EmoryI am trying my best to fall asleep, but my mind continues to spin with thoughts of Kane and the kiss we shared earlier in the night. The feeling has faded from my flesh, but it continues to burn in my mind, and I can’t help but wonder if there’s any possibility he is still thinking of me.Dinner has to have ended long ago, so I wonder what he is doing now. I imagine him sitting behind his desk in his office or lying in his bed sleeping. Vampires do sleep a bit, don’t they? My father used to say they did, so it would be the perfect time to attack, except he never figured out how to take advantage of that.I sigh and roll over, thinking I will force myself to sleep when an odd feeling settles around my middle. I feel a tightening in my core, and my breathing becomes shallow.Immediately, I sit up, my eyes focused on my bedroom door. I sense that he is there before the door even opens. He steps into a beam of moonlight filtering in through the window, standing there with his irides
KaneI walk back to my room, collecting the shoes I’d left in the hallway, my shirt in my hands, thinking about what a horrible fucking person I am. There’s simply no way to ever explain or justify what has just happened, not to anyone who isn’t a vampire anyway, and I completely deserve it if Emory never, ever wants to speak to me again.Thankfully, the hallways are mostly empty, except for the occasional servant passing through them. None of them dares to speak to me when encountering me in such a state, and I can imagine servants working this shift have a multitude of information to keep to themselves about the comings and goings in the castle.All I want to do now is climb into my bed and hide under my blankets for a long while, until I figure out a way to go back in time and change what’s just happened—after I have a large glass of blood, anyway. I can still taste her; I can still feel her on my skin.I can’t let myself think about how she tastes sweet like morning dew or how I’v
EmoryI wake up sore in places I’ve never felt before, and it takes me a moment to remember why. I try not to even roll over because of the muscle pain I feel in my core. Blinking against the sun streaming in from between the splits in the curtains, I feel a pain that radiates from my forehead, where I’d crashed into Rainer the day before, through my skull, and out the other side. But that pain is nothing compared to the one I feel in my heart.A groan escapes my lips as I note I can still smell him on the bedding. I can still smell him on me. I push my head beneath the pillows, wondering what time it is but simultaneously not caring. I want to go back to sleep and wake up three days ago when I still had some control over my life. I want to remember all of this so I can avoid making the same mistakes twice. I want to take Lola and run away from home, but when my father tells me we are coming to visit the Vampire King to discuss his spoils of war, not his debt that he is rightfully owe
EmoryI am listening to Rainer’s words and trying to digest them, but I’m not completely sure I understand what he is saying to me.“It was the blood?” I ask him, and he nods at me. “But… there was so little of it. Less than whenever I am menstruating by far.”When he shakes his head, his dark curls dance around his face, and I can see why some women would find that alluring. He really is a handsome man.“It’s not just that it’s blood per se. Menstruation blood is… unappealing to us. I won’t go into detail, but it’s not something that most of us would want to drink. Kind of like bad coffee for humans, I guess. Even regular blood doesn’t get us in quite a tizzy the way that particular kind of blood does.”I stare at him for a moment, trying to understand, but I’m not sure I do. “That kind of blood?”“Some people call it cherry blood.” He seems slightly embarrassed to be talking about this with me. His cheeks are a bit pink. “The blood released when a woman loses her virginity is filled
EmoryIt’s almost dinner time. But I’m not going back to the dining room today. I haven’t been told by King Kane that it’s okay for me to skip again. Maybe I need his permission. Maybe I don’t.I figure, if he wants me to know I should be there, he can come and tell me. And if he realizes he wants me there after dinner has started, well, he can send someone for me. I’ll just tell them I’m not feeling well.Either that, or I will show up at dinner wearing my baggy T-shirt and joggers.For most of the day, I’ve sat in the reading area with a book on my lap not looking at the words. Nellie asked me if I wanted to go to the library. She says it’s spectacular, with hundreds of thousands of books, and plenty of comfy areas to sit and read a book. There’s even a loft with a lovely view out the window of the lake on the east side of the castle.It did sound nice, but I’m not going anywhere. If my job now is to hang around the castle until the king or one of his noble people is ready to feed o
EmoryJacob’s pale skin catches the moonlight as he comes toward me, his pace surprisingly human now, a bit cautious. I can’t anticipate what he’s waiting for, but I wish I knew. Maybe then, if I had some kind of an inkling as to what he’s up to, I would be able to do something to get away from him.My eyes immediately go to the library floor below me, but it’s so far. Even if I had my wolf, which I don’t, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to make that leap and walk away unscathed. I wouldn’t mind breaking all four of my limbs if it meant getting away from Jacob, but there’s no point in contemplating something I can’t do anyway. I can’t shift, and if I did, I would just be easier for him to catch with four broken legs.Vampires can easily leap down from heights of this distance with no problem whatsoever.Me, in my human form? Nope.Still, he feels the urge to say, “I wouldn’t even think about it, bitch. You jump down there, you’re just going to die a more painful, slower death.”I
KaneI am walking through a meadow in the darkness. The tall grass waves in the breeze as the moonlight glints off of the trees in the distance. A slow fog rolls in from the edges of my vision. I am all alone, yet I know that Emory is somewhere nearby.I’m not sure if I’m looking for her or if I’m just cognizant of the fact that she is here, but as I near the tree line, she steps out, barefoot. Her hair is blowing in the same wind that stirs the trees, and the light makes her jade eyes glow.She looks lovely as always, but also a little wild as she stands there in a long green dress, her hands folded in front of her.“You should have told me,” she says.“I know. I’m sorry.” She has to be talking about the cherry blood, how I nearly tore her apart because I didn’t know she was a virgin and had to leave the room before it was too late. “I have been wanting to speak to you all day. I just didn’t know how to say it.”“Like you just did,” she says, her tone very direct. “I accept your apol
RainerThose two fucking assholes had a head start on me, but that doesn’t stop me from tracking them down. It’s not too hard. I just follow the trail of dead bodies they leave in their wake. Lex was able to get the guard on their trail as they left the library, so as I rush after them, I encounter one dead guard after another, leading through the field outside of the castle into the woods nearest the side of the castle that faces their home kingdom.I have a feeling I know exactly what these fuckers are trying to do. They could run all the way back to Scarlett Thunder, but I have no doubt they’ve got some sort of help waiting for them at some point on the other side of the wall that runs along our lands. They will do their best to get over that wall and into a waiting vehicle, I’m guessing, and since I can’t drive through the woods, they’re hoping I won’t be able to catch them before they get to their escape vehicle, likely driven by someone from their own pack.Crescent Peak has war