My stomach bottomed out. Keeping my face as blank as possible, I leaned down and grabbed the stupid fabric from the floor. “Alright. Fine. I’ll wear it. But this doesn’t mean I’m part of your stupid cult.”
“It’s for the ritual,” she said, flashing me a smile. “The white makes it easier to see the blood.”
Ew. Gross.
“Why are you doing this?” I hissed at her. “I get you want eternal life, but I’m not a demon. I won’t recover from you draining my blood. Is killing an innocent human really that worth it?”
She stepped back, still smiling. “You forget, Eva Martin. You took Charlie from us. You and your Legion. Once we transform, we’re going after your beloved demons. All of you will pay for what you’ve done.”
Mouth dry, I clutched the fabric to my chest as a new horror twisted my gut. “You lied. You never planned to let me go.”
She cocked her head. “We gave you the option to join us, and you turned it down. Your life would have been saved, but you turned your nose up at us. So, vengeance it is.” She took a step back into the hallway. “Put on the gown. We’ll see you tonight.”
4
Eva
The entire cult came to collect me as soon as the sun dipped below the dark horizon. The door widened to reveal all twelve of them, plus Andrea and her bodyguard friends, each face illuminated by a flickering candle in their hands. Their all-white gowns were a stain against the darkness of the hall. Andrea stepped out in front of them, held out an arm, and smiled.
I merely growled at her. “I’m not taking your arm. I’ll walk myself.”
For a split second, I swore I saw her flinch. But if she’d been caught off guard, she shoved it aside and dropped her arm. “As long as you don’t cause a scene, you may walk unaccompanied.”
Her first mistake, one I was a little shocked she’d made. Obviously, I was going to make a run for it the second my feet hit the bottom step. Not only to save my own life but to protect the Legion from these monsters.
If this cult all transformed into demons...
It would be a hellish night.
We trailed through the hallway and then wound down the stairs. I braced myself to burst free of the crowd and throw myself through the window, regardless of the glass. I’d get all cut up and bruised, but...at least I would get out of here. Worth it.
The two monstrous beefcakes stepped out of the shadows to block my path forward before I’d even blinked in the direction of the windows. Clark and Adam, or whatever their names were. Narrowing my eyes, I fought the urge to punch them both in the face. The only problem was, I’d probably end up breaking my knuckles instead of their noses.
“Something wrong?” Andrea asked sweetly from beside me.
“Your bodyguards creep me the fuck out,” I muttered, flicking my gaze across their impassive faces. Their empty eyes, glazed as if they were somewhere else entirely. Maybe they were. Maybe zoning out was the only way they could stand working for a demon death cult.
Andrea let out a tinkling laugh. “Good. I hope that means you’ve given up on whatever plot you’ve been brewing in your little head.”
I slid my gaze sideways, but her face gave nothing away, much like the bodyguards. “Paranoid much?”
“I know your history. Plus, I saw what you did with the Legion. You don’t go down without a fight.”
My eyes narrowed. What history did she mean? My weeks spent helping the Legion or my years working for Charlie, the previous leader of her cult? Surely she couldn’t mean anything else...unless Charlie had told her about the things I’d been through before all this had gone down.
The thought of her knowing the intimate details of my illness made me far more uneasy than anything else had, even the fact she wanted to use my blood for some weird immortality ritual. It was my body. My life. My pain. Not hers.
But she knew about me. I could see it in her eyes. It explained what she’d said before—of course she’d think I wanted a way out. That I’d do anything, just like her.
“You know nothing about me,” I said through gritted teeth, thinking of all the nights of pain, the terror I’d felt, the horror in my mom’s eyes when she realized I suffered from the same affliction she did.
Even if Andrea knew details about my body, she didn’t know the half of it. She’d never understand what it had been like. And for that, I was grateful. I couldn’t bear the thought of her holding that kind of power over me.
“Hmm.” Her lips quirked. “I think you’ll find I know far more about you than you even know about yourself, but we’ll get to that later. First, the ritual. It must be completed in the moonlight.”
I glared at her as Clark shoved me into their meeting room, or living room, or whatever it was. Candles covered every surface, all the electric lights shut down for tonight’s activities. My eyes were drawn to the center of the floor where the rug had been pulled back to reveal the warped hardwood underneath.
Lilith’s seal had been painted in blood. Swallowing hard, I fought back the urge to ask, just exactly, whose blood that was. None of the cult members seemed wounded or weak. No demons lurked about. There was just me.
