Chapter 14
Blair
I wake up with my heart racing.
I sit up too fast, scanning the room like something might have changed overnight, but nothing has. I’m still in this stupid fucking ugly cabin because I’ve been kidnapped by some blue-collar repo man vampire.
Ugh. This is such bullshit.
The side of the bed beside me is empty and cold. Kane, my kidnapper, is nowhere in sight.
I swing my legs over the edge and cross the room in quick strides, grabbing the door handle.
Locked.
I turn slowly toward the bed, and my eyes rake over the rumpled sheets on both sides of the mattress. My stomach twists into a knot with uninvited warmth and memories.
Was he in here?
I step toward the pillow on his side of the bed, and before I can stop myself, I press my face into it. Instantly, I’m hit with the scent of him—inviting, masculine, distinct—it’s an aroma that, for some strange reason, I know as though it’s my own.
He was in here, while I was sleeping. I remember sharply, as though I wasn’t asleep at all.
His body beside mine. My leg sliding between his. My mouth on his. The way I climbed over him.
I jerk back from the pillow like it’s burned me.
No freaking way. That had to have been a dream.
It had to be.
I might be delirious from being, you know, kidnapped, but there is no way in hell I’d straddle my abductor and kiss him like I was starving. I press my fingers to my lips, bent on proving my theory, but to my utter dismay, they feel tender and slightly bruised.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Did I kiss him…again?”
My mind starts to race. Is this what happens to victims? Do they start sympathizing with the person who took them? Is this some twisted survival response where my brain is rewriting him into something safe?
I pace the room, dragging my fingers through my already dried-out hair.
I stop in front of the mirror and stare. My face is devoid of makeup, my cheeks rosy but not from blush, and my hair is frizzing at the ends and flattening at the crown.
I look stripped fucking bare.
“Wow,” I mutter. “Pretty sure this is the worst I’ve looked in my entire life.”
I was raised to be polished and sophisticated and presentable. Not frizzy and unkempt and a complete dumpster fire.
I throw myself down onto the bed in frustration.
But not even a minute later, I hear the sound of the lock clicking, and I sit up immediately.
The door opens, and a girl who looks like she could be my age, maybe a year or two older, walks in carrying a plate of toast and scrambled eggs.
She’s wearing a soft sweater and jeans and not an ounce of designer anything on her body. She looks normal. She looks…boring. Well, besides her face and her hair. Both are beautiful in a way that makes me annoyed.
She pauses when she sees me watching her. “Hi, Blair,” she says gently. “I’m Kylie.”
“Do you know you’re in a cabin with a vampire?”
A small laugh escapes her. “Yes. Better than that, there are three vampire men in this cabin.”
Three? Holy hell. I knew there were others, but I had no idea that brought the total to three vampires and a human woman.
“Why are you here?” I ask, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Are you being held against your will too?”
“No. I’m not being held against my will. Kane’s brother Rook is my…” She hesitates. “Well, I guess the only word that will make sense to you right now is probably husband.”
“Kane has a brother?” He’s not some kind of loner, family-less psychopath like I’ve been picturing?
“He has two,” she continues. “Rook and Calloway.”
“What do they do?” I ask. “Besides being accomplices in the kidnapping of a woman.”
“Rook’s a garbage man,” she says easily. “Calloway’s a mechanic. He also does demolition work.”
“Wait…” I stare at her. “You married a garbage man?”
There’s no edge to her voice when she responds. “Yes.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Honestly, the idea is so foreign I don’t know how to respond.
Blue-collar men were background noise in my life.
They fixed things and they left. They didn’t sit at dinner tables.
Even the staff that lives at my parents’ house always keeps to themselves and stays out of our way for the most part.
Besides my nanny, I never had much interaction with, like, normal people. Nanny Celeste, the only person who ever let me cry without correcting my posture.
I haven’t seen or talked to her since I was eighteen. When Bonnie and I got old enough not to need a nanny anymore—ten-year-olds should be capable of independence, according to my parents—and only needed a driver, she left us to start working for another family with two small boys.
And you still miss her because she was more of a mother to you than—
I cut off the thought before it can grow legs and run.
“Rook saved my life,” Kylie says, her voice soft and quiet in ways that threaten to knock down my guard.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was moments away from being kidnapped, and he saved me,” she admits. “This man named Holland had sent three men to collect me from my own house.”
