by Cate Corvin
“I wouldn’t say we’re friends yet. It’s tentative. But I feel if I can find it in my heart to forgive you, Daphne deserves a second chance too.”
Roman’s eyes darkened for a moment, but he didn’t need to worry.
He’d earned my trust back and then some, letting me in to see the real Roman beneath. He’d kept me and Dominic anchored and alive on the deadside and went out of his way to defend Locke.
I loved Roman, my wild, sarcastic wolf.
I settled in bed between the two of them, luxuriating in the thickly-corded arms that slipped around me. My mind drifted for a moment, then I reached for the warm, fuzzy glow that was the connection between myself and Demonseed.
Everything looked so much bigger from his vantage point, chairs and end tables becoming monstrous constructs, the parquet floors like a smooth, gleaming ocean spreading for miles in all directions. Every speck of dust held its own interest.
The hallway with Dominic’s classroom was very interesting to Demonseed. He wanted to rip the dead bugs off the walls, but his legs were too stumpy, and the glass cases protected them.
It also smelled like me and the man I always went there to see, the smells familiar to him from my clothes.
The man I used to see, I amended to myself. I was going to have to brace myself to just talk to him and demand the truth, even if I’d promised not to. That part of the agreement seemed null and void at this point.
The door to Discipline was cracked, which surprised me.
Demonseed stopped outside the door, sensing my surprise and disquiet, but after a moment of contemplation, I urged him forward. His tail curled around the doorframe as he slipped into the room, but the classroom I used to love so much was silent.
It wasn’t empty, though.
An enormous mirror leaned against the far wall, the silk covering tied to the side. Dominic was frozen in front of it, his spirit gone from his body and traversing the deadside.
Ivy Bloom stood at his shoulder, one hand pressed possessively to the small of his back, the other holding the candle that anchored him to life. She’d exchanged her tailored dresses for a nightgown that barely covered her ass and a see-through robe.
In my own body, my heart began pounding, the taste of crackling embers coating my tongue. Demonseed poofed up as my emotions hit him.
I was dimly aware of the twins shaking me, calling my name when they heard my heart rate spike, but I kept my mind firmly situated with my familiar.
Hide and wait. Let’s see what happens.
He obeyed, slinking around the bookshelf closest to the door, his little legs stiff and ready to bolt.
It took ten minutes of patience for Dominic’s spirit to come back to his body. The twins stopped shaking me as my heart calmed, but my throat felt like it had been scorched black.
Dominic stepped back with a wooden jerk and Bloom blew out the candle. “Find what you needed?” She wrapped her arms around his neck, rising up to kiss him.
My stomach lurched, but he put his hands on her shoulders and moved her aside, stepping out of her grasp.
“I did, but there was a sleeper near your aunt’s office.” He pressed a hand to his side. “It landed a bite. Let me take care of this, Ivy. Go.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, scowling at his back. “You have an excuse for everything, don’t you?”
Dominic just glanced at her coolly. “Would you like me to bleed all over you?”
Bloom’s face twisted into a pout and she strode to the door. Demonseed slunk deeper into the shadows, avoiding her sharp gaze.
“Clean yourself up then,” she snapped. “But I’m getting tired of your excuses, Dom. I’ve upheld my end of the deal- figure out yours.”
Then she was gone, sweeping out of the room and leaving the door wide open.
Dominic immediately dropped his hand, his tense posture relaxing. He wasn’t injured at all. I knew the subtle tells in his expression when he lied, and my heart lightened.
His voice might be convincing, but his face couldn’t lie to me. He was playing Ivy Bloom false.
But he was also heading to shut the door, and Demonseed was still in there.
Go, go, go!
My familiar bounded from the corner and went flying into the hallway. Dominic watched the kitten leap past, his brow creased and eyes narrowed.
Luckily, he didn’t give chase, and Demonseed was outside my bedroom door again in a matter of minutes.
