“You must feel so damn special.” Keagan lifts his pointed nose.
“Just let me in,” I say.
Cornelius slaps a meaty hand on my shoulder. “Why should we? Now that Henri has permanently appointed me as one of his guards, we are the ones who decide who enters and who doesn’t.”
Now I wish Lysander had gone through with it and killed the bastard.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can say anything, Keagan steps aside to allow me to pass. He even holds out his hand, like a gentleman.
“Now, now, Cornelius. We should let Avrum through. He was sent for, after all.” Despite his sudden discovery of manners, a smirk curves his mouth. “Go on.”
Shrugging off Cornelius’s grip, I shove past them and push the door open.
A little more excited now, Keagan pushes against my back to get me inside faster. “Go on.”
When I close the door behind me, their laughter booms through it.
I can’t let them get to me. That’s what they want, after all—to crawl under my skin.
Blowing out a breath, I search the room. I’m alone, it seems; Henri isn’t here. At least not yet. But the coppery scent of blood is so thick here, it seizes me by the throat and squeezes. Then I hear the slow, faint drum of abeating heart, and my fangs start to descend without my permission.
When is the last time I’d fed? I can’t even remember. I’ve been so distracted lately, that I haven’t visited the reserve in the cellar since before the party, and I’m regretting that choice now. My stomach clenches painfully with unnatural hunger.
The silver light of the moon shines through the stained-glass windows, creating colored patterns on the dark wooden floors. A four-poster bed takes up most of the space, its white sheets still pulled back and disheveled from sleep.
I take another step and pause. That sound of a heart beating… it’s coming from inside this very room. Acting on instinct, my feet move me around the bed.
There, in the corner, a shadowed figure stirs.
I freeze.
“Hello?” I whisper cautiously, getting closer. Whoever this person is, it isn’t Lord Henri. The heartbeat is low and distant, but the smell of blood becomes stronger the closer I get. “Hello?”
The darkness moves again, but this time, I can see the paleness of a face surrounded by a long mess of brown hair.
My heart plummets.
“Haven?”
I rush over and fall onto my knees in front of her. I take her arms and pull her into the light of the window. Semi-unconscious, her eyes roll back, and her head lolls to the side. When the light from the window touches her face, I see a jagged gash acrossher right cheek and dried blood on her swollen bottom lip.
Oh my god…
“Haven,” I gasp, trying my best to hold her upright. She still doesn’t respond, but being this close to her allows me to see multiple bite marks on her neck, the curve of her shoulders, and on her breasts. Her skin is bruised purple.
She’s not only been fed on, she’s been bled dry.
I swear under my breath. Whoever did this took too much. She’s close to death.
Glancing over my shoulder at the door that Keagan and Cornelius protect, I understand why Keagan was so eager to let me in. He wanted me to find her like this.
Did they do this to her?
Fury ignites inside me unlike any I’ve ever felt before.
When I tell Henri about this, I’m going to be the first in line to see them executed. Front and center.
Looking down at Haven cradled in my lap, I let my fingers glide over her arms. Her skin is too cold; it feels all wrong. Guilt rears up, and I wish I’d never left her yesterday, as much as I know I had to. What I don’t understand is how Keagan and Cornelius had gotten to her, or how they put her in here without Henri knowing? It doesn’t make sense.
