We’re ushered back to the carriage. The sommelier, who was so cold to us earlier, is now frantically apologetic.
“My Lady, I have no idea how this could have happened! Please accept my personal apology,” he babbles, packing bottles of wine—including the Passion Wine—into the carriage with us. “To settle your nerves,” he says, when I tell him that’s enough, we need to go.
This much wine could settle anyone’s nerves—even a raging alcoholic, I think, but don’t say. At last our bodyguard slash carriage driver manages to push him away and leans into the carriage.
“If I had to guess, my Lady,” he says grimly to me, “I’d think that was some kind of spy from the Hollow Necropolis.”
Hanna goes pale.
“You mean…the place ruled by the skeleton Don?”
The bodyguard looks sorry that he spoke.
“I don’t know for certain, my Lady,” he says formally. “I’ll have to speak to Lord Lucian about it. For now, let’s get you home.”
He shuts the carriage door firmly and I wrap my arm around Hanna’s shoulders. She’s still shaking and pale with fear so that her freckles stand out like ink spots on her parchment-pale skin.
“Do you think…think he’s following me?” she whispers. “Do you think he marked me, somehow?”
“I’m sure he’s didn’t,” I lie. “You’re okay now—it’s safe in here.”
I hope.
Hanna nods shakily, clearly willing to be soothed.
“Thanks, Jules. Can I have some more wine?” she asks.
“Sure.”
Without checking the label, I open a bottle and start to pour it into one of the glass tumblers that Etienne packed with the bottles. Then I stop myself—this isn’t exactly the time for propriety.
“Fuck it,” I mutter and hand her the bottle.
“Thanks.” Hanna takes a swig and hands it back to me with a sign.
“That helps.”
“Good—I’m glad.” I take a swig as well—it does make me feel calmer even though the wine makes my head feel swimmy and my body tingles strangely. I pass the bottle back to Hanna.
She drinks…I drink again…we just keep going.
The wine calms me…warms me.
I have no idea what it’s about to cost me.
53
Lucian
The first sign that something is wrong is not a scream or a magical flare—it is the sudden tightening in my chest, sharp and instinctive—like a blade drawn close to my heart.
The connection between Julia and me—born from me tasting her blood—is still new, still fragile but I know enough to listen to it. It goes taut, vibrating with unease. Not pain…not terror. But something cold and wrong, like frost creeping across warm stone.
I am already standing before I realize I have moved.
The Blood Lust stirs, a restless coil awakening beneath my ribs. It is not hunger this time—it is alarm. My magic responds before my mind can shape the thought, surging up my spine, demanding action.
I cross my study in long strides and retrieve the Crimson Eye from its obsidian stand. The artifact is heavy in my palm, its surface dark as dried blood, threaded with veins of dull crimson light that pulse faintly as if sensing what I intend.
