chapter fifty-two
THE POISONER
“ A lina, wake up,” Phoebe whispered, lightly tapping my face.
I moaned and rolled over in bed, wrapping my arms around her warm body as she lay next to me. She refused to let a maid stay with me so she could keep my company to avoid more feeding accidents.
“Are you well?” She rested her head on my chest.
“For now, I am fine,” I mumbled, rubbing my face against the soft pillow.
“You resemble a barely animated corpse.” Phoebe pulled off the sheets and inspected me.
“I think that is the greatest compliment you’ve given me in my twenty years of knowing you.” I laughed weakly.
I had not seen my reflection, though I was sure I looked as grim as Phoebe described. Tired, fatigued, sore, bruised, and an always healing wound. I had endured much these past few months. This was the last limb. I could feel it.
“You are requested downstairs tonight.” Phoebe traced her finger around the bruising on my shoulder. “I think it’ll be the best time to act. Everyone will be drunk, feeding, or on some other substance.”
“If you say so, I trust you,” I said as her worried face studied me. “We will be fine. Don’t look at me like that.” I tried to comfort her, though I was barely convinced myself.
There was a wide assortment of fruits and colorful vegetables.
Sliced pomegranate and berries. Cooked sweet potatoes and greens.
There were two platters of meat: one was lemon haddock, and the other sliced red meat.
It smelled like heaven. Then, my eyes trained on the beautiful pile of oranges in a bowl.
I could understand why the girls did not want to leave.
It really was heaven if you came of your own accord.
There was also a large decanter of red wine in the middle.
Finally, something to numb myself with.
I had not realized how hungry I was until now.
I poured a generous amount of wine into my glass before eating.
There was so much food around me I was overwhelmed with deciding what to eat first. I decided to stick to red meat and wine.
My orange was going to be saved for last. I downed the wine fast, and the lightness in my head hit me like a train.
However, it did make my mood slightly more enjoyable.
Overall, my body was relaxed. I was well rested and ready to depart this dreadful place.
My eyes slowly looked down at the deep purple in my cup. Wine was a blood thinner. I realized the entire spread before us was made up of ingredients that increased blood volume.
I plucked a few peeled orange slices from the table. A tingling at the back of my neck warned me of eyes watching.
I checked behind me to see Silas with three Hosts around him, but his eyes were only on me. They held such hatred in them, I could sympathize.
There was a girl on each of his legs as he sat there, then a third between his legs, touching his chest. They fawned over him, begging for him to take a bite.
As the scene unraveled, I wondered what he was getting at. Was this supposed to make me feel something?
He gave me a sly smirk before turning his attention to one of the women in his lap. He grabbed her neck and made her expose it for him. He licked his lips and glanced in my direction, not breaking eye contact as he sunk his teeth into her.
She gasped and clutched onto him.
What is his point?
I looked at the other side of the room and saw my other secret admirer, who watched with amusement as he sipped wine.
Two can play this silly game.
I grabbed a bowl of cherries from the table and walked off to the other side of the room.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked Luka sweetly.
“That depends. Do you have anything sharp on you?” He looked me up and down before he focused on my bowl of fruit, a curious look on his face as his eyes returned to mine.
“I will take that as a no.” I hummed, sitting across his lap.
Luka looked down at me before glancing over at Silas across the room. “What do you want?”
“Let’s not pretend that you care about the answer to that question as long as you get something in return.” I plucked a cherry off its stem with my teeth. They had a rich sweetness and didn’t have any pits, making them even more enjoyable.
“You caught me there.” He laughed. “You’re quite the exhibitionist, then?”
“Would that put you off?” I held another cherry at the front of my mouth.
“Quite the opposite.” He leaned close and grasped the cherry between my lips with his teeth, snaking a forked tongue in before closing the distance and rolling the small red fruit between our tongues.
I could feel the burning stare of a particular set of blue eyes across the room. Silas was not the most subtle. He had no one else to blame. He started this.
If I could get these two at each other’s throats, it would be killing two birds with one stone, and I would be free of them both. I just needed to endure it a little longer.
Luka let out a low chuckle as he stole the cherry from me, pulling away to chew and glance at Silas. He gave an amused laugh when he saw his face. “You were right. It is more fun when you have a voyeur.”
“I am not wrong about many things,” I whispered, nibbling playfully at his earlobe.
“Don’t get cocky,” he warned, looking back down at me. “You’re already poking two bears at once.”
“Well, what fun is being a captive when you can’t play with the keepers?” I asked innocently.
“The difference is that one of us could reduce you to only ribbons of flesh on the floor. Imagine what two will do,” he retorted. His eyes narrowed dangerously at me, but he kept a handsome grin on his face.
I ignored him, putting another cherry in my mouth and scanning the room. Silas was gone. I slipped off Luka’s lap, plucking the wineglass from his hands to drink from it.
“I don’t respond well to threats,” I mumbled. “When you hear a rattle, you don’t walk farther into the brush.”
Luckily for me, I spotted Phoebe, her back turned to me as she stood by a small cocktail bar.
“Phoebe!” I whispered as I approached her, turning her around by her shoulder.
She flinched, and my eyes widened.
There were red marks around her neck, as well as some other bruising that disappeared under the hem of her pink dress.
“He knows,” Phoebe choked out, her eyes red. “He found the other samples.” She was trying her best to hold back a sob.
“Shh.” I hugged her, resting her head against my chest. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luka approaching. I quickly turned my face down to her.
