“Eloise. How? Am I asleep? Is this another dream?”
She turns gravely serious. “You have to drink my blood, Damien. It will break the bond Valeska has over you.”
She approaches me, but I back away, lifting a hand. “Wait… wait…”
“We don’t have much time. Lazarus says that Valeska could return within the hour.”
“You’ve met Lazarus?”
She nods. “Yes. Now do as I say and take my blood.” She pulls her hair to the side. “Then we can get out of here.”
I shake my head. “I won’t take it from your throat. I don’t trust myself. Eloise, she means to have me kill you. She’s ordered me to do as much. Sometimes she commands me in my sleep. What if I start and I can’t stop?”
She hikes up the robes she’s wearing and draws a dagger from a sheath strapped to her thigh. “Take from my wrist. If you take too much, I’ll stab you somewhere that will heal.”
Charging toward me again, she thrusts her left wrist toward my mouth, a familiar dagger held firmly in her right.
“That’s Cassius’s dagger.”
“Yes. He gave it to me after he trained me to use it.”
“Trained you to use it but didn’t come himself?” I take her hand, so soft in my own, my eyes falling on the flutter beneath the skin of her wrist. Guilt and anxiety claw at my lungs and throat. What if I hurt her? Will this even work? I had her blood when I was bound to the candle, and it didn’t break the curse. Although she did break it with fire. She has the power.
She’s here at great personal risk to help me. Me, the person who betrayed her.
“Damien, we don’t have much time. What’s wrong? You’re trembling.”
“I can’t do this. Not without you knowing the truth.” I lower her wrist.
Her brow furrows. “Whatever happened, we can talk about it once we’re out of here.” She thrusts her wrist back toward me. She’s right, of course. I’m not making sense. But accepting the gift of her blood when I betrayed her seems wrong.
“I gave up your name.” My neck heats with the shame of it. “I tried everything to avoid it. I’d hoped to die before…”
She’s staring at me, tears in her eyes, the dagger gripped in her hand. “Drink, Damien. I forgive you. Valeska forced a blood bond on you, and whatever happened, I forgive you, but as your mate, if you don’t drink my blood in the next fifteen seconds, I’m going to fucking lose it.”
Hearing the command in her voice spurs me into motion. I strike, and the taste of her blood is like lightning flowing over my tongue. Heat travels down my throat, through my veins. I’m hard in an instant. I break from her wrist, closing the wound before I pull her against my body and bury my face in her neck.
“Did it work? Can you tell if the bond is broken?”
I draw back, my muscles tensing. “I smell another vampire on you. More than one.”
“It’s a long story,” she says, taking my hand and sheathing her blade. “Let’s try the door. Lazarus says she contained you to this room, right? So if you can leave, we know it worked.”
She leads me toward the exit, but the scent of the vampires I smelled on her neck, in her hair, haunt me. “How did you get into Night Haven, little bird?”
She doesn’t have a chance to answer me.
The door swings open and Valeska, flanked by her lady’s maids, enters, wearing the same smug smile she’s worn since the day she captured me. I tug Eloise behind me, but there’s no hiding her. The queen’s smile fades as her gaze traces over my mate’s borrowed scribe robes, her face, her hair, and then our coupled hands.
“Who is this?” she hisses through her teeth, but when her nostrils flare, her yellow eyes spark with recognition and she bares her teeth. “Kill her, Damien.”
Her command is direct, and I wait for the burning to start. Wait for the compulsion. It doesn’t come. Eloise’s blood has broken her hold on me.
“No.” Our eyes meet and hold.
Then she moves. Fangs and talons bared, we collide. She tries to knock me aside to get to Eloise, but my hand closes around her throat and what do you know, I can squeeze.
The problem is I’m still recovering, and Valeska is as strong as she is wicked. She claws my hands off her throat and attacks. I avoid the stab of her talons by breaking into shadow and retaliate with a jab to her jaw that knocks her back a step. My shadows rush her, piercing her flesh like needles, but she heals almost immediately, and when she retaliates, she goes straight for Eloise. In shadow form, I whirl between them and stop the queen just in time, my hand gripping her throat.
