Chapter 6 #2
But I didn’t watch anyone go, I was too busy staring down the vampire in front of me.
Maybe I was hallucinating though, because no one else could see her but me.
Rusor came back with a goblet of blood and grabbed my chin.
“Open wide. I don’t feel like getting bloody and I need to get you out of the incoming sun. ”
I didn’t resist for once, deciding for the moment that figuring Cora out was more important than my death.
Taking the drugged liquid, I let Rusor help me back to my small cot in the corner of the cell.
My back against the stone wall, the cold seeped into my bones, providing a welcome change from the hours of heat.
I was able to hold my eyes open long enough to watch Rusor leave and close the door behind him, only for her to replace him in front of my eyes.
“Don’t worry Cedar, I’ll bring you something for the pain,” she whispered as her fingers ghosted across my forehead, pushing my hair from my face.
“Fuck you, Princess,” I muttered, and then it all went dark.
Straw from my cot was poking me in the back, my shirt was missing, the scars up my side were inflamed, and my skin felt as if it had been burned by the sun itself. Blinking a few times, my eyes were finally able to see past the pain and focus on what was in front of me—Cora.
“Well, hello there, Princess.” My voice was hoarse from the screaming I’d done, but as she spun around, stopping her pacing, and walked towards me, I found I somehow forgot about it.
How was one bloody female able to make me want to kill her one moment and fuck her the next? Maybe I could fuck her to death… that was an idea I could work with.
“Drink this,” she commanded as she handed me a small cup. Gone was the shy, timid tone I despised almost as much as the female herself. I didn’t know what was in the cup, but I knew it wasn’t blood.
“What is this? Some sort of poisonous concoction you had brewed just for me?” I asked as I tried to slowly push my body up into a seated position. I leaned my back against the wall and stared up at her, but I couldn’t read the expression that crossed her face.
Confusion, maybe? Mixed with concern. Then it turned to irritation—the irritation I could feel for a brief moment before it was gone again. Back to the normal shallow appearance she enjoyed projecting so effortlessly.
“Drink it or don’t, Cedar. It makes no difference to me.” Definitely irritation.
“I’m not drinking anything you hand me unless I know what it is.
I’m not sure if you know anything about the blond fucker, but I’m not exactly in the most trusting of moods.
Especially when I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t because of you.
For all I know, this could be some potion created by your lover’s other mistresses to fucking kill me.
” My voice was harsher than I meant it to be and she flinched at the word lover, but I’d gotten my point across.
I wasn’t thrilled by the turn of events, and I wanted it known to anyone who would listen.
She released a breath and my fangs started to ache as I watched her chest rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. My mind began to wonder what it would be like to sink my fangs into the flesh there—how sweet she’d taste. What noises she’d make as I left marks all over her perfect creamy skin.
Fuck, I was giving myself emotional whiplash.
“I know all about Voss. The concoction you’re so worried about is not poison—at least not yet.
It’s more of the tonic variety, and it’s for the pain.
Your body went through a great deal of stress, and with you not consuming blood at the rate you need to, your body may experience some…
aftershocks, and I need you not… dead,” she finally said.
I stared at her for a moment and then figured it couldn’t make me any worse at this rate, and she wasn’t wrong. I’d been gritting my teeth to keep my body from convulsing in front of her. Weakness wasn’t an option when I didn’t know what her game was and whose side she was truly on.
I picked the small cup up from the floor and threw it back quickly.
The liquid was thicker than I expected it to be and it tasted like grass, but I choked it down anyway.
The effects hit immediately as my body began to relax.
Not like the venom they’d laced the blood with earlier, but as if my body was being cleansed and learning how to breathe again.
I set the cup back down next to me and it disappeared the moment I released it.
“Uh—thank you? That was a lovely poi—tonic.” I stared at where the cup once was and then back to the female in front of me.
“Don’t mention it, Cedar. I didn’t do it for you. Try to get some sleep. The worst isn’t even here yet.” She started walking towards the door, but before she could open it, she disappeared into the darkness.
I laid back down on my cot wondering if she was even here, or if I made up the entire thing in my own mind as a way to deal with whatever pain and insanity I was starting to feel staring at these same four stone walls covered in my own blood.
The voices chattering in my mind that this was where I’d die.
Covered in wolf’s venom and flames from the inside.