Page 153 of Treasured

He shook his head and gathered shadows around him. “No. I love her.”

“Love?” I spat. “You love her?”

“Yes.”

“That sentiment is for fools!” I trembled, rage taking over me. Nicolas’s face flashed before my eyes. “We don’t love, Sebastian. We are creatures of the moon—weapons of death and destruction. Vampires are better than love and emotions. We rule because we are the strongest and the most powerful. We do not love. We destroy.”

“You’re wrong.” His wings twitched, and he clenched his fists. “Luna is everything to me. I love her more than life itself.”

The ruby throbbed at my neck, and I clutched it with all my strength. “Do you love that broken Fledgling more than me?”

Something akin to pity entered his eyes.

Pity.

How dare he feel that way? How dare he think I needed that? I did not need it, nor did I want it.

“I never loved you,” he said sadly. “For a time, I respected you. But then you killed Athena.”

“That human whore?” I snapped. “You’re still thinking about her? It’s been two centuries!”

“She was my first love!” he yelled.

I scoffed. The entire concept was ridiculous. Love was for fools and soft-hearted weak beings. It wasn’t worth anything. Built on lies, all it did was hurt.

“You should’ve learned your lesson with the first one.” I shifted on top of the tomb, letting shadows weave around my legs as I sneered at my errant prince. “You should have realized that humans betray us. They ruin us.” My fingers tightened around the ruby. “They destroy everything good and right, and for what? For a life that will be over before they know it.”

“What happened to you?”

He looked at me as if I was the one with the problem here, not him. His wife, the one he “loved,” was bleeding on the ground behind him, and he felt bad for me.

Unacceptable.

“What happened?” I echoed his words. “What. Happened?”

I leaped off the stone, landing a few feet away from him. He drew shadows around him. I scoffed. As if those would protect him from my wrath.

Nothing would save him. Not now. He’d challenged me, and for that, he would die.

“What happened is I learned my lesson.” I scowled. “Once, many years before you were born, I had a human. Nicolas.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened. “What?”

“He betrayed me.” Anger was like lava, running through me. “Just like you. I was willing to give him everything. To be everything for him. If he remained by my side, I would have given him the world on a silver platter. But did he?”

I was practically screaming now, but I didn’t care.

Sebastian said, “I’m guessing he did not.”

“No!” Shadows exploded out of me, lethal wisps of darkness. Each dripped with my power. Sebastian tried to shield himself and his broken wife, but it didn’t work.

I was the queen here. I was the most powerful. And no one, not even my son and his insolent book-loving bride, would steal my throne from me.

My shadows obeyed my every command, wrapping around him like deadly ropes. Sebastian’s wings snapped behind him, and he yelled. I gagged him, his muffled cries a balm to my broken soul.

He was strong, but no one was stronger than me.

I crooked my finger, and the shadows bent to my will. They dragged him through the snow to my feet. Sebastian thrashed against them, trying to get out of the bindings.