Chapter 48 Arabella
Arabella
Winnie: Come up to the castle tonight. I’ve invited the girls around. We have brilliant plans to cheer you up with quiet reading time by the fire and mercilessly teasing Alaric about his mummy issues. Cleo VII is welcome, too – if you can keep her away from Mirabelle.
I FROWN AT MY PHONE as I climb the steps and unlock my front door. My friends have been trying to help me get over Gideon. It’s working a little. I feel my violent despair transforming into bitter anguish. That’s an improvement, right?
I kick off my Prada boots, set my keys in the Murano glass bowl on my hall table, and move towards the kitchen to let Cleo VII out of her enclosure.
“I’m home, sweetie,” I coo as I press my finger to the pad next to the enclosure door. Cleo VII slithers eagerly towards me as I swing open the interior door. “Have you been a good girl? I’ve got a tasty toad for you—”
A shadow moves through the enclosure with startling speed. Several of Cleo VII’s impeccably-arranged sleeping rocks skid across the ground. I’m knocked back against the wall by an impossible force. The toad container flies from my hands.
“Hello, Arabella,” a voice rasps as a shadow envelops me. A face emerges from the gloom of a dark hood.
The face of a ghost.
No, not a ghost. Someone very much alive, with his hands around my throat, not squeezing but holding tight enough that I’m aware of his obscene strength.
Someone who makes my already cool blood freeze in my veins.
Someone who is supposed to be dead.
The scar across his face breaks open as his charred skin twists into a mockery of a grin. Lord John Astor, my sire, speaks in a voice thick with grave dust and satisfaction. “My dear, sweet Arabella. You are mine once more.”