Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
ILOOK UP WHEN I hear the garage door open again, five hours later. I stand up, wipe my face clean, and watch Rath with conflicted feelings as he walks down the hall toward me.
In his right hand is a bag, a big, insulated one.
“What is that?” I ask with trepidation.
“Blood,” he responds as he sets it on the floor right next to the door. “Your father stopped feeding on anyone who was unwilling in 1875, and modern medicine accommodated that more easily in the past seventy years.”
Rath presses his hand on the door, seemingly in the same way that I did, and it opens without any fuss or bruised shoulders.
I shove him aside, knowing I am only able to do so because he let me. “Ian?” I call down into the darkness. My eyes take a moment to adjust.
He’s there, sitting with his back propped against the well wall. His head rests against it, his face tilted up at me. His hands clutch and hug around his arms, and his entire body shakes with violent tremors. The stake no longer pokes through his wrist, though it remains a bloody slick.
“Li…Liv,” he manages.
He’s a mess. Black, angry veins cover his face. They stretch down his neck. His eyes are brilliant. But his skin is ashen, his lips cracked and dry.
“Give me one of those,” I demand of Rath. If I’m feeling conflicted about this impossible situation, it’s nothing compared to the look on Rath’s face.
He slaps a blood bag down in my opened hand.
I look down at it for a moment. This came from someone. Some mother, or brother, or daughter who volunteered to give of their self with the intent to save lives. The cool liquid slides over my hand inside the plastic bag.
Someday, I’m going to crave this. I’ll rip open a bag like this and I’ll down it without a second’s hesitation. It will be all I can think about some days.
This is my future.
“Try not to think about it,” Rath says softly. My eyes rise to meet his. His expression has softened. There’s that protective loyalty I’ve grown used to in the past few months. “Circumstances have changed. You have a choice. For the time being.”
I take a deep breath, roll my shoulder back, and lift my chin.
I do have control.
I grip the blood bag tight and turn back to the opening.
“I have blood for you, Ian,” I call down to him. He slowly opens his eyes to look at me again. “I think it will help if you drink. Are you ready?”
He gives a tormented grunt or growl—I’m not sure which it is.
“No, I’m nowhere near damn ready.” He smacks his head back against the stone wall and I hear a crack.
I hope it wasn’t his skull. The speed of his breathing increases, though, and a feral sound builds inside of his chest. I’m waiting for a ferocious howl to escape from him.
“Ian,” I say, my voice hardening. “I know how much you must hate what is happening right now. But you’re only making things worse for yourself. Drink it.”
I toss the blood bag down and it lands in the water right next to him.
I expected him to get pissy about it—for him to fight me and say he’ll never drink it. He’d rather die again than be like them.
I didn’t expect him grab the bag with a speed so inhuman. I didn’t expect him to rip into the bag with his instantly extended fangs. I didn’t expect the blood that dripped down his face or the satisfied moan that echoed throughout the well.
“More,” he growls without looking up at me.
Rath hands me another blood bag and I toss it down to him.
One after the other, Ian asks for another. Ten. Twelve. Fourteen bags.
I toss him the fifteenth. We’re all quiet now.
It’s nearly morning.
When he finishes the bag, Ian tosses it aside with the others. But this time, instead of begging for more, he hangs his head. He rests his forearms over his knees and lets his head hang between his arms.
“Ian?” I ask tentatively.
He doesn’t respond.
“Ian?” I ask, using every ounce of strength I have to keep calm. “Are you alright?”
Again, he answers me only with silence.
I’m about to call to him again when Rath grabs my arm. I look over at him and he just shakes his head. He gently guides me away from the door, this time leaving it open.
“Give him a few moments,” Rath says. He doesn’t let me go as he walks me down the hall.
“It will take some time. He’s just become everything he hates.
And you’ve just been witness to him having no choice but to succumb to it.
Having the person you love most witness your undoing isn’t an easy thing. ”
There’s that word again. Love.
I made Ian make a promise to me, a few months back—to not fall in love with me.
I think you knew damn well I was breaking that promise from the day you made me make it.
We’d screamed the words at each other just days ago.
The fissure in my heart cracks just a little wider.
“I will stay close to him,” Rath says. “Take some time.”
“Promise me you won’t hurt him,” I say. It’s a ridiculous request. Ian is a vampire now, Rath should not be able to hurt him. But Rath is Rath, and nothing about him is what meets the eye.
I can tell it’s a pained promise to make, but he nods in consent nonetheless.
Take some time. It’s as logical an idea as any at this point, I suppose. I dismiss myself and walk back up the stairs. I change into fresh clothes in my room. Jeans that hug my legs from hip to ankle. A heavy sweater. Boots and a coat. My father’s key necklace.
I ignore the multitude of bruises I’ve gained because of Ian.
I pass my father’s office on my way back to the stairs. I pause in the doorway.
There’s the Conrath family crown, sitting on the desk. Behind it is the chalkboard with my schemes of revenge upon it.
Jasmine’s name is written at the top with a big X through it. There’s Micah, as well. Lillian, Anna, Christian, Samuel, Cameron, Trinity, Markov. My enemies. My possible allies.
Just hours ago, I was prepared to turn against everything I was when I arrived in Silent Bend. I was prepared to become a human vampire monarch. I wanted revenge and blood.
In just a few short hours, everything has changed.
But sitting there in the corner, wrinkled and destroyed, lays the dress I wore at the House just days ago. The dress I was to wear as I died—to save Ian. The dress I was to resurrect in.
The dress that is covered in Ian’s blood.
Jasmine murdered him.
She drove a sword through his stomach, right in front of me.
Hatred builds inside of me. I didn’t know I was capable of the true meaning of the word until she took from me the one thing I was willing to literally die to protect.
Ian may be here now. He may have resurrected.
But my desire to end her hasn’t changed.