Beranda / Three Minutes Before the Blood Bond, I Walked Away / Bab 1 - Bab 10

Semua Bab Three Minutes Before the Blood Bond, I Walked Away: Bab 1 - Bab 10

10 Bab

1

"Catherine, do you have to make a scene today of all days? We've been together a hundred years. A blood bond comes only once every thousand years, and you'd throw it away over one bedchamber?"Crowley's eyes were steady, as if those hundred years were not the bond between us but leverage that guaranteed I would never leave.Aldous Reed, the master of ceremonies, hurried up carrying the holy water. Alarm crossed his face when he found me in the corridor, still in plain clothes and facing down Crowley."Your Grace, the nobles of every clan are seated. Why aren't you dressed yet?"Crowley immediately made a hushing gesture. "Keep your voice down. Someone in there has just gone to sleep."Marta was so frantic her voice shook. "Lord Crowley, the gown and coronet alone take at least fifteen minutes, and the clan Elder still has to paint the bond sigil by hand. If she doesn't go in now, there won't be time for either the crowning or the receiving line!"He answered without a moment's hesitati

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2

"My bloodline is unstable?"Crowley avoided my searching look."What, should I tell every vampire out there that we changed the ceremony because Elsa is resting in your bedchamber? Come on, Catherine. Elsa just broke off her bond with Duke Arthur Blackwood. She's already hurting. Do you have to rub salt in the wound? Besides, it's just what we'll tell them. No one is going to care about the details."To protect Elsa's feelings, he blamed every delay on me without a second thought, even though I was the bride.Thirteen minutes to the bonding ceremony.Marta suddenly cried out, "Your Grace, look! Lady Elsa isn't asleep at all!"I looked up.Through the glass doors to the balcony, I could see Elsa's silhouette, a wineglass raised in her hand."Crowley, anything else you want to say?""Maybe she only woke for a moment.""She can drink, she can admire the moon, but she can't open a door for me?"Cornered, he lashed out instead. "Today was supposed to be Elsa's bonding day too. She probably

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3

His pen scratched across the parchment.In half a minute, he had struck out most of a ceremony I had spent a century planning.Beside me, my father's face had gone particularly grim.He had read through dozens of ancient volumes and spent three full months writing that blessing.Now the scroll he would never use lay crumpled in his slack hand.The Elder gave me a troubled look."Your Grace, the holy water rite and the blood-mingling rite are the heart of a blood bond. Are we really cutting them both?"Before I could speak, Crowley answered for me. "There isn't time. This is how it has to be for now. We'll get through the ceremony first. I'll make my apologies to Her Grace afterward."Seven minutes to the bonding ceremony.A plate shattered inside the room.Then came Elsa's voice, thick with held-back tears. "Crowley, have I made trouble for you again?"Crowley's face changed, and he dropped the ward with his blood seal at once.I took one step forward and my fiance turned to block me.

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4

Elsa stood behind it.And what she had on was my reception gown.Her hair had been combed smooth with gardenia water and her face was carefully painted.She had never been asleep.She had been sitting in my chamber wearing my clothes while my fiance guarded the door for her for twenty-seven minutes."I'm sorry, Catherine." Elsa lowered her head. "Crowley was afraid I would be cold, so he gave it to me."Crowley offered no explanation.He took the gown out of Marta's hands and pushed it at me."There. You got what you wanted. The room is empty. Go in and change."Vivienne's voice shook with anger at that. "Catherine hasn't so much as touched that gown. With only three minutes left, how is that supposed to be enough?"Crowley glanced down at the pocket watch on his chest, impatient. "We've cut almost every rite already. She can go through the side hall straight to the blood circle. How could there not be time?"Then he turned and gave Aldous his orders. "Open the blood circle. Tell every

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5

As the mount climbed, the message stone at my waist would not stop buzzing.Crowley sent three blood messages in a row. I ignored all three.Then Aldous cut in. "Your Grace, the circle is open, the hymn is playing. Where in the world are you?"I watched the castle shrink beneath me, and my voice came out strangely calm. "On my way back to my own lands."Aldous panicked at once. "Then the ceremony... what do we do?""Cancel it.""But Lord Crowley says you're only in a temper and told us to wait."The mount set down neatly in front of my family's castle.Night roses I had planted myself lined both sides of the gate.I used to think that on my bonding day I would scatter those bright petals the whole length of the red carpet.The other end of the message stone was filled with noise and clamor, with one congratulatory cheer after another.And I stood there in plain dress with no one beside me but my parents. "Go and tell Crowley he can wait or not, as he likes. Either way, I will not be th

