“Don’t hurt Crypt right now,” he snaps. “He can’t take it.”
What the hell? “When did you start caring so much about that psychopath?”
Silas pipes up from where he sits on the floor, watching as he rocks himself. “What Baelfire means to say is that even more than the rest of us, Crypt is fragile at the moment.”
The Nightmare Prince is more insulted than I’ve ever seen as he straightens from the wall to glower at the three of us. “Fragile?Need I remind you, I’m half actual monster, so you can piss right off, you fucking?—”
His markings light up again. Pain crosses his face as his legs give out, but Maven reacts faster than any of us. She’s immediately cradling his upper half on her lap on the ground, emotion raw on her face as she watches Crypt squeeze his eyes shut. He spasms and grits his teeth like his entire body hurts, sweat beading on his face.
The grief, anger, and tension drop from my shoulders as I realize the incubus is finally starting to get what he worked so hard to achieve while our keeper was gone.
And Maven is trying not to cry, because she knows it, too.
Seeing my strong, resilient keeper on the verge of tears is a sign of how much she's actually struggling with our curses. It rips my fucking heart out.
“Damn you, Crypt,” I sigh, striding toward the elevator.
“Where are you going, Scarface?” Baelfire demands.
Throwing my arm back, I don’t have to look to know I just froze his mouth shut successfully. “To hopefully find Douglas still breathing so we can transport out of this shithole.”
28
SILAS
Fortunately for us,the leprechaun was still alive, and Everett found everything that was confiscated from us.
Unfortunately for me, my curse grew severe enough to take me in and out of consciousness until we returned to Everbound. Even now, back in our quintet apartment for the first time in six months, standing under the warm spray of a shower washing away all the gasoline and horrors of the day, I feel the madness crawling over my limbs like wet, hairy, long-legged spiders.
They bite and crawl and spin their vindictive, cruel webs all over my flesh until I scramble out of the water, scratching furiously at my skin as I try to catch my breath.
Blood, a voice in my head suggests.Blood would fix this. Blood fixes everything.
You need to strengthen yourself,my father agrees.All the world knows what you turned yourself into for that Undead harlot—and now they’ll come for you. They’ll slaughter you in your sleep. You must prepare yourself to use blood magic!
I dig my fingers into my wet hair, trying to breathe as I glare at my own naked reflection in the hall bathroom mirror. Myreflection smiles viciously back at me, making the sign with his hands that fae use to ward off evil intent.
The voices are right on one count. I need Maven’s blood.
I crave it so much that just thinking about it makes my teeth ache, eager for my fangs to descend.
But aside from the beguiling,incredibleflavor, it soothes my curse and makes me ever so slightly less dangerous to my keeper. It’s nighttime now at Everbound, and we’re all exhausted from Crypt’s rescue mission that quickly turned into brutal, near-death public humiliation.
Not to mention, torture.
So much pain,the demons in my head agree with a shudder.So much.
While the Frosts kept me separate from the others, they had a purple-haired fae caster practice “simple interrogation techniques” on me in one of the high-end hotel rooms. They were all amateur spells, and the caster herself was unimpressive at both attack and healing incantations. Still, although her techniques would have made the Garnet Wizard laugh in her face, it hurt enough to send the voices in my head into a tizzy of mad panic, dragging me under repeatedly.
I’m sure my blood blossom already suspects what they were doing to a necromancer like me. There’s no need to tell her about it when it would upset her.
And gods above, she’s already so upset.
Merely the thought of Maven holding back tears while Crypt suffered from his curse makes me groan in frustration, tearing at my hair once again. I loathe seeing my keeper unhappy, but I loathe how useless I am to her right now far more. If I were in my right mind, perhaps I could think of ways to lessen the others’ curses until we figure things out.
Figure things out, figure things out, figure things?—
“Shut up,” I tell the voices as I storm out of the bathroom and into Maven’s large, quintet-sized room.
