Free Desecrated Beauty (Twisted Fairy Tales #1) by Kyleigh Castronaro Page B

His bemused voice annoyed her and she opened her eyes again to give him exactly the piece of her mind she intended to. But those fangs were staring back at her, turning her as cold as his skin. So she shook her head, it didn’t help but she couldn’t say the word yet.
    So he did, “a vampire?” Her eyes leapt up to his face, begging him to crack a smile and tell her in some way that he’s fucking with her. But he shook his head, reading her mind - perhaps literally?
    “What do you know about the… What is it the Desecrated call it? Blood baths?”
    “The military came in and took control after several radicals tried to bomb government buildings.” She spoke with an almost robotic tone.
    “Not quite,” he said gently, moving to sit next to her but it only made her move down the rest of the couch to put a distance between them.
    “It wasn’t radicals that caused the initial trouble. My kind arrived a few years before the blood baths. Not in huge numbers, but enough that the missing bodies started to pile up. There were more reports of serial killers when in fact it was nothing more than careless rogue vampires. It drew the attention of the council and one by one the council members came over. There was an opportunity to be found here. People were unhappy, society was falling apart; so the council gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse. But when given the chance for free range hunting the vampires flocked here in droves, and it became what you ended up calling the Blood Baths. We admittedly lost control and a lot of unnecessary violence occurred. Some humans tried to fight back but then others came up with a plan, the purity tests. This ensured that the innocents weren’t harmed by the vampires and received our protection while the others were fair game.”
    “Fair game?!” Quill interrupted with disgust. “You’re talking about human lives that were wiped from existence for no reason. They’ve separated us and pinned us against one another based on our abilities. It’s sick, the whole system is sick. I was raised to believe my only worth came in how to kill someone and if I failed at that I would be “put out to pasture” so to speak. But what you’re saying is true, if I hadn’t gotten away I would’ve become someone’s meal!” Quill rose from her spot on the couch, turning to look down at Nero in horror.
    “You are still, potentially, someone’s meal,” he said with quiet reserve.
    “Yours?! Is that what I’m here for? Did I trade myself for my sister’s life so that you can have a blood donor here whenever you have a whim to feed?”
    He rose quickly and moved toward her, setting his hands on her shoulders. There was a firm, reassuring touch to his grip as his eyes bore down into her. “No, you’re not just a meal for me. If I wanted to feed from you, there have been many opportunities when I have broken your resistance and compelled you. In those moments, I could’ve fed from you and I chose not to because that isn’t what I want from you. I admit, I have fed from Rose before. I didn’t know she was your sister, that makes this… complicated… I’m sure. But you have to understand the way the system was created and why it was created in that way.”
    Quill jerked away from him, shaking her head in disgust. “No, I don’t want to hear your excuses. You’re a monster. And you’ll never-“ she poked him in the chest, accentuating her words, “never feed on me. I’ll stake you before you even get the chance.” Her entire body was shaking with adrenaline and nerves as she stormed to the door, wrenching it open and making a beeline for the front door she’d entered through.
    But it was day time and none of the house guards would risk her opening the door and exposing any of them to the sunlight. Three burly, muscle-laden men stood in her way challenging her to try and fight them just so they could find some amusement for once in their job. She gasped in frustration before