“Lysander, think this through. If she brought him—”
Cyrus falls quiet, silenced by a look. A single bone-inked finger taps the underside of Shea’s chin, guiding her focus. She’s met with the pale ice of Lys’s stare. There’s no trace of the devil in him at all.
“Stay,” he says.
“Okay.”
She says it to make him happy—to let him know she can cooperate. He doesn’tlookhappy. His face falls, his disappointment apparent. His eyes cut away before she can try to fix it.
“Cy.”
“Yeah?”
“Make sure she doesn’t leave this room.”
A tepid pause follows. Then, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Lys tugs a clean shop towel from his back pocket, knotting it around Shea’s wrist. His gaze finds hers, but this time his face is carefully shuttered. “Put some pressure on that. I’ll come find you when it’s done.”
And then he’s gone.
She stands there, unmoving, twin pinpricks of red widening along the white cloth at her wrist. She’s determined to do as she’s told. To prove that she can. That’s what she wants to do, isn’t it? To make Lys happy? She can’t remember. She can’tthink. Her thoughts curdle, mushy and colorless. She can’t shake the feeling that she’s forgotten something. Something important.
She shuts her eyes and tries to recall the journey here. She pictures the marked road to Mercy, trunks blackened where they’d been burned back from the path. The shift of unheard whispers in the faraway branches. And there, muffled by the fading miasma of her euphoria, is a question, familiar:You’re sure you know the way?
She hadn’t been alone. There’d been someone else. But who?
She thinks harder, wax crackling as she applies pressure.
“Some of the boys have started a rumor that you’ve got blood like honey.”
She startles, glancing toward the door. Cyrus stares unabashedly back at her.
“Honey,” she echoes thickly.
“Yeah.” Cyrus’s pale skin is pink from a feed. His eyes shine in the dark. “They think that’s why Lysander won’t share you with the rest of them.”
The mere suggestion curdles something deep within her. It’s not like she hasn’t seen the communal way they live at Mercy Ridge—like snakes in a nest, roping themselves into a ball in the dead of winter. That isn’t her. She’s not one of them. She’s not a blood bunny, far from home, or a runaway, desperate to Turn. They’re here because they have nothing left. Because they’ve given up. She hasn’t. She still lights her mother’s candles at night.
The thought of her mother brings another memory careening into the forefront: Ivy Parker scrabbling up the stairs, the door slamming shut on her face. The hard pump of a shotgun. She flicks her gaze to Cyrus. He’s watching her struggle to regain control, a smile creeping slowly across his face.Blood like honey, he’d said.
“And what do you think?” she asks.
“I think you’re nothing special. Just a passing fixation.”
“Nice.”
“It’s not meant to be nice,” he assures her, drawing nearer. “It’s honest. That’s what Lysander does. He hyperfixates. Heobsesses.”
The word thrums through her. “He’s not obsessed.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I know so. He and I have a deal, that’s all.”
Cyrus’s smile widens. “A deal is something struck between equals. You’re not even close to playing on Lysander’s level.Youare small and weak, and one day soon, you’ll lose your shine.” His eyes glimmer as he throws in a hopeful, “Maybe even tonight.”
Some of her bravura finds her through the haze. “Are youthreateningme?”
