by Cate Corvin
I ended up crouched over him, my sword at his neck, and the seconds stretched thin between us. His beautiful eyes ran over my face, but he seemed more severe, more remote than ever.
Was he really happy that we could be together? A tinge of disquiet touched me.
My sore thighs screamed as I rose, feeling like I had a pile of stones sitting in the bottom of my stomach, but he tugged me back down.
Hope was a painful thing sometimes.
“We’ve been engaged for twelve hours,” he said, “And I haven’t had a chance to properly express my feelings on it.” His fingers lingered on my chin.
“It’s not what I would’ve done if I’d had a choice.”
He’d said he’d forgiven me, but his demeanor said something else.
“I know. We’ve all done things we wouldn’t have done if we’d had any other options.”
I wrapped my hand around his, turning my head to brush a kiss over his knuckles. “We can cancel it and start over after they’re gone.” If you want to start over. “Do a fresh start.”
He gripped my waist and yanked me down against him. “Who said anything about starting over?”
When his voice took on those silky tones, I couldn’t help but shiver. “I didn’t want to force you into this arrangement-”
“Lucrezia.” Dominic sat up and I sank into his lap, my legs almost wrapped around him. My heart started fluttering when he ran his fingers through my hair. “We would’ve made our way into this arrangement regardless. You’ve been engaged, as far as I’ve been concerned, from the moment you accepted this.” He touched the dark ruby on my finger.
“So, what would the proper expression of your feelings be?” My voice was a little raspier than usual, betraying my nerves.
He kissed me roughly, crushing against me with a force that verged on painful, and an explosion of butterflies burst to life in my stomach.
“Knowing you want me makes me the happiest man alive.” His rough voice made me feel like I was melting. “And I’m going to show you the proper expression when I have you for a night to myself.”
I was sitting in the perfect spot to feel him harden against me. Desire wound through me and I resisted wriggling against him any more than necessary, or that proper expression would take place right here on the lawn. “I’m just happy I don’t have to hide this anymore.”
“Me too,” he said, a genuine smile touching his lips.
Everything was finally falling into place, but I feared there was an axe hidden over our heads, waiting to fall.
***
Daphne cut through my darker thoughts as we headed to Divination.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Darke, but there’s a very juicy rumor going around the mill: are you seriously engaged for a handfasting to Steelblood?”
Hearing my old name made my heart jump. “Uh…”
She grabbed my hand and held it up to examine the Steelblood and Giltglass rings. “Holy shit. It’s true.” Daphne pressed a hand to her chest, always dramatic. “He’s a professor, you dirty girl!”
Nothing could’ve stopped the red flush that spread across my cheeks. “Yeah, but he’s only thirty-one… it’s not like I’m engaged to someone’s grandfather.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. That was a little too close to home.
“You fucked on his desk, didn’t you? Oh my god. All our essays have touched it.” Daphne looped her arm through mine, pulling me close and dropping her voice to a mutter. “How big is he?”
“Daphne!”
“You can’t let me suffer like this, Darke!”
I sighed as we turned into the pink corridor. Ivy waited outside her classroom as students filtered in, not a hair out of place, but when her eyes landed on me her gaze promised nothing but misery.
“Huge,” I said with a smirk.
Daphne tossed her hair, giving Ivy her signature glare as we passed.
We sat together at a table in the back and a pang of longing shot through me. I couldn’t imagine Holly’s face if she saw that the Daphne-dragon had finally been tamed into a friend.
Ivy slammed the door when we’d all arrived and launched right into her lecture. I was pleased to see that the fake Steelblood ring was gone.
My coven-sister’s hate was completely transparent. She couldn’t even glance at me without sneering.
I leaned back in my chair, watching her right back, but my hackles were raised.
I’d taken everything from her. Any hope of becoming heir to Giltglass. Her aunt’s attention. Dominic Steele’s fortune.
Assuming she was would roll over and take it without a fight would be stupid on my part. Someone like Ivy always had a sneaky back-up plan.