“Holland?” I question.
“Yes. Holland Thorne.”
My hands start to shake. “How do you know Holland Thorne?”
“I ice-skate…well, I used to ice-skate at this rink where he played hockey. Where Rook and Kane and Calloway played hockey too.”
Kane plays hockey? That’s so…violent. Mind you, you saw him kill two men…
“You know Holland too?” Kylie asks.
“Yeah, and he’s actually a super-nice guy, so I highly doubt he sent men to your freaking house to kidnap you.”
“Is he super-nice, though?” she questions. “I know he is on the surface, but deep down?”
“What are you trying to say?” I question. “That Holland is some kind of monster? I’ve been around him since I was a teenager. I think if he were evil, like you say, I’d know it.”
“People have a way of surprising us,” she says. “He came across as nice to me too, for a while. He wanted me to go to an event with him last Friday, and I thought I had the choice, but in reality, he was going to force me to go whether I wanted to or not.”
“Wait…he wanted you to go to the Choosing Mixer?” I laugh. “I highly doubt that. I mean, no offense. But that’s only for…special women.”
“Special women who are of the right bloodline? Blood of the three, right?”
My jaw gapes open. “How do you know about that?”
“Because my mother was blood of the three. And I am too.”
I narrow my eyes and look her up and down before I can stop myself. “But you’re not, like, rich. I mean, no offense, but it’s pretty clear in your choice of clothing.”
“No, I’m not rich.” She shrugs, completely unfazed by the dig. Her family must have blown all their dowries or something. “And technically, I didn’t even know vampires existed before Rook saved me.” She searches my face. “And Kane saved your life too. Even if you don’t realize that yet. He did.”
“You think Kane saved my life?” I scoff. “Do you even understand how insane that sounds? You’re talking about the man who killed two men in my driveway and dragged me into some cabin in the woods against my will.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but he stopped something worse.”
“There is no worse,” I retort. “He kept me from going to New York. I was supposed to spend time with an elite vampire there. An elite vampire who was probably going to choose me over all the other women available.”
“The vampire elite are not what you think they are, Blair. My mother and father were killed by the vampire elite. They’re rich, but they aren’t well-intentioned. Not even close.”
Her words hit like a slap, and I jerk my head back in shock. “Don’t lie about shit like that. It’s not funny.”
“I’m not lying.”
“My mom has prepared me my entire life to be chosen,” I say, my voice sharpening.
“She would not do that if they were dangerous. The elite have been in my home since I was a child. They came to my birthday parties. They attended my parents’ yearly Christmas party.
I know them personally. Just because they have money and power, that doesn’t make them monsters. ”
Kylie doesn’t argue. She just watches me, which somehow feels worse.
“I’m one of the lucky ones,” I continue. “You don’t understand how this works. Being chosen is an honor.”
“I understand that’s what they’ve told you, but what if they lied? What if being chosen isn’t what you think it is, Blair?”
I shake my head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. My father walks inside the inner circle. I’ve been around them my entire life. I know these men.”
“But do you really know them? Have you been around the women they’ve chosen previously? Do they parade them around and shower them with gifts?”
Her question pushes against something in my head, reminding me of the text conversation I had with Holland before I was supposed to go to New York and how secret and secluded it was all supposed to be.
I’ve barely ever seen the men my dad knows with a woman, but it was business. Of course they wouldn’t be there.
“Yes. I do know them.”
She doesn’t press. She holds my gaze.
And suddenly, the cabin feels smaller.
“You know what? I think I’m done with this bullshit,” I say through gritted teeth. “Either help me get out of this ugly cabin,” I say coldly, “or get out of my prison room.”
The words hang between us for a good twenty seconds before Kylie nods once.
“Okay,” she says softly. “I’ll leave you to adapt on your own. But just know, I’m here if you need anything. I could help you if you let me. Believe it or not, I understand.”
After that, she turns and walks out the door. She wants to paint herself as a friend, but I don’t miss the fact that the outside lock clicks back into place after the door is closed.
Silence settles back in, and I sit on the edge of the bed, trying to steady my breaths.
Being chosen isn’t what you think it is, her words repeat in my head.
I press my palms against my eyes.
It’s ridiculous. It has to be. Because if it isn’t…
Then my entire life has been a lie.