I jerked back into my own body, the twins clamoring, and let my familiar back in my room.
“You are the best cat ever,” I growled, scooping up the dusty furball. “Extra salmon tonight.”
Seeing for myself that Dominic was blatantly deceiving her was a massive weight rolling off my shoulders, and I wondered if I’d been too quick to declare him a dickhead. I breathed a sigh and buried my face in Demonseed’s fur, light as a feather with relief and hope.
“What the hell was that, Lu?” Shane grabbed my shoulders and wheeled me straight back to the bed. “Your heartbeat was out of control. We felt it.” His fingers ran over the silver half-moons.
“He was mirrorwalking. Bloom was with him.” Roman’s face darkened, the hard planes of his face ominous and primal. I felt a protective surge through our bond, reaching into the marrow of my bones. “But… I think he’s playing her for something. I don’t think it’s as bad as I thought.”
I was so relieved I almost wanted to laugh out loud.
I might’ve even gone to see him then, if Locke hadn’t crawled in through my open window, covered in blood and scratches, his eyes wild.
Chapter 21
Lu
“Locke!”
Demonseed leaped from my arms and took up refuge on top of the dresser, letting out a sound like a rusty air-raid siren.
Locke just collapsed in a heap on the floor, perfectly still, and there was something preternatural in the position that made the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand up.
I knelt next to him and touched his shoulder, then realized what it was.
He was still alive, but he wasn’t bothering to breathe. His body was completely still, silent, and dead for all intents and purposes.
There was something chilling and uncanny about seeing him give up all pretense of human affectations.
I swallowed back my fear and gripped him. I loved him, whether he had a breath and a heartbeat or not.
Locke blinked, his pupils widening to eat up the amber irises. “Lucrezia?”
The blood leaking from the scratches and deep grazes on his body was so dark it was almost black. “What happened to you, Locke?”
He took a breath and held it. I realized he was tasting it, reading the composition of my emotions from the pheromones he breathed.
“I tried to go below, but…” He shook his head, which was still resting on the floor. “I couldn’t go any further. I tried, my love. There were people… talking to me, inside my head, demanding I do unspeakable things…”
“It’s okay, you’re here now, you don’t have to do anything.” I stroked his arm from shoulder to wrist, using slow, soothing motions. His skin was much cooler than usual, which was more than a little worrying.
“They felt like they were a part of me, Lucrezia,” he said, his eyes still wide. “Part of my mind.”
Shane knelt on Locke’s other side.
“How far down did you get?” he asked. Locke was trembling under my hand.
“Not far enough,” Locke whispered. “Not nearly far enough. I need blood. I can’t heal.”
“We’ll take him to the forest.” Shane stood up and stripped off his shirt.
My fingers dug into Locke’s bicep. “We have blood right here.”
Shane gave me an incredulous look, half a smile blended with a hard stare. “You can’t be serious, Lu. You don’t have enough blood in your body to heal this.”
My hands were trembling now, too. I still had the book on vampires I’d taken from the library, and Locke�
��s mention of voices rang a bell that screamed for my attention.
But more importantly, by marking me as his own, he’d established a bond between us that could help him now.
“He’s marked me as his thrall.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “The book says that even a mouthful of blood from a thrall is worth-”
“He’s not a toy with a foolproof instruction manual, Lu!” Shane snapped. “He’s an injured apex fucking predator that could drain you in three heartbeats!”
I blinked back tears and looked down. He thought I didn’t know that? Sometimes I was still ashamed of how much Locke scared me when he wasn’t trying to act human.
Shane glowered for another moment, and finally let out a rough gust of breath. “Roman, I’ll hold him, and you get her. He gets one mouthful of human blood, then we’re taking him out to the forest. We’re keeping him there until he’s healed.”
Locke took another shuddering breath. “No, sunlight.”
Roman’s arms felt like a shield around me, taut and hard. “I don’t like this, Blondie…” He sighed too, clamping his hand around my wrist.
