A solid idea starts to crystallize.
I have to play my weakness to my advantage.
Let them believe my sister will come to my aid. Earn their trust enough that they will let their guard down around me even for a fraction. And once they believe I’m no longer a flight risk, I can gain my freedom again. Or at least die trying.
I sluggishly move towards the bed and let myself fall into the comfort of the plush pillows. Before I succumb to a fitful sleep, I could swear I almost feel the ghost caress of shadowy tendrils, tucking me into bed.
CHAPTER 7
Aimee
WhenIwakeup,it’s midmorning, and the unforgiving winter sunlight is streaming through the high-ceilinged windowpanes. The dull throbbing of a headache consumes me as I take in the vast expanse of snow-covered gardens beyond the stone balcony of my bedchamber. Miles and miles of chalk-white land spread in all directions. Everything is dusted off in snowflakes. An automatic shudder rakes my body.
I wasn’t content with the weather in Annerough, but it was manageable. Here it’s going to be one thousand times worse. Good thing I’m not planning to stick around for long.
The entire vampire kingdom is a miserable winter wonderland. It makes sense, though, that these creatures, and their aversion to heat and sunlight, chose to rule over a perpetually freezing dominion.
I rub my temples in slow circles, wishing the tedious ache away.
Another fucking nightmare crept upon me in the early hours before dawn. It was a slight variation of the memory of Aurora killing my puppy when we were nine years old. But this time, instead of Chip staying dead, Aurora brings him back to life, all mangled and broken. Only he’s not Chip anymore, as froth comes out of his hissing jaws and he barks threateningly at me, snapping his canines and preparing to tackle me to the ground. My sister cackles ear-shatteringly before the night terror implodes into a million pieces.
This version of the nightmare shakes me to the core, every single time, because it’s not just a horrific memory. It’s like my subconscious is working against me too, taking an already traumatizing event and magnifying it a hundredfold, twisting it to hellish levels. It’s bad enough that I survived all this abuse from such a young age.
My mind betraying me this way? Creating atrocities far worse than the dreadful reality?
Some days I feel like I can’t even get a break.
Like now.
Surrounded by enemies, in an unknown castle, wondering what the cruel fates have in store for me.
I should have known that my little blissful bubble of a life would eventually burst in a flaming pile of shit. Never should I have settled down in Annerough. I should have kept running, switching places every couple of months, as my initial plan was. But I got comfortable, and I got confident that my sister would never find me there. That she would never come looking, because she had more important things to do than hunt me down.
And maybe, just maybe, I was stupid to assume that I deserve a little sliver of make-believe happiness, for all the years of heart-wrenching molestation, mistreatment, and blatant persecution I endured from the hands of my twin. Little did Iknow that in the end, it wasn’t Aurora who would obliterate all my precarious dreams of a better life.
Killian fucking Darkling.
That sinister, good-for-nothing,resplendent asshole.
Wait, what? Not resplendent! Vile! Horrid!
Swoon-worthy…
What the fuck, inner voice! I mean, sure, he is, by all means, the hottest piece of ass, as Sariah would put it, that I’ve ever laid my eyes upon. He looks like sin incarnate, but he is the epitome of evil, and that trumps everything else. Of course, the most corrupt creature in existence would come wrapped in the most deliciously immoral package. The worst of predators always have the sparkliest, most colorful exteriors to mesmerize their empty-headed prey.
But I absolutely refuse to be preyed upon.
Nor am I that pea-brained, am I?
A soft knock comes from the bedchamber doors, followed by a feminine voice.
“May I come in, my lady?”
I nod before realizing that, whoever she is, can’t see me through the heavy wooden doors.
“Yes, you may enter,” I say out loud, sitting straighter in bed.
The doors open, and a petite, strawberry blonde woman enters, followed by a few servants bringing in trays filled with food and piles of clothing hanging on golden hangers. They place the clothes in the black armoire by the door, and leave the trays piled high with mouth-watering foods on the low table by the fireplace, and then exit in silence. They all look shockingly human, including the dainty female, dressed in a baby blue simple cotton dress. She takes two steps closer to the bed and smiles my way.
