Chapter 13

Robbie’s POV

"Slow down, please, you’re hurting me."

I didn’t stop. I leaned into the cries of the woman beneath me, using her pain to muffle the noise in my own head. We were in the back room at Robin’s place, the one with the massive leather sofa that wrapped around three walls. Usually, all five of us filled this space, but tonight it was just Rory and me.

Robin had sent in two girls to keep us busy. On the floor, Rory was already finished with the pleasantries. He moved with a cold, rhythmic cruelty, pinned to the carpet as he worked. He didn’t care about her comfort. He didn’t care if she could breathe. He was just biding his time, waiting for the exact second his body peaked so he could tear into her throat and drink his fill.

I kept my eyes on the wall, trying to let the physical friction burn away the image of a different face. Rilla.

Just thinking her name made my chest tighten with a familiar, toxic heat. Six years. I had spent six years scrubbing the memory of her from my brain. I had almost succeeded in forgetting the way she looked when she laughed, or the soft, deceptive warmth in her eyes that made me believe I actually mattered to someone. Then she came back. She walked back into our lives like she hadn't shattered everything we built, and now the hate was fresh again, raw and pulsing like an open wound.

I dug my fingers into the woman's hips, pushing harder. I wanted to feel nothing. I wanted to believe what I knew was true: women were parasites. They were liars and traitors, built to be used until they broke. If I could scrub their entire kind from the earth, I’d do it without blinking.

Except for Roberta and Rowena. They were the only ones who weren't rot. They were my family.

The memory of Roberta always tasted like home. She took me in when I was five years old, a stray kid with nowhere to go. She was already carrying Rowena then, and her son, Ripley, was the same age as me. We became brothers instantly. Roberta never made me feel like an outsider. She treated me like her own blood, a kindness I didn't think existed until I met her.

That feeling of being a guest in someone else's life finally ended the day Rowena was born. I remember standing by the crib, looking at this tiny, fragile thing.

"She’s our sister," Ripley had said, his voice bright and full of pride. "She's so small, Robbie. Look."

"She is," I whispered. I felt a weight settle in my chest, a sense of purpose I’d never had. My little sister.

Roberta sat up in the hospital bed and looked at both of us. "She belongs to both of you now. You have to be her shields. You have to protect her, no matter what."

We didn't even have to speak. We just nodded. From that day on, Ripley and I were shadows. We walked her to school. We stood in the hallways. We found every kid who even thought about teasing her and made sure they knew the cost of a single tear from Rowena. We were a family. We were happy.

Then Rilla happened.

That bitch took Rowena away. She ended a life that was supposed to be long and bright, and she did it without mercy. Ripley and I, the two people who promised to protect her, were the ones who had to dig her grave. We lowered our sister into the dirt with our own hands.

Roberta didn't last long after that. The grief was a poison that moved through her blood until it stopped her heart. Just like that, I was an orphan again. If it wasn't for Ripley and the others, I would have walked into the woods and never come back.

"Please... Alpha... stop..." the woman beneath me gasped. Her voice was thin, cracking under the weight of my grip. "I’m going to die... please..."

I looked down at her, but I didn't see a person. I saw a tool. Still, Robin’s voice echoed in my head, warning us to keep the staff alive. If we killed too many, the bar would run dry, and the girls would stop coming. They were already terrified of us. Most of them knew that being called to the private room was a gamble with their lives. We were only supposed to go that far when we were in heat, and even then, it was a messy business.

The truth was, this felt like nothing. For Alphas like us, sex without a bond was a hollow exercise. My body wouldn't even let me knot with a random girl from the bar. There was no connection, no spark of real emotion, just a mechanical need to vent the rage. Since Rowena died, every real feeling I had had been buried under six feet of spite.

I hit my limit, emptied myself with a grunt of frustration, and shoved her away.

"Get out," I muttered.

She didn't need to be told twice. She scrambled off the sofa, her legs shaking so badly she nearly tripped over her own clothes. She didn't look back as she fled the room. I slumped against the cushions, staring up at the dim light on the ceiling, my breath coming in jagged bursts.

Across the room, Rory was still moving.

I watched him for a second. It was almost more arousing to watch Rory than to do it myself. He wasn't like the rest of us. We were pure Alphas, but Rory had vampire blood in his veins. His hunger wasn't just about the body; it was about the pulse. It was darker, more desperate.

He reached his peak, his back arching, his muscles locking like iron. Then, his head snapped down. I heard the wet sound of his fangs sinking into the woman’s jugular. He began to drink, his throat moving in steady, greedy gulps as he drained her. Once he started, there was no stopping him. She was gone the second he broke the skin.

Robin looked the other way because he had to. One dead girl was better than a starving vampire tearing through the main floor of the bar.

When Rory finally pulled back, the girl’s body was a pale, limp doll on the carpet. He stood up, his chest heaving. The blood he’d taken seemed to pulse through him, making his skin look almost iridescent in the low light. It was a strange, haunting sight, a side effect of his mixed heritage that always looked a bit like magic.

He wiped a smear of red from his chin with the back of his thumb and looked over at me. His eyes dropped to my lap, noting that I wasn't exactly relaxed yet. He let out a dry, mocking laugh.

"Still wound up, Robbie?" Rory asked.

"You volunteering to help?" I shot back, my voice dripping with the same sarcasm.

Rory smirked, his eyes glinting with a dangerous kind of mischief. He took a step toward me, his tongue flicking over his teeth.

"How about I sink my fangs into it?" Rory said. "I bet I could satisfy you so well you’d never be able to get it up again."