He wouldn’t be able to rip Locke away from me, but he’d be in a good spot to grasp the vampire’s jaws and disengage him if he went too far.
My heart thumped, and I tried not to think about that too hard. The last thing I wanted was to cower when Locke needed me. “Just think of it as a team-building exercise,” I said, wiping my eyes.
“Not funny, Bambi.” Shane looked sour, but he held down Locke’s arms and torso, trying to avoid touching the worst of Locke’s injuries. “Go.”
I slid my wrist over Locke’s lips, which mashed against the thin skin and blue veins, the same spot where he always kissed me like he was tempting and denying himself.
He closed his eyes and pressed his lips firmly shut.
“Locke. You have to drink.”
Locke’s eyes flickered open, the amber irises almost entirely eaten by pupils, and shook his head. His lips remained resolutely closed.
“I trust you, Locke, and I love you. I know you can do this without losing yourself.”
Roman’s hands clenched on me like painful vises when I struggled forward a little more. “You can’t make him drink, Blondie.”
“Oh yes I can.” I pulled my wrist from his mouth and raised my arm behind my head, bumping the side of Roman’s head. “Scratch me.”
He huffed in my ear and Shane’s ice-pale eyes bored into me. “Lu, I can’t…”
“Do you have fangs, or don’t you?” I turned my head enough to glare at Roman. “Locke could die without this.”
Maybe it was because he felt me shaking in his arms, or maybe he just liked Locke enough that he’d be willing to injure me for his sake.
Either way, his teeth jutted forward, and he gripped my wrist and drew it towards his mouth.
A hot flare of pain lit up my arm. A therianthrope’s bite was nothing like a vampire’s bite; there was no venom to soothe the pain.
Ruby beads welled over my wrist and I pressed it back to Locke’s mouth, letting the blood dribble between his lips.
He resisted so hard, my vampire, I had to give him that. But this was precisely when I most needed him not to.
The amber of his irises was completely gone, his entire body vibrating like a livewire from head to tie, a low growl building in his chest.
My blood finally hit his tongue and he lost all ability to resist. His fangs plunged into my flesh, almost wrenching my arm as he latched on, and he was so far gone he didn’t use the euphoric venom.
I winced, tears welling as he pulled hard and sharp pain shot up my arm.
Both Frosts had tensed as soon as he clamped down, and a moment later, when he was taking his second pull, both of them descended on Locke like a swarm, gripping his jaw and forcing him to unlatch from my wrist.
Before his fangs tore away, coolness seeped through my skin.
I threw myself back as soon as I was free, cradling my bleeding wrist to my chest. The Frosts became wolves, fur and claws ripping through their human skins, and dragged Locke to the window with their teeth.
He didn’t resist, but his amber eyes remained wild and focused on me the entire way. Shane snarled, almost shaking him as he dragged Locke out, and the vampire just took it.
Tears prickled my eyes. He was letting the therianthropes savage him, just so they could get him away from me.
When they were gone, their snarls fading out of earshot, I went to the bathroom and stuck my wrist under a stream of cold water. Water ran pink until I pulled it out and blotted it off.
Locke had managed to release just enough healing venom to close the wounds, but my arm was going to be sore as hell for a few days.
I found the vampire guidebook on my shelf and settled on my bed, trying to steady my nerves with the old, familiar motions of research.
I’d read most of the book already, but I’d skipped over quite a bit of it in search of what I considered more pertinent information, like how the Compulsion and enthralling worked.
Since Locke was a lone, sane vampire, I hadn’t bothered reading about hives at all.
My stomach sank as I read, becoming a leaden brick in my stomach.
Locke had begun to hear voices, which for a vampire meant only one thing: brethren. The only reason he’d remained sane so far was because there were no other vampires in Cimmerian, communicating their bloodlust and animal instincts mind-to-mind.
