Chapter 25 ∣  Retribution

-Annika

He what...

I'm briskly keeping up with Locaine as he walks down the hallway to the dungeon. This is the familiar pathway he once took for me. However, now we both head toward those who had tried to kill me for the choices I've made. For once, I'm not the object of his hate that he has his sights set on as we move quicker...I'm not the one being punished. Locaine wears dark cargo pants, a white tank top, and combat boots, having changed after we'd claimed one another in a now unbreakable bond for eternity.

I'm right at his heels, dressed in faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt, my feet are encased in boots I'd been given. I have tied my hair up high in a ponytail, as I feel it swing back and forth as we near the door.

Flynn and Henri are guarding the very door we are approaching, their gaze quickly lifting to see the two of us walking together.

He's expecting them to escape?

If I couldn't escape, what makes him think that they can? Actually...technically...I had escaped, it had been a moment, but it had still happened.

Henri backs away slowly, his eyes first meeting Locaine's before he regards me...differently. After a split second later, he says, "Locaine...Annika, they're inside."

He just said my name...

"Thank you, Henri," Locaine unlocks the door and opens it inward. As I walk behind him, passing in between Henri and Flynn, their looks are something I've never seen before.

Almost...respect?

Yes, it is.

The room is cold, the stone ricocheting the sounds our feet make off the stone floor. I hold myself back, as I glimpse my parents...both have been pinned to the stone wall with a chain around each of their necks. Heavy thick nails are hammered into their elbows and knees that keep them restrained.

Adam is standing near the wall...

He brings me back to the day I had arrived, and he had been watching over prisoners, only this time, the prisoners are my family. I don't even know what to think anymore, including whatever decision is about to be made regarding their lives.

Dry blood coats my father's chin, running down the front of the chain that binds his neck against the stone wall. My mother's eyes are watching us as we enter the room, shifting slightly when she notices my presence.

"Annika..." her voice drifts off in complete and utter disbelief like she sees a ghost. That's when my father comes to, lifting his gaze only to narrow his eyes on the both of us.

He doesn't speak, but his eyes hold nothing but pure hatred for who I am and what I've become...

"You don't get the privilege to speak to your daughter," Locaine backhands my mother across the face. She slowly brings her gaze back to us, the blood trails from her split lip as she releases a shaky breath.

I stand in complete silence, looking upon the ones I once referred to as my mother and my father...they are monsters...

...just like vampires, hunters are capable of being monsters...

Rynn startles me, the door opening to only swing shut behind her the second she steps through the door. She comes to a stop next to Locaine before informing him, "Everything has been taken care of."

"Good," he replies shortly, his temper on edge.

"What's been taken care of?" I ask curiously, not afraid to speak any more in front of the other vampires of his coven.

Locaine glances down at me before saying, "Where at the very least, your father's body can be disposed of."

"What!?" My mother screams. However, she's met with another slap across her face the moment the word leaves her lips.

"I didn't say you could talk!" Locaine hisses at her, grabbing the back of her hair and yanking it sideways to expose her neck. I'm almost positive her neck is going to snap at the force he is exerting, though I'm in shock when it doesn't.

This is what it must have looked like when Locaine attacked me for the first time. I'm glad I no longer must worry about that.

My father fights against the chain and nails, blood seeping from the outside of his wounds trying to protect his wife. It's incredible that he will bleed to save her, yet he shot me without a second thought...

Locaine's fury is unleashed on him, his eyes a black rose when he lashes out, "Oh, I see you have no problem jumping in to save your wife...yet you would kill your own daughter? You are a filthy, disgusting species. You treat your own kind worse than your enemies."

My mother flinches when Locaine steps back and locks his sights on her, her features shifting as she remains silent due to his threats. "What, you look like you have something to say?" He dares her.

I shift from one foot to the other, feeling uncomfortable, but at the same time, very angry as the words he speaks are filled with truth. They had tried to kill me for being captured by a vampire and then deciding to remain by the vampire's side...

...perhaps they had every right to kill me as I was now labeled a traitor in their eyes.

It's clear now...

"We would rather a hunter die by our hand than be turned into a sick monster like you! Crossing species is dangerous...for both sides," my mother spits her blood at Locaine, hitting the side of his cheek.

Locaine brings his hand to his face, flicking the blood away in annoyance as he states, "How very righteous of you..."

"How can you be so...so...so hateful!" I lash out, my mother, father, and Locaine staring at me. "You had NO idea what I went through, and then you come here, the only people I thought that might save me...though I didn't need saving any longer...but instead you try to kill me?!" I pause a moment, breathing hard before I snarl, "Marking me as a traitor...that's what happened...wanting to see me better off dead than in his arms."

Locaine's glint in his eye meets mine, and I'm the first to speak, "So...who dies first?" I ask, letting him know that I no longer hold feelings for the two individuals in front of me.

