Marked by Masks and Secrets (Everlasting Possession #1)

by Maggie Sunseri

For generational cycle breakers, shadow integrators, wounded healers, and those blessed with sensitive, intuitive hearts. This world needs you.

The first time I saw her, I thought she was an angel.

She was everything that I was not. She was everything I’d forsaken the day I turned.

She didn’t greet anyone, nor did she entertain the men who nodded or smiled or leered her way. My lip curled into a snarl. Violence bubbled under my skin as I stared at one of those men who’d turned to his friend to whisper something vile. It would be a shame if his tongue went missing.

I wanted to corrupt her innocence, to stain her with my darkness.

I’d been extra jumpy lately, plagued by the unreasonable delusion that I was being followed and watched.

The Order was a secret society of turned vampires—vampires that were once human—with demonic, shadowed powers. They were shrouded in mystery, only ever appearing to the public wearing inky black masks.

They preyed on idealistic human students in Etherdale, recruiting them to throw their lives away to fight in some futile underground war against the natural-born vampires.

The bitter truth was, the born vampires—descendants from the Dark Goddess, Lillian—would always rule the kingdom of Ravenia. They were immortal, their bodies reaching maturity in their mid-twenties, where they remained eternally youthful, cold, and soulless. The born lords ruled each region on behalf of King Earle and his council, and the wealth and power of the born elites was unchallengeable.

Witches, humans, and shifters protected each other, for the most part.

“If they’re such noble protectors, please do enlighten me on who the Order feeds from? They sustain themselves with mortal blood, do they not?”

“Willing volunteers,” Idris said firmly, never once hesitating. “There are plenty of them.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She quickly backed up and wiped the rain off her face. Rain and… Had she been crying? Who the fuck had made her cry?

I wanted the only tears that slid down those rosy cheeks to be shed for me.

Her plump pink lips refused to budge from their skeptical frown. It made me want to bite them into submission.

I’d tried to stay away from her. But the truth was, I was more distracted from my work when I was avoiding her than when I allowed myself to watch her from afar. I called it my new hobby, in an effort to appease Harmony’s demand that I strive toward a better work-life balance. The trouble was, I didn’t think most people’s hobbies were nearly as consuming as mine. This was dangerous. She was dangerous.

And now that we’d finally met… gods help her pure, ethereal soul. Because I feared the level of insatiable addiction brewing in my cold, dead heart.

History never stayed in the past. Great men studied history to gain control of the present and future.

“Let me guess,”

My nostrils flared, the scent of springtime and innocence nearly too much to bear without ripping through my human glamour and pinning her to the nearest wall.

“You’re just another human man who would do anything to ride the dick of Rune the Ruthless and thinks that useless displays of violence are the pinnacle of masculinity.”

“I did not expect such dirty words to leave that mouth.”

“What’s wrong with rugged masculinity, angel? Not...

“My tastes are none of your concern.” I pouted my lip mockingly. “I disagree.”

“I’m getting the sense that this unprovoked harassment has little to do with me,” I said, biting on a smile.

Whoever made her cry had set her off about the bad, scary vampires. How interesting. What I found infinitely more interesting was how she’d come and found me, a perfect stranger, to use as her punching bag.

Maybe she was stomping her little feet in those beat-up sneakers. It was, unfortunately, a rather sexy mental image.

Each turned clan was different. We were not a distinct race; we were monsters born of magick and blood. The chaos witch who created my comrades and me had built us with a very unique signature.

Tonight, I had no need for my glamour. My mask was in place, a fluid film of shadow that covered most of my head, moving diagonally to leave my mouth and one side of my face partially exposed. I generally let it take a frightening onyx skull appearance.

There was only one obstacle before me, and it was a rather large one. There was nothing I feared more than the full brunt of power buried in my veins. Power I’d been blocking and avoiding for years now—power that I, frankly, wanted nothing to do with.

“You know green witches can specialize in poisons, right?” I smiled warmly. His powerful jaw ticked, a strange intensity brewing in his eyes. Had that turned him on?

“I’ll tell you my name if you allow me to accompany you through the market,” he said, low and commanding. “There are a lot of vampires here today.”

“So, angel, you’re the most delicious looking prey for miles.”

That fucking smile. It looked like he wanted to devour me whole. I opened my mouth to say no, but “Fine,” came out instead. “Correct answer,” he purred. “Very good girl.”

“My name is Kylo.” “Well, Kylo, I’m going to poison the hell out of you with my pretty flowers.”

“Enough with the dirty talk. I’m trying to be a gentleman, and you’re making it extraordinarily difficult.”

Accusing me of being a sex demon was rather amusing. I was beginning to wonder the same about her. Was she a succubus designed to destroy me from within? There was no other logical explanation for my inexplicable draw to her. Or the way it was only getting more and more undeniable and potent as more words spilled from her perfect pink lips.

I wished it was only the thought of the born touching her that sent me spinning into violent, depraved thoughts. But I’d felt the same way when that human man had touched her—no doubt the reason for her declaration that our time together was platonic.

Once Evie was mine, there was no going back.

“Jacob said you were a chaos witch,” Mikki said.

I felt the color drain from my skin. I’d asked Jacob to keep that fact to himself. It wasn’t something I advertised, especially as a witch without a coven. Chaos witches were met with a great deal of suspicion, even more so if they were solitary practitioners.

Chaos witches weren’t gifted in one particular form of magick. Witches like me had all available currents open to us. We were in tune with the flow of the universe, connected to the spirit realm and the world of the gods, pulling from this natural order to concoct our own spells and magickal creations. We were necessary. We were the reason for innovation and change, new grimoires and covens, the keeping of balance and the communication with the powerful forces that ruled us all. But we were also volatile. Powerful. Unpredictable. Some of us got lost along the way if we didn’t have a moral compass and greater purpose to focus and ground our workings.

Evie wasn’t where she was supposed to be tonight, safe in her princess palace. I tracked her by her scent all the way to her boyfriend’s estate. I had half a mind to claim her in front of all of them. I wanted to force my blood down her delicate little throat so I would know where she was at all times.

She was so fucking pretty. How any man saw her looking like this and let her out of his sight was a baffling, nonsensical notion. Yet, I was grateful for it. Because I didn’t want my perfect angel anywhere near another man.

I was rigid as I stared down at her, my jaw clenched tight. I wanted to touch her. My disobedient shadows escaped my skin, crawling all over her body above the covers in tendrils of smoke. It took immeasurable effort to pull them back.

It was perverse, this compulsion to mark and claim her, to spoil and care for her, to shield her from all darkness and violence. When I was the most violent and dark being there was.

“Well, I went into town to dance,” she said, her lips shifting into something mischievous. “Evie, I swear I don’t know how these things happen to me, but I ended up at the most marvelous party with the most interesting and strange people. It was only when everyone began to undress that I realized it was an orgy!”

“You know me,” she continued. “Orgies are a perfectly acceptable way to spend your Tuesday evening. But with strangers? Not at my age. That’s a young person’s game of roulette.”

“I’m glad you’ve finally heeded my wisdom,”

“What wisdom, specifically?” “That two boyfriends are better than one, of course,” she said.