Page 91 of Tainted Souls
“Tell me about these Nobles,” I say, adapting their terminology. Not out of respect, but strategy. If that’s the language they speak, I’ll speak it too, if it gets me the information I need. “How powerful are they really? And can sire bonds be broken?”
Saul’s unfamiliar face makes the familiar expression of annoyance. “Nowyou’re interested in a lesson?”
“Considering I just escaped being forcibly bonded to one, yes.”
He sighs, slowing his pace to walk beside me. “Nobles were born, just like you and me. Royalty of vampire society, if you will—stronger, unbound, able to conceive offspring, and sire the humans they turn. Distance helps weaken the bond. Time too. But sever it completely?” He shakes his head. “Impossible without killing the sire.”
Redmoore wasn’t that far off, then.
“How many of them exist?” I ask, my mind already calculating how much effort it’d take to eradicate them all.
“Us,” he corrects, grouping us with those white-haired monsters. “And twenty-two.”
But we don’t even have white hair.
We should have our own category. I’d even take Grayshade if it meant not being lumped in with them. And only twenty-two? That’s fewer than I imagined. Fewer means a higher chance of beating them.
“Including us?” I ask. “And Mom?”
He nods, his borrowed features beginning to shimmer slightly as the potion loses potency. “Everyone else, we call Nosferatu. You know, the turned ones you hunt.”
As I digest the information, I watch the process unfold—his eyes, followed by his nose, ripple like disturbed water, revealing glimpses of his true face beneath.
“The Nosferatu have been careful lately,” I remark. “Has Cain ran out of victims to torment?”
“Not at all.” His lip quirks upward in a faint sneer. “If anything, his army is bigger than ever. They just haven’t been competent enough to catch you—pups still learning to sink their teeth.”
“You can just say I’m too hard to catch.”
“This isn’t a joke, Sister. For years, we’ve been working against them and their attempts to get to you. And now, they’re growing impatient, which isn’t a sign of weakness.” His hazel eyes narrow at me, the potion having completely worn off now. “It’s a warning of menace.”
All this time, I thought I was simply good at my job. In reality, I was being protected by the very vampires I wanted dead. Well, except for my brother. Him, I would grant mercy.
“Why would you do that?”
“We have the same enemy.”
I’d beg to disagree, but a part of me thinks he might be right. “Why did you never tell me about Cain? Warn me, at least.”
“Because knowing wouldn’t have changed anything, only made you a captive sooner.” His voice is calm, like it’s something he’s told himself a hundred times.
“Sooner how?”
“By trying to take Cain down yourself, or run off on some wild plan to beat him just like you ended up doing anyway.”
I bristle, shoulders tensing as the accusation lands. “You don’t know that. If you’d told me, I would’ve listened.”
“You? Listening?” Saul shakes his head, scoffing. “Don’t make me laugh. The Seraph I know thinks she’s invincible until she’s face down in the dirt, wondering how it all went so wrong.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the truth in his words stops me.
He continues, “You’re prideful, impulsive, and far too damn brave for your own good. Cain would have used that against you, and you wouldn’t have seen it coming.” He turns to look away, voice softening just a bit. “Ignorance was the only shield I could give you.”
I stare at him, the sting of his words settling deep beneath my skin. Part of me burns to lash out, to prove him wrong, but another part knows he’s right. That reckless fire in me, the same spark that keeps me fighting, could have just as easily been my undoing.
I want to hate him for hiding the truth, but somewhere beneath the anger, there’s the fragile weight of the protection he tried to offer. It’s a bitter comfort knowing I was kept in the dark not out of cruelty, but out of fear. And now, more than ever, I have to decide whether that ignorance was a cage or a shield.
The now tall woman with coppery curls nods ahead where the trees are thinning, corseted, body-hugging layers clinging to her like living skin as leather-bound sleeves studded with silver rivets wrap her taloned hands. “We’re here.”