My mother gasps, almost like she shouldn't be killed as she wasn't the one to try to kill me...however, she did nothing to stop my father. My father tries one last time to break free of his binds but to no avail.

"You're...just like them!" My mother hisses at me, but I see the fear she is trying to hide in her eyes.

In fact, I can smell it...

I advance toward her, "YES!" I yell, the anger surfacing, "I'm so sick and tired of hearing everyone say that! Yes, I'm just like them!" I pause a moment before I say, "And do you know what? I don't give a damn..."

It's weird, finally admitting what everyone has been telling me since the first moments here. I'm just like them, but at this point, it's better to be like them...than to be like my parents who hadn't hesitated to kill both of their daughters...though I was brought back as their worst nightmare.

"I want my mother," I glower at her, but speaking to Locaine. My mother struggles, trying to shift away from my changing irises...the once pure white is now stained with bloody vengeance.

Locaine places a hand on my shoulder and replies with ease, "But of course...I was only ever truly after your father."

I'm about to take another step toward my mother, but I halt in my tracks. Sure, I want to rip her throat out now, but a surge of energy seems to take on a life of its own. I feel warm traces of particles within my veins, my blood magic is brimming with ascendancy while the spark within my chest heightens to a new power.

I clutch onto the power, raising my two hands to clasp together. I feel a slight tug, a pull sending me deeper into this bottomless abyssal regency.

I exhale sharply, tilting my chin up slightly and then closing my eyelids. Locaine's hand leaves my shoulder as I feel his presence pulling away from me, along with Rynn as they step away.

Fear?

Is everyone afraid of me now?

My eyes snap open and the look of complete horror and despair that fills my mother's face...I will never forget. I unfold my hands and snap both of my middle and thumb fingers together, a darker pull surging through my being.

Her agonizing screams pierce the dungeon, resonating off the stone walls and floor. Blood erupts from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Her pain, her terror, it only eggs me on. The blood I control is her own running through her veins, no longer having to physically see it to manipulate it.

I clench both of my hands into fists, pulling them to the center of my chest, glaring with all the fury and rage I have toward the ones who 'loved' me.

I rip my arms away, spanning them to their fullest. My mother's veins rip outward from her skin, every...single...vein. She gasps once, her eyes stuck in a state of dismay. Her blood pools under her body, branching out toward my feet.

"Well..." Locaine's voice holds its own unsettling tone, "...that was new."

I turn around to see Rynn and Locaine standing behind me, awestruck as to what I've just done.

"Apparently...being a vampire not only heightened my normal senses...but my blood magic as well," I smile at the rush settling beneath my skin, the spark slowly flickering away. I have never felt so powerful in my life and more importantly...

...I'm not afraid any longer.

Is this what my mother was afraid of all those years ago?

I'm stopped mid-thought, wondering if this is what the dangers of crossing species means.

"Apparently," Rynn's voice is barely a whisper as she stalks over to Adam, hunkering down by the door. I mean, after what I did to my mother, who knows what Locaine is going to do to my father.

He's been waiting for this day for a very long time...

I release a sigh as Locaine walks right past me and I turn on my heels to watch him come face to face with my father.

They removed his tongue?

I finally notice as he is gurgling and hinting to back away from him. Locaine won't have any of it, the time for him to exact revenge is now.

His fist connects with my father's upper arm...going through his skin and then harshly snatching the bone, pulling it from his body. My father's howls are extraordinary...that must be excruciating pain. At least I made my mother's death quick.

Locaine never used his full strength on me...ever.

I see the raw power behind him as he begins to tear apart other bones from his legs and remaining arm viciously while my father cries out loudly.

I understood something at this moment...

...if Locaine had ever wanted to kill me, at any point in time...he would have. There is no question about that as the horror continues. The savagery behind his movements now is undeniably impressive.

"Now, I'm going to kill you, just the way you loathe so much," Locaine's voice is fierce as he plunges his fangs mercilessly into my father's vulnerable neck. I watch him struggle against Locaine, unable to get away from the very thing he hated so much.

With one final groan, Locaine rips the front of my father's neck wide open, the blood pouring to the ground as he wouldn't even let his bite decide my father's fate alone. I glance at him, the blood marring his face, his eyes changing ever so slowly back to their icy blue.

If it weren't for the chains and nails that bolt my parents' lifeless bodies in place, they would have collapsed to the ground. I place a hand on Locaine's cheek and whisper, "You finally got what you wanted..."

"My revenge is complete," Locaine smirks at me, wrapping his arms around my waist and whispering, "I have you as well...I didn't expect that."

"I can relate," I reply, thinking of how I was going to slaughter this coven. Instead, I have become a part of his coven.

Forever.

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The Slave That I Am by K. A. Young.

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