‘Breathe, Ray.’ I reminded myself. My heart was ready to pump out of my chest anticipating the worst-case scenario. It wouldn’t be very fitting of me to pass out before dinner, but I still didn’t understand the point of all of this. I had absolutely no appetite at this point. Maybe we would just have a stare-off instead of dinner.We arrived to the dinner hall sooner than I’d hoped. Acelin squeezed my arm, an attempt meant to calm me and remind me he was there, but it did little to help. I had already met Claudis and I wasn’t too concerned with him. But knowing how worried Acelin had been about me meeting Onyx scared me. How bad could she really be, though? He said she was younger than him and she wasn’t going to hurt me – well, I didn’t think so anyways.Oh, God. What if she was so crazy she would attacked me even against Claudis’ orders? No, that wouldn’t happen. There’s no way Acelin would allow me to come if that were a possibility. So what was he so worried about? I just needed to

“Oh, excuse me. I’m just heading back to my room.”I tried to squeeze by him with my head down, but he grabbed my wrist with enough force to halt me instantly.“What are you doing? Get the fuck off me!” But his grip just grew stronger. He leaned into me smelling my scent as others had done before. He wasn’t going to actually hurt me, right? I was under protection and surely he wouldn’t defy that. That’s what I told myself, but the look in his eyes made me second guess that. His malicious intent was almost palpable at this point and I watched as his eyes darkened. He opened his mouth revealing fangs. I tried to scream but he moved quickly covering my mouth.My eyes widened fear taking over my body. Acelin was just down the hall. If I could somehow find a way to make enough noise, he would have to hear me, but he had now turned me around me holding me tight against him preventing me from being able to move. Just as I was about to give up, suddenly I felt a cool breeze and out of nowh

“Uh wh- what are you doing here?” My voice came out shakingly. I opened the door when I heard someone knock dragging me out of my despaired thoughts about having the worst conversation ever with Adrian, and was now wishing there was a peep hole, because I definitely wouldn’t have opened it if I saw who was on the other side.I stared up into her fierce violet eyes. The color popped against her pale skin. She studied me with a critical squint. I was sure she was about to snap at me. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know Onyx didn’t like me very much. Maybe it was because of the relationship I had with her brother or maybe it was just because I was breathing. I hadn’t actually done anything to her, but she was crazy and vicious, and I didn’t attempt to even try to get inside her head to understand the way her mind worked. I was already scared of her when I had Acelin and even Claudis there to protect me, but now I was alone. It was just us two.“Step aside, hybrid. It appears I’m

It had been a whole 24 hours since I’d last spoken to Adrian. Being here with Acelin made the time go by so fast. I didn’t even know how many days it had actually been, but it seemed like yesterday I had just been kidnapped by my vampire.. well, I wasn’t exactly sure of the status of our relationship. It was complicated.Life had been so hectic, and I was barely able to stay afloat. Never had I been away from my phone for as long as I can remember as much as I had the last couple of days. There was so many things going on and my mind was running all over the place, and that was one of the last things I was worried about.But now that I finally had it, I saw the messages and the missed calls. Adrian was a frantic mess. He had even threatened to come find me and kill everyone in sight again. I was sure he meant that, but it was my fault. Yes, I was busy and preoccupied, but I was also kind of avoiding him. I couldn’t really pretend like everything was perfectly fine after being with Ac

My mouth opened but no words came. I’m surprised I didn’t fall out right then and there. I had all intentions on telling him everything, the truth, but he had completely caught me off guard. Of course he smelled Acelin. How could I be so dumb to forget that he had the nose of a canine? He knew. Without me telling him, he knew. I had been so disrespectful and stupid to not even wash the sex off of me before I brought him over here.A dark thought popped in my head; one I didn’t want to believe. Did Acelin do this intentionally? Before he seemed to be accepting and understanding about Adrian being in my life but he was pretty upset about me leaving and he knew I intended to meet with Adrian. Could this be some sick attempt of marking his territory, making sure Adrian knew exactly what we had been doing together? I didn’t want to think that way, but Acelin was very smart and calculated. I found it hard to believe he would not have known Adrian would’ve picked his scent up immediately.