Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
After Voracious Maw’s fairly explicit performance, I’m practically buzzing out of my skin. I haven’t fully fed in so fucking long and my powers are completely gone. Amelia keeps looking at me.
“There are about forty-five minutes before the Phantoms go on. Go find Grim and feed yourself, please.” She gives me a meaningful look. “I can practically feel your lust coming off you in waves.”
I shake my head, but I don’t respond. She’s right. I need to power myself up and Grim is obviously extremely willing. He’ll probably be pretty comfortable to be with. He makes me laugh.
But he’s not my bond.
But what if I never find my bond?
What if despite everyone’s reassurances, my bond doesn’t actually exist?
What if I can’t complete the deal with the wraith?
I think about staying here with my friends, but then I remember that Simon is going to introduce me to Wrath and I don’t know when.
I might only get the one chance to befriend him and I might need my powers to convince him that Simon’s idea to bring us on as openers for them is a good idea, especially after I get his tears.
So I say bye to my friends and make my way backstage, hoping to catch a glimpse of Grim.
To my disappointment I don’t see him yet.
The band is probably still somewhere getting into their costumes.
None of the Voracious Maw guys are around except for Simon, who’s in the middle of a phone call and looks like he’s simultaneously directing where the roadies should move their gear.
A little ways off I see a familiar face that sends my stomach twisting.
Jinx, Jordan’s best friend and bandmate, is standing a bit behind Simon and he’s spotted me, a smirk already fixed on his face.
He’s walking my way, so I turn and quickly move the other direction, weaving through several venue staffers, hoping Jinx will lose me in the crowd.
I decide to go behind the stage in an area that’s off limits to anyone without backstage passes, but it also seems to be an area that no one is using. I cut through to the other side and end up close to the grassy picnic area with the maze from the scavenger hunt on the other side.
I spare one second to glance behind me.
Jinx is standing still, looking around. I see it when he spots me. A slow grin spreads over his face, and he starts moving, heading right towards me.
I try to blend in with the crowd that’s milling about waiting for whatever show they’re going to next. The maze is roped off currently, but I figure if I can slip in there, I still have the map, so I could pop out on the other side and circle back around to make my way back to Amelia, to safety.
What is Jinx playing at?
I duck under the tape that’s closing up the entrance to the maze and make the first few turns from memory, taking out my map from yesterday. As I’m trying to orient myself I walk past a section I know is a dead end.
A hand snakes around my waist and pulls me back into a muscular, too hard chest. “Hey there, Bliss,” Jordan all but hisses in my ear, his breath hot and sticky on my neck. I wrench out of his grip and he puts on a confused look. “What’s wrong, beautiful?”
“Don’t touch me.”
What the fuck is he doing here?
My eyes grow wide as I realize it. He used Jinx to herd me into the maze.
He laughs. “Why not? You’re all turned on. I don’t even have to be able to smell you to know that you are. I know what a slut you are for that stupid band.”
He tilts his head to the side. “Is that what I need to do? Put on a mask? Is that what finally gets you hot?”
I want to gag at his words. They’re disgusting. He’s disgusting. But he’s not at all wrong about how I reacted to Voracious Maw’s show.
“Come on, Bliss,” he says, stepping closer. “You know you want it.”
Before I can say anything to that he lunges forward, grabbing the back of my neck.
His teeth rip into me, tearing my throat apart.
He’s more savage about it than he’s ever been before.
He rears his head back like a rabid animal and pulls my wrist up to his hand, biting into it hard, slurping at my blood and taking way too much.
He pushes me into the wall of hay and grinds into me. I scream out as much as I can, but his bite has gone too deep. My scream barely makes any noise.
Jordan smiles down at me, my blood dripping from his lips as he pushes me down forcefully onto the dirty straw-strewn ground. My head bangs against asphalt, my vision beginning to darken as Jordan squats down so his face is in mine.
“You’re so fucking sexy when your blood is all over the place like that,” he says, smiling at me, a crazed look in his eyes. “Soon you’ll be begging me to take this sweet cunt and when you do, I’ll be littering your skin with bites.”
He saunters off, wiping my blood off with his sleeve. I feel my body starting to shut down.
I try to call out after him, for what I’m not sure.
But I don’t think he realizes how low I am.
A tear slides down my nose as my head falls to the side, and just as I close my eyes, I see two pairs of feet stop just short of me.
One set is wearing black platform shoes, the other black combat boots.
For some reason that makes me smile as I give in to my body’s decline.