If Locke was hearing voices and becoming blood-crazed, then someone here was creating new vampires. He would go mad, given enough time, and eventually join them to form a feral, animalistic hive.
I closed the book with a definitive snap, my hands shaking so hard I almost dropped it three times before I put it back on the shelf, and then something else caught my eye. An unpleasant jolt went through my chest.
A rolled-up scroll of paper was on my dresser. It definitely hadn’t been there when I got back from class this evening.
How the hell had someone sneaked in and left it without me or the twins noticing?
Then I saw a corner of the black silk covering the mirror had been nudged aside, leaving a sliver of mirror exposed. A sliver just wide enough to slip a roll of paper or an enterprising spirit through.
Coldness washed over my back and I jerked the silk into place, covering every inch of the mirror, and picked up the scroll.
I didn’t even have the energy to be surprised when I untied the black ribbon and found a page filled with Holly’s bubbly cursive.
Cradling my aching arm against myself, I read through her letter.
She had a few drops of truthsayer blood in her family, and while it wasn’t much, it was enough that she knew Dominic Steele was lying through his teeth to Ivy Bloom, and my god this was the exact same scenario she’d read about in The Goblin Billionaire’s Horny Housemaid, when Xar’lok’narya and Christina realized they were miscommunicating and it was all meant to be, and how romantic and taboo was it that I’d hooked up with a professor? I should write a book about it!
I burst into laughter, only sobering when I reached the end.
I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I’m glad I met you. Not just because you helped get me out of there, but because I was starting to wonder if I was put on the earth to bring misery to everyone around me. I didn’t make you miserable (at least, I hope not!) and if this plan works, then it means I’m free from this curse. I will never worry about the future again if I know it can be changed. Love, Holly.
“You never made me miserable, Holly.” I felt more alone than ever without her presence here. “I guess I should straighten things out with my Xar’lok’narya, though.”
I would show up to training tomorrow morning and talk to him, clear the air between us for good. No more acting like a petty child.
I rolled the scroll up and gazed at the mirror, frowning. Dominic had to have been the one to leave this.
But he hadn’t walked into my room. He’d shoved t
he scroll through the other side of the mirror, through the open sliver of exposed glass.
He’d told Bloom he was mirrorwalking near her aunt’s office. What were they plotting together that involved sneaking around behind Gilt’s back?
***
I gazed out into the woods as I walked through the rose garden the next morning, wondering where Locke and my wolves were.
What was he feeding on out there? Would the twins be safe, or would Locke hurt them?
My heart squeezed when I thought of how I’d forced Locke to take my blood. I knew he didn’t want to be what he was, but I needed him. I couldn’t let him die just because he didn’t want to hurt me a little.
I was his chosen thrall now, after all. The bite on my thigh throbbed when I thought of him, ached when I considered his pain, felt amazing when I touched it.
But it didn’t have the same emotional connection that I felt with the twins… the half-moon marks. I pressed my hand to one of the marks, reaching out for Shane’s emotions.
He was calm. There was a hint of trepidation, but Locke must’ve been calm enough to feed without going wild.
I breathed a sigh of relief. All was well with my men.
The grass was still wet with dew, cold on my ankles, but the clearing was empty when I got there.
No sign of Dominic, and no wolf prowled the border. I stopped and rested my hand on a tree, feeling for Roman, and sent a pulse through our bond. Hopefully he felt that I missed him.
I waited for ten minutes before I decided Dominic wasn’t going to show up. If it was all a misunderstanding, and he wanted to talk to me enough to sneak through the deadside and deliver a note under Bloom’s nose, why wouldn’t he be here?
I was about to head back to the school when two figures moved through the rose garden. I would know Dominic’s measured footsteps anywhere, the smoothness of his stride… and behind him was Bloom.
I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the bark of the tree. He’d promised me that this was our time.
Don’t be daft. He’s clearly got something up his sleeve. Be patient and see what it is.