I laughed. “Oh yes. Here it comes. The magical, mystical aura. Let me guess. It’s black, right?”
“No . . . it . . .” He continued scrutinizing me for several heavy seconds. “I can barely get a fix on it. It’s all over the place. What’s going on, Rose? What’s happening in the waking world?”
“Nothing’s happening,” I said. “Nothing except me being happy for the first time in my life. Why are you acting weird all of a sudden? You used to be fun. Figures the first time I’m finally having a good time, you go all boring and strange.”
He knelt down in front of me, no trace of humor anywhere. “There’s something wrong with you. I can’t tell what—”
“I told you, I’m fine. Why do you have to keep coming and trying to ruin things for me?” True, I’d desperately wanted him to come a little while ago, but now . . . well, that wasn’t so important. I had a good thing with Dimitri here, if only I could figure out how to solve all the not-so-good parts.
“I told you, I’m not here for me. I’m here for Lissa.” He looked up at me, wide-eyed and earnest. “Rose, I am
begging
you to come home. Lissa needs you. I don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t know how to help her. No one else does either. I think . . . I think only you can. Maybe being apart is what’s hurting her. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with you now, why you’re acting so weird. Come home. Please. We’ll heal both of you. We’ll all figure it out together. She’s acting so strange. She’s reckless and doesn’t care about anything.”
I shook my head. “Being away isn’t what’s wrong with me. Probably not what’s wrong with her, either. If she’s really worried about spirit, she should go back on her meds.”
“She’s
not
worried; that’s the problem. Damn it.” He stood up and began pacing. “What’s wrong with you two? Why can’t either of you see there’s something the matter?”
“Maybe it’s not us,” I said. “Maybe it’s you imagining things.”
Adrian turned back toward me and looked me over again. “No. It’s not me.”
I didn’t like any of this—not his tone, expression, or words. I’d been excited to see him, but now I resented him ruining my good mood. I didn’t want to think about any of this. It was too hard.
“Look,” I said. “I was happy to see you tonight but not anymore, not if you’re going to sit and accuse me and make demands.”
“I’m not trying to do that.” His voice was gentle—the anger was gone. “The last thing I want is to make you unhappy. I care about you. I care about Lissa, too. I want you both to be happy and live your lives like you want . . . but not when you’re both heading down destructive paths.”
He almost made sense. Almost seemed reasonable and sincere. I shook my head.
“Stay out of it. I’m where I want to be, and I’m not coming back. Lissa’s on her own.” I jumped off the rail. The world swirled a little, and I stumbled. Adrian caught my hand, and I jerked away. “I’m fine.”
“You are not. Jesus Christ. I’d swear you’re drunk, except . . . the aura’s still not right for that. What
is
it?” He ran his hands through his dark hair. It was his typical sign of agitation.
“I’m done here,” I said, trying to be as polite as possible. Why on earth had I wanted to see him again? It had seemed so important when I first arrived. “Send me back, please.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then froze a few moments. “What’s on your neck?”
He reached forward, and addled or no, I managed to dodge pretty efficiently. I had no idea what he saw on my neck, and I had no interest in finding out. “Don’t touch me.”
“Rose, that looks like—”
“Send me back, Adrian!” So much for my politeness.
“Rose, let me help—”
“
Send. Me. Back!
”
I shouted the words, and then, for the first time, I managed to pull myself out of Adrian’s dream. I left sleep altogether and woke up on the couch. The room was still and silent, the only sound my rapid breathing. I felt all tangled up inside. Usually, so fresh from a bite, I would be floating and gleeful. Yet, the encounter with Adrian had left part of me troubled and sad.
Standing up, I managed to make my way to the bathroom. I flicked on the light and winced. It hadn’t been very bright in the other room. Once my eyes adjusted, I leaned toward the mirror and pushed my hair out of the way. I gasped at what I saw. There were bruises all over my neck, as well as signs of fresher wounds. Around where Dimitri had just bitten me, I could see dried blood.
I looked . . . like a blood whore.