Either that, or she’d come at me head-on when I least expected it. It’d be easier for her to ask forgiveness than permission if she murdered me. Either way, I needed to keep both eyes on her.
By the end of Divination, a headache was drumming at the back of my skull.
Shane and Roman waited for me outside the classroom, their faces dark. Daphne’s steps faltered, but she continued on with a nod to the twins. Two arms were immediately wrapped around me, one around my shoulders and one around my waist.
“Come on,” Shane muttered, and I let the twins sweep me down the hall.
We stopped at the bottom of the stairs in the North Entrance, shielded behind a stuffed antelope that hadn’t been there last week.
“Locke broke free.” Shane’s gaze went over my head, taking in the lay of the foyer, every window and door.
I was stunned into silence for a few seconds. “When?”
He couldn’t have gone far. We’d left in the middle of the night- how could he have broken out between then and sunrise?
“After we left. Shane tracked him this morning- Cadogan Brand definitely got inside the wall, and Locke’s trail leads outside the grounds.”
My stomach roiled. “The closest place they could’ve hidden is the tunnel.”
That thought wasn’t much of a comfort. They’d have a path heading straight inside Cimmerian while Locke lost his mind.
“You’re not going down there, Lu.” Roman braced his hand on the wall, looming over me. “The prison was completely fucked. He could break you in half without trying.”
“He wouldn’t do that to me,” I said, touching the silver scars on my wrist. Could he feel them, his thrall reaching out to him?
“Lu.” Shane braced himself. He was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. “I know you really want to believe the best of everyone, but this isn’t just a matter of Locke snapping out of it. He won’t know you.”
I swallowed hard, pushing back any doubts I had about him. Regardless of what he was, I loved Locke. He’d tried his absolute hardest to be here for me when I needed him.
Now I needed to be here for him.
Dominic strode down the stairs, carrying a stack of papers and looking every bit like my idealized dream of a gorgeous professor. “What is it?” His hazel eyes narrowed in on me and my fingers at my wrist, taking in the tension.
“Locke broke out after we left,” Shane muttered. “The only place he could be is in the tunnels with Brand.”
“We’ll lure them out,” I said, pressing my thumb to the scars so hard it hurt. “I’d prefer not to kill Cadogan if we can help it.”
“What else can we do with him, Blondie?” Roman ran his hands over his head in exasperation.
The look Dominic gave him was all too understanding. “If it comes to that, let me handle it.”
Shane gave him a chilly look. “You think we can’t deal with it?”
“I’m saying I already have blood on my hands, and you don’t,” Dominic said smoothly. “Killing isn’t easy, Mister Frost. It shouldn’t be. Leave it to those who already lose sleep over what they’ve done.”
The twins looked down. “We’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it.” I gripped Roman’s hand. “You both knew Cadogan. If we can’t reason with
him, we’ll go to plan B.”
“We don’t even have a plan A yet,” Roman grumbled.
I rose up to kiss Dominic, feeling incredibly strange doing it without a care for anyone else who might be around. “Tonight?”
His lips brushed mine when he spoke. “I’ll meet you after sunset. Once we find Locke, I have something else we need to take care of as well.”
An hour and a half. We headed to the cafeteria to eat, plan, and wait for the last of the sun to fade from the sky. I wondered what else Dominic could possibly have planned.
When we walked in, Carmen Flora smirked from where she was holding court with the remains of Daphne’s entourage. “Fucking your way to straight A’s, Gilt?”
I stared at her for a second, wondering if it was even worth my time to reply. “Jealous much?”
She was still trying to think of a reply when we left.
Roman tore into a steak like he was starving. For once I found the amazing spread of Cimmerian’s food completely unappetizing, my stomach flipping queasily.
I toyed with my braised chicken and leek soup, watched the fading light glisten off the seed-speckled raspberry jam smeared on a roll, and realized why a group of doomed inmates were so well-fed, with so much emphasis placed on our physical training.