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6

My father held my gaze, his eyes full of pain and self-blame. "Catherine, you have never shamed us. Knowing what kind of man he is and still forcing our daughter to swallow it and finish the bond, that would be the shame."My mother held me tight and said softly, "Your father is right, Catherine. If a bond is wrong for you, you don't seal it. We will always stand behind you."With my parents comforting me, I finally broke down and sobbed.Back in my room I shoved the message stone into the bedside drawer, wrapped myself in the covers, and fell into a deep sleep.A dream jolted me awake in the middle of the night, and I went downstairs for water.A small lamp was still burning in the hall outside the bedchambers.My father was sitting at the long table.His head was down, and he was mending the crumpled blessing scroll with fine gold thread, a little at a time.When he saw me, he hurried to hide it behind his back. "Catherine, did I wake you?"I walked over slowly and took the scroll fr

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7

Hearing him still make excuses for himself, I found it almost laughable.He was the one who had let another woman take over my chamber on our bonding day.And somehow it had turned into me making a scene and refusing him a chance to explain.I tossed the stone aside.The next day, when Marta came in to help me wash and dress, she reported that Crowley was still standing outside the gate.When my mother pulled the curtain back, he seemed to sense it and looked straight up.A moment later the message stone started buzzing. "Catherine, can we talk?""I've said everything there was to say. There is nothing left for us to talk about.""I handled yesterday badly. I know you're angry with me. I'm sorry."I was quiet for two seconds, then laughed. "Crowley, it's not that you didn't expect your behavior to hurt me. You just didn't expect me to give up on us and actually leave."The other end of the stone was silent for a long time. "I admit it. I was certain you wouldn't cancel the bond. We've

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8

News that Crowley and I had canceled our bond quickly spread throughout the Thirteen Territories.To keep their clan calm, the Ashbournes initially claimed that a sudden disturbance in my bloodline had forced them to postpone the ceremony.But too many nobles had been there that day. The lie could not hold.Some had seen me leave the castle in plain dress with my parents.Some had seen Elsa come out of my chamber in my reception gown.And some had heard Crowley shouting my name outside my castle, over and over.In under a week the truth was everywhere.When Seraphine called me, her voice was nothing but accusation. "Catherine, you've made us a laughingstock! You've disgraced this entire family! After a hundred years with my son, even if he was in the wrong that day, how could you abandon him in front of every noble in the Thirteen Territories?"I slammed the pen I had been using to check the inventory onto the desk. "Let's be clear, my lady. I was the one abandoned at that bonding cere

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9

Crowley heard about it somehow and turned up at the door of the relic shop.He glanced inside and understood at once that I had come to deal with the ring.His face went paper-white as his eyes turned bloodshot. "Catherine, you threw our ring away?""As you can see.""Why would you do that? You're doing it to spite me, aren't you?""It's my ring. What business is it of yours how I deal with it?"Crowley had no answer. After a moment, he softened his voice, a hint of cajoling in it. "Catherine, I've explained everything to my mother. I won't interfere in Elsa's life again. And then there's the bond. We can plan it properly and hold another ceremony. The castle, the rites, the blood circle, I'll arrange everything exactly as you want. Even the bedchamber. I'll set a ward only you can break, so no one else can enter..."I had no patience left to hear him out. Without so much as glancing at him, I walked straight past him toward my mount.He came after me fast and caught my hand. "Catherin

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10

I looked at that order of service.I had once stayed up countless nights over it. Every rite, every pastry, and every flower represented my hopes for a future with Crowley.Now all of it lay before me untouched, and I felt nothing. "Crowley, it's too late.""What's too late?"Crowley's eyes were bloodshot, his voice raw with frustration. "I really do know I was wrong. I'll change. I mean it. Why are you still so determined to end this?""You think that if you give those twenty-seven minutes back, everything can go back to the way it was."I pressed the scroll back into his hands."But once time is gone, it's gone."He clamped his arms around me from behind, but his voice shook. "Catherine, I really do know I was wrong. After you left that day, Father Gideon called your name three times. Every time those doors opened, I expected you to come back. Until... until every noble in the hall was looking at me, and then I knew what it feels like to be the one standing outside a door. I stood in

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