While my face was covered, I pulled the small half-inch vial that she gave me earlier from my sleeve, placing it in my mouth.
“How touching is this?”
I craned my neck to see Luka standing over us.
“You know the rules,” Silas warned, leaning against the common area entryway.
“Don’t pretend you care about rules now, Mr. Forbes,” he scoffed.
I closed my eyes. I needed to close them for a minute, clutching onto Phoebe. I hesitated to let her go, taking in the perfume she was wearing, the softness of her hair, and the temperature of her body against mine. There was no knowing if this would be the last time I saw her.
“This way!” Luka roughly yanked me by my arm toward the other room, settling on the red couch with the mahogany trim. “You sit over there. You know the rules, one at a time,” he directed to Silas.
Silas sat across from us. Phoebe was hovering by the door.
Other guests were preoccupied with their Hosts, too busy to notice any commotion, though I suspected brash characters were nothing new at a party involving alcohol and blood.
“You’ve been up to mischievous things, haven’t you?” Luka pulled me onto his lap, positioning my legs on either side of his hips.
I stared silently.
“Cat got your tongue?” He played with a piece of my hair between his fingers. “You seemed happy enough to take this position moments ago. What changed?”
I turned my face away from him.
“It’s disappointing. I thought we were all bonding, no? How about we share some things about ourselves?” He glanced at Silas. “Did she tell you about what happened at the country estate?”
I remained silent, though I did look in Silas’s direction. He looked intrigued, but his expression held something else. Was it contempt? Jealousy? Something worse?
“Yes,” Silas said.
“Even the part about her father?”
Silas was silent.
“I must be the delegated bearer of bad news.” Luka cringed. “What did your father’s coroner’s report say? Arsenic?”
My eyes snapped angrily at Luka. I had to keep it together. Just wait a little longer. My bottom lip trembled, and I shook my head.
“It was interesting to find that you poisoned your father and his assistant. Were you jealous he finally had a son?” Luka teased.
“I thought your journal entry from that day was quite interesting too. ‘Thirty-five hours, twenty-nine minutes, and fifteen seconds.’ I couldn’t believe you tracked how long it took him to expire! How morbid.”
I stared off in the distance, though I saw the look on Phoebe’s face. Her expression was nothing short of petrified, frozen in a state I had never seen. I did not want to see the look on Silas’s face.
“Playing with poisons before a storm wasn’t very bright of you, was it?
Truly careless, Alina. Though I assume that it was a beginner’s mistake.
” He laughed. “Oh, I found your little collection. Your friend did a poor job at hiding them.” His eyes were locked on me, interrogating me.
“Tell me—which one of us would you have poisoned first? Me or Silas?”
I could feel the anger building up, the tears clouding my vision.
“Oh, don’t be so glum. You should learn to be thankful that I didn’t snap that pretty little neck of yours after that stunt.” He smiled, moving my dress up and unbuttoning his trousers.
“Luka!” Silas shouted, standing up. “That’s enough!”
“Uh-uh! Stay there!” Luka grabbed me by the back of my neck, pulling me closer against his chest.
I shook my head subtly at Silas, and our gazes lingered.
Then, he remembered I was silent .
“Ah!” Luka scolded, and grabbed my face to look at him again, a fire burning in the embers of his eyes, his smile showing off those deadly talons for teeth. “Don’t look at him. Look at me.”
Silas hesitantly sat back down, eyeing me nervously.
“I have to know your methods, Alina. He’s quite obedient,” Luka said smugly, holding my face gentler than before. “Now, where were we?”
He slid the skirt of my dress higher, exposing some of the leftover bruise marks on the back of my thighs from the riding crop. It was all a disgusting display designed to make Silas angry because Luka knew he was safe behind my flesh as a shield.
His craving for power over others was his unfortunate vice. It was precisely why he was perfect for this particular stunt.
I leaned forward, holding the fabric of his shirt gently between my fingers. My lips timidly brushed over his chest, the front of his throat, then the crook of his neck.
“That is a much better attitude.” He leered, believing he had won some sick victory. I knew that his focus was on Silas though. I could assume that the pain he was inflicting on him was a bigger turn-on than the body in his lap.
Predictable.
I clenched my teeth around the glass, making it shatter in my mouth with a crack.
“What was that?”
I sank my teeth into his neck, letting the glass and poison mix with the fresh wound I was creating as I clenched my jaw harder, his blood filling my mouth as I held on.
A purely animalistic shriek came from him as he shoved me onto the floor, a patch of skin being taken as he did so.
The wind was knocked from my lungs as I tried to regain my breath, spitting out the glass pieces and flesh while black blood dripped from my lips.
Luka let out a harrowing yell. It did not sound even remotely human. He charged at me before Silas’s body crashed into him, both of them baring their teeth and tearing at each other violently.
The burning in my mouth told me I did not have much time. My throat was closing, and my breathing was becoming more labored as I tried to focus and steady my spinning head.
In the commotion, other patrons clamored around us, mainly crowding around the two animals in the middle of the room.
The last thing I saw as I was dragged across the floor was the two figures slashing at each other.
Luka’s face was burning. His eyes filled with blood as it came in tears down his face, the skin around my bite dying and turning red as it spread across his face.
I had never wondered what burning flesh smelled like, but I remembered it from that night.
I was not sure if it was the lack of air in my brain, the lingering venom, or the satisfaction of my poison working, but I took comfort in that scalding monstrosity possibly being my last masterpiece.