How had I never noticed this before? I wet a washcloth and scrubbed at my neck, trying to get the blood off. I rubbed and rubbed until the skin turned pink. Was that it? Were there more? That looked like the worst of it. I wondered how much Adrian had seen. My hair had been down, and I was pretty sure most of it had covered my neck.
A rebellious thought came to my head. What did it matter if Adrian saw or not? He didn’t understand. There was no way he could even come close. I was with Dimitri. Yeah, he was different . . . but not
that
much different. And I was sure I could find a way to make this work without becoming a Strigoi. I just didn’t know how yet.
I tried to reassure myself over and over, but those bruises kept staring back at me.
I left the bathroom and returned to the couch. I turned on the TV without really watching, and after a while, the happy fog rolled over me again. I soon tuned out the TV and returned to sleep. This time, my dreams were my own.
It took a while for Dimitri to come again. And by “a while,” I mean almost an entire day. I was getting twitchy by that point, both because I missed him and because I missed the bite. He usually visited twice a day, so this was the longest I’d gone without the endorphins. Needing something to do, I preoccupied myself with making myself as beautiful as possible.
I sorted through the dresses in my closet, choosing a long ivory silk one that had purple flowers delicately painted into the fabric. It fit like a glove. I wanted to wear my hair up, but after looking at the bruises again, I decided to wear it down. I’d been provided with a curling iron and makeup recently, so I worked my hair over carefully, turning the ends up in perfect little curls. Once made up, I stared happily at my reflection, certain Dimitri would be happy too. All I needed now was to put on some of the exquisite jewelry he’d given me. But when I turned to leave, I caught a glimpse of my back from the side and saw I’d missed fastening a clasp. I reached around to do it but couldn’t get a hold of it. It was in that perfect spot just out of my reach.
“Damn,” I muttered, still grappling with the hook. The flaw in my perfection.
Just then, I heard the door open in the other room, followed by the telltale sound of a tray being set on the coffee table. A stroke of luck.
“Inna!” I called, walking out of the bathroom. “I need you to—”
Nausea rolled through me, and as I stepped into the living room, I saw that Dimitri wasn’t the source. Nathan was.
My jaw dropped open. Inna stood near him, waiting patiently by the tray, eyes downcast as always. I immediately ignored her and then looked back at Nathan. Presumably, he was still on guard duty, but that had never actually included him coming inside. For the first time in a while, some of my battle instincts kicked in, assessing escape options. My fear urged me to back away, but that would trap me in the bathroom. Best to stay where I was. Even if I couldn’t leave the room, this gave me the most space to maneuver.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised at how calm I sounded.
“Taking care of a problem.”
I didn’t really need any pointers to figure out the subtext here. I was the problem.
Again, I fought the urge to back up. “I’ve never done anything to you.” It was faulty logic to a Strigoi. None of their victims
ever
did anything to them.
“You exist,” he said. “You’re taking up space here, wasting everyone’s time. You know how to find her—the Dragomir girl—yet you’ll offer nothing remotely useful until Belikov gets off his ass and awakens you. And in the meantime, Galina forces me to waste time watching you and keeps promoting
him
because he’s convinced her that you’re going to be some amazing asset to us.”
It was an interesting set of grievances. “So . . . um, what are you going to do?”
In a flash, he stood in front of me. Seeing him so close triggered that memory in my mind’s eye—him biting Dimitri and starting all of this. A spark of anger kindled in me but didn’t do much in the way of development. “I’m getting the information one way or another,” he hissed. “Tell me where she is.”
“You know where she is. She’s at the school.” There was nothing useful in giving up that news. He knew she was there. He knew where the school was.
The look he gave me showed he was not happy about me providing knowledge he already had. Reaching out, he gripped my hair and jerked my head painfully back. Wearing my hair down maybe hadn’t been so useful after all. “Where is she
going
? She won’t stay there forever. Is she going to college? The Royal Court? They must have made plans for her.”
“I don’t know what they are. I’ve been away for a while.”
“I don’t believe you,” he snarled. “She’s too valuable. Her future would have been planned out a while ago.”
“If it is, no one’s shared it with me. I left too soon.”
I shrugged by way of answer. Rage filled his eyes, and I swear, they grew redder.
