Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
The apartment was quiet.
I’d cried the last of my tears for Lilith before Ralph had arrived with the carriage.
Rationally I understood my friend still lived and would remember me, but I could not shake the feeling she had died.
The understanding I had with Eamon in no way changed the life I’d lived, the horror I’d witnessed and experienced at the hands of vampires.
I feared it was in their nature to be cruel, and Eamon had been an exception to the rule.
So what would that mean for someone who loved and felt as fiercely as Lilith?
I wasn’t sure if I could stomach witnessing her love leach away.
Noah was out on patrols and I’d talked Ralph down from finding him for me.
Venefica attacks were at an all-time high in the city and the last thing I wanted was for his brothers to be shorthanded.
But I wished he was here to fill the silence, especially as I wandered into the bedroom I shared with Lilith.
She lives, Eamon had said.
Then why did this room feel like a tomb?
I started gathering our belongings. After tonight, I was sure that she would stay with Callum, and though Eamon and I hadn’t discussed it, I didn’t know if I could stay here again without her.
The thought had guilt creeping up my shoulders at the realization it would mean leaving Noah here alone.
But soon Eamon and I would seal our mating bond and he would most likely prefer for me to stay at his estate.
I tried not to think about what sealing the mating bond would mean for myself and my humanity.
There was no world in which I could stay human, not if I wanted to spend eternity with him.
But the prospect of being turned as Lilith had been made me so frightened I was in danger of losing the lunch Bernard had all but force-fed me before Seth had appeared.
Seth, the very first vampire made by Amayah herself, who had arrived well before nightfall with his skin gleaming in the late afternoon sun as he’d stepped into the foyer behind Bernard.
“Hello, little one,” he’d said in that strange, haunting tone of his. He hadn’t bowed the way males of this time did, but he did press his fingertips to his brow.
“Hello…” My voice had trailed off with discomfort—I hadn’t known how to address him. Surely a title like my lord was not enough for such a creature. I’d wanted to ask him how he was here in the daytime and was not burning, but I’d settled on: “Eamon is not here yet.”
He’d only smiled warmly and nodded. “Yes, I know. He’ll be with us shortly.”
I hadn’t known what to say to that, but he hadn’t appeared to mind my silence as he’d strolled into the house and we had engaged in polite conversation.
We’d ended up in the music room and he’d asked me to play him something.
There’d been such feeling in his expression as I’d played, his body rocking a little in time with the melody while his eyes welled with tears too dark to be merely blood.
That was when he’d told me of Lilith and her transformation, the words spilling out of him while I stared on in horror.
“You fear it, do you not?” he’d asked finally and, when I’d only sobbed harder, he’d continued: “You fear the gift Amayah wishes to give you.”
By the time I finished packing Lilith’s trunk and my valise I was shaking. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck despite the chill in the apartment. The door swung open with a crash.
“In here!” I called to Noah, latching the clasp on my case. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, I’m fine, kitten, thank you for asking.”
I jumped and spun to find an unfamiliar vampire leaning against the doorway, tugging on a set of thin leather gloves. He shook back his blond hair, tinted red, though it didn’t look natural.
“You know, no one ever asks me how I’m doing anymore.” He pouted theatrically, taking a step closer as I stepped back.
“Who are you?” I rasped.
Don’t take your eyes off the predator, Noah had said. You’re dead the moment you do.
So I searched in my peripheral vision for anything to fight him with. The male chuckled and the sound made the hair on my arms stand on end.
“Your dear maman wasn’t lying when she said you were a beauty,” he mused, close enough now to tug at a strand of hair fallen from my twist.
My heart jolted as my shoulders hit the wall beside the window. “How much does she owe you?”
His tongue clicked against his teeth as green eyes looked me over, nostrils flaring as he scented me. The length of his cold body pressed into me, turning my stomach while his lips brushed my ear.
“Nothing now.”
I ripped the pin from my hair and jabbed it straight into his jugular.
He cried out, falling to the side, and I took off toward the door.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins, my heart beating a dizzying rhythm.
I reached the living room before he slammed into me.
Books fell from the shelf I grabbed in my attempt to stay upright.
I screamed, kicking out while the immortal dragged me to him.
The pin jutted out of his throat, blood splashing across the walls and my face.
I pressed my lips together, not wanting to ingest a single drop.
“No?” He grinned, voice roughened by the wound. “You’ll be drinking it soon enough. I’ll keep you so drunk on it you won’t even know your own name.”
I twisted, screaming again as he ripped the pin from his throat, sending blood spraying onto the window and the altar we kept. He hauled me back against his chest, one hand clapping across my mouth to muffle my cries.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be docile as a doe in no time,” he purred, nipping at my ear.
I retched against his hand, choking on the bile.
He let my mouth go and I pitched forward as sick splashed across the wood.
If it disgusted him, he made no comment, only pulled me harder against his chest and headed toward the door.
“Sleep,” he commanded.
And darkness took me in the next breath.