It kept us healthy and happy.
It made our magic stronger, so any students fed into the Cage would provide Albrecht with a hearty, vital life force to feed on.
I pushed my plate away.
“You have to eat something, Lu,” Shane said.
The raspberry jam looked too much like congealed blood now. “They’re fattening us like pigs for slaughter. For him.”
Roman finished his steak. “I won’t let him touch you, Blondie, but I sure as hell won’t waste a perfectly fine cow, either.”
“How are we going to do this?” I asked, pitching my voice low so Carmen’s table wouldn’t overhear.
Shane glanced through the wall of windows as the sun dipped behind the trees.
He’d gone white as a ghost last night when we returned from Locke’s temporary prison, his eyes misted over and caught in the grip of the Sight. No matter what I asked, he refused to answer my questions.
Whatever he’d seen, it’d spooked him badly. His handsome face had been drawn ever since.
“Lu, there’s no easy path here. The time for sunshine and rainbows is long past. Locke and Cadogan are the same kind. They were both people once, but they’re not anymore.” His twilight eyes were as cold as a glacier. “We know it’s impossible for vampires to co-exist without becoming animals, and some vampires will instinctively look for others of their kind.”
My heart felt like a frozen stone in my chest, but I refused to look away.
“If you want to keep Locke, we’re going to have to kill Cadogan. It’s the only way to guarantee he won’t come looking for him again.”
I resisted snapping at him in Locke’s defense. He was right about one thing: it wasn’t their fault they became mindless when they were near each other. No matter what the vampire virus had done to them, they were still people, with hopes, dreams… and morality. Locke was proof of that.
“Locke is a person, Shane,” I said.
His gaze shuttered for a second. “That’s not what I meant.”
Roman let out a low growl. I looked at him, strangely expecting to see a wolf sitting where a man had been only a moment ago, but he was still human and focused on the forest outside, frozen in his seat as the edges of his body shivered.
Two dark figures streaked towards the school from the forest like charging madmen, their lips drawn back in feral grins.
Through the cold numbness of shock, I barely felt one of the twins’ manhandling me out of the way, shoving aside chairs and tables and shielding me with their own bodies.
Glass exploded inwards with an almost musical crash, a screeching sound echoing through the cafeteria like a chorus of the damned, and I realized it wasn’t just the glass hitting the tile floor I was hearing. It was the vampires screaming, their shrieks grating through my skull and shivering down into my bones.
Cadogan hit a stunned Lissa Clay like a meteor, driving her back into the wall so hard the wood panels splintered under the impact. Her screams cut short abruptly.
Wind swept through the room, tearing at our hair and clothes. All I felt was the cold breeze, a hard, muscular body shielding me, and a jolt of pain that ran through my thrall-marks.
I winced, pressing my palm to the ragged scars on my wrist, and realized what the pain was. Locke was searching for me, calling for me through our bond.
He was crouched on one of the tables, the pupils of his eyes dilated into thin slits as he took a deep breath and tasted the air.
“Stop him, Roman,” Shane growled. Dense guard-hairs were sprouting from his arms and back.
Roman was already shifting, his clothing falling to the floor in shreds.
Cadogan released Lissa and rounded on the Moon siblings. Garth held Petra in front of him like a shield, cowering behind her as his sister stared at Cadogan with blank eyes.
“Don’t you dare!” Daphne shrieked, sending a flurry of knife-like winds at Cadogan, but the vampire was faster.
Petra went down without so much as a squeal, and the vampire reached out with an almost casual swipe and tore Garth’s throat out.
Blood poured everywhere, a waterfall of red sluicing over the floor and walls. I’d never realized how much blood the human body held.
Garth watched Cadogan with disbelieving eyes, sinking to his knees.
Time seemed to speed up again as Garth died. My chest felt hot and tight, flames scorching my throat as the wildfire threatened to break free and defend us.
It would bring down the whole mansion on our heads if I let it go now.