“You’re bonded! You know. Tell me now, and I’ll kill you quickly. If you don’t, I’ll awaken you to get the information, and
then
I’ll kill you. I’ll light you up like a bonfire.”
“You . . . you’d kill me once I was one of you?” Foolish question. Strigoi felt no loyalty to each other.
“Yes. It’ll destroy him, and once Galina sees how unhinged he is,
I
will return to my original place by her side—especially after I stamp out the Dragomir line.”
“The hell you will.”
He smiled and touched my face, running his fingers along my neck and the bruises all over it. “Oh, I will. It really will make things easier if you just tell me now. You’ll die in ecstasy rather than being burned alive. We’ll both enjoy it.” He wrapped his hand delicately around my throat. “You’re definitely a problem, but you
are
beautiful—especially your throat. I can see why he wants you. . . .”
Warring emotions played within me. Logically, I knew this was Nathan—Nathan, whom I hated for having turned Dimitri in the first place. Yet my body’s need for Strigoi endorphins was raising its head too, and it barely mattered that it was Nathan. What mattered was that his teeth were only a breath away from my neck, promising that sweet, sweet delirium.
And while one hand held my throat, the other ran down my waist, down to the curve of my hip. There had been a sultry edge to Nathan’s voice, like he wanted to do more than just bite me. And after so many sexually charged encounters with Dimitri—encounters that never resulted in anything—my body almost didn’t care who touched it. I could close my eyes, and it wouldn’t matter whose teeth bit into me or whose hands peeled off my clothes. Only the next fix would matter. I could close my eyes and pretend it was Dimitri, lost in it all as Nathan’s lips brushed my skin. . . .
Except, as some small reasonable part of me recalled, Nathan didn’t just want sex and blood. He eventually wanted to kill me.
Which was kind of ironic. I’d been dead set—no pun intended—on killing myself when I got here, lest I become a Strigoi. Nathan was offering me that now. Even if he turned me first, he planned on killing me immediately afterward. Either way, I wouldn’t have to spend eternity as a Strigoi. I should have welcomed this.
But just then, as my body’s addiction screamed for his bite and that bliss, I realized something with startling clarity:
I didn’t want to die
. Maybe it was because I’d gone almost a day without a bite, but something small and rebellious woke up in me. I would
not
let him do this to me. I would not let him go after Dimitri. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him hunt down Lissa.
Pushing through that endorphin cloud that still hung around me, I summoned up as much willpower as I could. I dug deep, remembering my years of training and all the lessons Dimitri had given me. It was hard to access those memories, and I only touched a few. Still, enough came to spur me to action. I lunged forward and punched Nathan.
And accomplished nothing.
He didn’t budge. Hell, I don’t even know if he felt it. The surprise on his face promptly turned to mirth, and he laughed in that horrible way Strigoi did—cruelly and without any real joy. Then, with the greatest of ease, he slapped me and knocked me across the room. Dimitri had done nearly the same thing when I’d arrived and attacked him. Only I hadn’t flown quite as far or had so miniscule an effect on him.
I slammed into the back of the couch, and good God, did it hurt. A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I realized the idiocy of fighting someone vastly stronger than me when I’d been losing blood all week. I managed to straighten up and desperately sought my next course of action. Nathan, for his part, seemed in no hurry to respond to my attack. In fact, he was still laughing.
Glancing around, I latched onto a truly pitiful course of action. Inna stood near me. Moving with a speed that was painfully slow—but better than I expected myself to manage—I reached for her and wrapped my arm around her neck. She yelped in surprise, and I jerked her harder against me.
“Get out of here,” I said to Nathan. “Get out of here, or I’ll kill her.”
He stopped laughing, stared at me for a moment, and then laughed even harder. “Are you serious? Do you honestly think I couldn’t stop you if I wanted? And do you honestly think I
care
? Go ahead. Kill her. There are dozens more just like her.”
Yeah, that really shouldn’t have been a surprise either, but even I was a bit taken aback by how easily he could throw away a faithful servant’s life. Okay. Time to go to Plan B. Or maybe it was Plan J? Frankly, I was losing track, and none of them were very good anyway—