Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
When I go still, he sighs and straightens, his arms caging me against the wall.
“You let her die. You—” Grief chokes me as sure as a hand at my throat. The horror of Melody’s death, the awfulness of standing and watching and doing nothing. It’s a bottomless well, cold and black in its endless depths.
“She was of my blood,” he says it softly.
“Why didn’t you do something?” I look up at him. “She trusted you. I saw it in her eyes. She looked at you, and you did nothing. Nothing!”
He stands silent.
“You could’ve saved her.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?” I erupt again, my anger flaring and then dying out like the head of a struck match. A sob catches in my chest. “She’s dead. We just stood there and watched. She was the only bit of kindness, the only one of you with a soul left. She was…” She was a friend. I realize it now, far too late. “You didn’t help her.” It sounds so weak, my voice, my regret. A thin sheet of glass, already cracked in a million different ways, one breath away from falling completely apart.
He meets my gaze, something unknowable in his eyes. Something like … pain. Can he even feel that? Does he hurt? Was Melody anything more than a servant, a forgettable cog in his infernal machine?
“You killed Juno.” My voice breaks on my sister’s name.
Whatever was in his eyes is gone, replaced with derision. “And?” he sneers.
I can’t breathe, can’t reply. I can do nothing in the face of his callous confession. He doesn’t care about the harm he causes. He never has.
“Do you care about anyone?” I ask, emotion turning my voice into a whispered plea. “Didn’t you care about Melody?”
His expression closes again, his eyes going hard like flint.
“You mourn her rather than the pitiful humans we slaughtered while you danced?” he taunts.
“Fuck you.”
“Foolish little rabbit.” He grips my chin and tilts my face up. “You should worry about your own kind. The millions who will die while you sit here pitying yourself. Your sister was nothing. The humans we ripped apart at the ball were nothing. Their bones are already out for the vultures, their blood gone to feed their betters. This is how it will be with all humans. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
“I’ll never accept it.” In a sudden burst of insanity, I thrust my head forward. I catch him on the nose, pain blooming on my forehead as he jerks back.
“There she is.” He’s on me again before I can even take a step, a malevolent grin on his face as blood drips down his upper lip. “My little rabbit has claws.”
He kisses me hard. No warning, no escape. It’s an assault, his tongue swiping between my lips and carrying the taste of his blood with it. I try to turn my head, but he holds me still, his hand at my throat, his body an impassable wall.
I scream, and he only delves deeper, his tongue dancing across mine. When I bite down, he withdraws before I can take a piece of his tongue, my teeth clacking together with a snap. Blood smeared across his grinning lips, he’s a terror. A nightmare that can’t be escaped.
“Listen well, Doctor.”
The compulsion takes hold, gripping my heart with an icy fist. “You will never attempt to take your own life again. You will never harm yourself again.”
My hands fist. Hatred, an endless pool of it, rises inside me.
“Tell me you understand.” His eyes are icy blue.
“I understand.”
“Good little rabbit.” He eyes my mouth again.
“I’ll bite your fucking tongue off,” I grate out.
“A sacrifice I’m willing to make,” he whispers. “Perhaps later.” With eerie speed he backs away, then turns and disappears down the stairs.
I sag against the wall, my already broken spirit bearing extra bruises. This was my last chance. My only chance. I slide down until I’m sitting, my entire body limp. I test my shoulder. It doesn’t hurt. I rotate it around. Everything is back in place. Did he heal me? He wouldn’t. And how? He’s made it quite clear he enjoys my suffering.
With the strength I have left, I pull myself up and grip the railing. When I try to throw my leg over, my body disobeys.
“No.” I lean forward. Again, my body stops me from going too far, from toppling over and down to the next level. It’s as if an invisible hand is holding me back. “No.” I swallow hard, my face hot. But it doesn’t matter how I try to deny it. Valen’s compulsion is in my blood.
Once again, I’m nothing more than his marionette. No free will. No way out. He’s taken everything from me, and I’ll never get it back.
I busy myself with my journal, writing down everything that’s happened to me, every iota of information I know about the vampires. It’s silly, indulging in the reckless hope that maybe one day a series of fortuitous events might land my journal into human hands. But it’s all I have. There’s nothing left for me to do, no way to change my fate. So, I write it all down until I’m pushing on the edges of my memory, the sharp pain in my head a warning that I’ve gone too far.