Roman circled Locke, a gravelly, unbroken snarl streaming from his throat. I pressed my fingers to the thrall-marks, desperately reaching out for Locke.
This wasn’t him.
And yet it was.
He looked completely mad now, nothing human remaining in the cold, hard planes of his face. The other vampires were in his mind, their bloodlusts entwining until all he would hear was the music of his own kind, all remnants of humanity gone.
My lungs refused to inflate properly when those burning amber eyes fell on me, following the pull of the thrall-mark.
“Locke,” I whispered. He still had time. He hadn’t gone for one of the others yet. “Fight back.”
Carmen shrieked and his gaze flickered her away, but Roman barked.
Locke lunged for him, and a tearing sound filled the air. Roman blasted a howl in his face and lunged, his teeth coming away a vivid scarlet.
Cadogan moved on, plowing through the cafeteria to a chorus of fresh shrieks. Professor Sweet burst into the cafeteria, clutching a rowan knife, but the vampire’s fist met her skull with a sickening crunch before she saw him coming. The Physical Training professor went limp and collapsed.
Petra’s heels drummed the floor in a staccato tattoo. Her fingers scratched mindlessly at the floorboards.
“How the fuck is she turning? She didn’t drink his blood,” Shane growled. He exploded out of his clothes, herding me back against the wall.
The cafeteria doors burst open. The Headmistress strode in, taking in the gore with a single sweep of her eyes, and pointed to Cadogan, who held Jasper a foot above the floor by his throat, digging his nails under the tendons in Jasper’s neck.
The ceiling overhead bubbled and flexed, and the Helping Hands shot out of the ceiling, stretching impossibly far.
They gripped Cadogan, Petra, Lissa, Jasper, Garth, and Sweet, a forest of hands and arms twining around prey both limp and wriggling and pulling them upwards.
My stomach lurched as Petra’s trembling form melted into the ceiling, followed by the still form of her brother, and the weakly-struggling Jasper.
Cadogan went screaming, any human words indecipherable through the hissing and spitti
ng.
The Hands turned towards Locke, whose hands were still buried in Roman’s fur.
“Go,” I whispered, my voice strangled. The tiniest hint of clarity had come back to his features. “Run!”
Locke sneered at the Hands, his lips pulled back over his teeth, and plunged back through the shattered window. He disappeared into the night.
I ran to Roman as he limped to me. Blood poured down his leg, and he rumbled when I touched it, but the wound didn’t look threatening.
Locke had held back, even when his basest, most primal instincts were raring for him to kill.
Shane guarded me aggressively, only deigning to allow one person through. “Dominic.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck as uncontrollable shivers wracked my body. Cadogan had ripped through five people in less than a minute.
Carmen was still shrieking, her nails drawing furrows down her cheeks. Daphne glared at her and stepped away, staring at the sea of blood left behind by Garth and Petra, the shattered wood where Lissa had been driven right through to the skeleton of the mansion.
Cimmerian groaned around us, the walls and ceiling creaking with a sound so low I felt it reverberating in my chest.
It hurt. I felt the wards pressing in around me, like standing in the heart of a convulsing living being. I felt Cimmerian’s pain, the ache of the broken walls, the dark magic of the Helping Hands winding through the skeleton of the building like a parasite.
Dominic’s hand rested on my back as I gasped for air, every muscle in my body locked up tight in a cramp.
I pulled my own mental wards in place, shielding myself from the worst of Cimmerian’s pain.
My blood was on the cornerstone; it bound me to Giltglass, but now I was closer to the wards than I’d ever been before. My bones ached like the damage had been done to me.
Gilt didn’t seem to feel the mansion’s pain, or care. She was talking to Carmen, her thin fingers wrapped around the greenwitch’s wrist and whispering harsh words.
“Locke didn’t bite anyone,” I rasped as the mansion’s agony slowly faded to a dull ache. “He went for Roman with his hands, even with weaker prey here.”