and there would be no consequences?”
Oh God Oh God Oh God.
No.Just no.
“Why?Why didn’t you make that clear when you said I could renounce my blood?”
“It would have been made clear to you in Chicago, during the ritual.”
He has me.He has me and he knows it.
I won’t forsake my sister.
But I won’t forsake Rogan either.
Blood.Blood versus mate.Blood versus love.Sister versus mate.Sister versus lover.
Where does my loyalty lie?I thought it lay with Rogan, but now...Larissa...
A choice no longer exists for me.
My father knew I still had a choice when I uttered those words only seconds ago.
I close my eyes, try to clear my mind...
And then I'm falling...
Falling...
Into nothingness.
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