Semua Bab My Arch Nemesis in my Bed: Bab 201 - Bab 210

Beta Samuel’s phone buzzed at 11:47 PM and he didn’t need to check the screen to know who it was.He’d been waiting for this call for three days now, ever since the last text said they needed to meet in person. Samuel had spent those three days trying to figure out what the hell could have changed that was important enough to risk a face-to-face meeting when they’d spent years being careful to never be seen together.The abandoned house was on Route 9 with sagging porch, boarded windows and grass that had grown wild enough to reach the first-floor windowsills.Something felt wrong about this whole situation but Samuel couldn’t put his finger on what exactly, just had this nagging feeling in his gut that said he was walking into something he wasn’t going to like.The front door opened before he could knock and Jonathan opened.“You’re late,” he stepped aside to let Samuel in.“Traffic,” Samuel lied.The inside of the house was worse than the outside, all rotted floorboards and peeling

The last two weeks had been a special kind of hell.School was a disaster. Missing weeks of classes meant professors didn’t care what kind of personal emergency you’d had, they just wanted to know when you were turning in the makeup work. Dr. Dooley had been understanding about my research project, which I’d already done most of the groundwork for anyway, but Madison—the same Madison who used to make my lab sessions miserable when I was group leader—had done a complete personality transplant and was now almost aggressively nice to me. It was almost more unsettling than when she’d hated me.Cameron had caught me in the hallway once between classes and asked if I was okay, said I looked stressed, and I’d deflected because what was I supposed to say? Yeah, I’m fine, just dealing with my father who’s a war criminal and also there are vampires out there for my blood and I’m pretty sure my mate still hasn’t forgiven me for waking up said war criminal father without asking permission first.

Luca made it back to the underground chamber in under three minutes and Aurora was kneeling next to Lily’s unconscious body with her hands glowing that green color that meant she was trying to heal something and Jessica was reinforcing the barriers.“What happened?” Luca demanded, already moving toward them even though he knew he couldn’t get through the barriers without Jessica dropping them first.“Blood magic,” Aurora said without looking up from where she had her hands pressed against Lily’s chest. “Someone’s targeting her through Arden.”Luca felt his stomach drop because that meant someone had gotten close enough to Arden to take a sample, had planned this to coordinate it with the attack.“Can you stop it?” Luca asked, and he hated how desperate he sounded but he didn’t care because Lily was lying there not moving and he could see her chest rising and falling but barely, like each breath was taking more effort than she had to give.“I’m trying,” Aurora said, and the frustration

Cain felt something cold settle in his chest because he’d always known Samuel was ambitious, had always suspected the man was capable of putting his own interests above the pack’s, but standing here looking at him with a weapon raised over Arden’s defenseless body made Cain realize he’d severely underestimated just how far Samuel was willing to go. “Step away from him, Samuel,” Cain said, keeping his voice level even though every instinct was screaming at him to shift and rip Samuel’s throat out right now. Samuel tilted his head like he was considering it. “Or what? You’ll tell on me? Run crying to your brother about how mean old Samuel broke the rules?” He adjusted his grip on the blade and Cain watched him position it directly over Arden’s heart, and time did that thing where it slowed down and Cain could see exactly what was about to happen and knew he was too far away to stop it. “This pack has been weak for too long,” Samuel said, and now there was heat in his voice, genuine

I woke up because everything hurt in that way that meant something bad had happened, and it took me a few seconds to remember what that something was before it all came rushing back at once.Maya. The ventilation shaft. Her blank eyes staring at nothing while she carried me away from the chamber.The floor under me was freezing and rough like stone, definitely not the smooth concrete of the underground chamber, and when I tried to push myself up I heard chains rattle before pain shot up my wrists sharp enough to make me gasp.I couldn’t see anything. Not the kind of dark where your eyes adjust after a minute, but the kind where there’s actually zero light coming from anywhere and you start wondering if maybe you’ve gone blind.I blinked a few times just to make sure my eyelids were working, felt them move, so probably not blind. Just in a room with no windows and no light source, which was somehow worse.The chains rattled again when I tried sitting up and that’s when the burning star