My gut twisted at the implication. “When I did sneak out to see the donors, I was attacked. And that had nothing to do with the spy.”
Thea frowned, truly perturbed for the first time. “I didn’t know about that.”
“You can say the system is necessary, but it’s deeply flawed. Titus had nothing to do with what went on that day at court either.” The day Raphael had carried out brutal justice when two accused—vampire and vampire aspirant—had tortured a child in a ploy to gain immortality.
“I never said this was a gentle world,” Raphael said, a touch defensive.
I considered another barb, but there was no point. “The girl we saw later on the streets, she was a donor I met the night I went back to the donors. Murdered.” Even now, I could picture her. The way I’d failed her… her body ripped limb from limb, like a vampire had toyed with her. It reminded me of my greatest sin. “Only it was Titus, framing a vampire to manipulate me into helping him. He made a mockery of what was done to my mother.”
Raphael pushed off the wall. “What happened to your mother?”
Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that last part. Words were slipping out too easily, but instead of awkward confessions about how I liked Raphael’s touch, I was risking far graver secrets. Sweat beaded at the back of my neck. I needed to be very, very careful in how I answered this direct question. “She was executed using a starving vampire.”
Thea gasped. Raphael said nothing, his red eyes glowing.
“Now I’m able to empathize with the monster that killed her, though I never wanted to.” The words were bitter in my mouth, but utterly true.
Because I did understand. The vampire… how hungry had it—no,he—been? There were no donors in the Witch Kingdom. He had rended her limb from limb, torn her arteries open and slurped her blood into his emaciated body.
Monsters.Unnatural beasts. And now I’m one of them.
“That’s awful, Sam. I had no idea.” Thea rose from her seat and came closer, pulling me into a hug.
I stiffened and didn’t raise my arms around her in return. I was inches from her neck. I hadn’t given in to the beast before, when she’d been a room-length away, but now her vein was almost grazing my fangs. I could bite. It would be better than the blood in the glass before, I just knew it. Warm. Thick. Magic. I couldhearit pumping in her veins, beguiling me.
“You understand the vampire isn’t at fault in that story, correct?” Raphael cut in. “A vampire allowed to feed normally wouldn’t do that. They were tortured—as you may now be able to imagine—and used to carry out some perverse form of justice for the amusement of a tyrant.”
Did he say that to distract me? Or to be an argumentative prick?
In either case, it accomplished both goals. Anger bubbled in me, as rapid as anything. I pushed Thea away so I could stare down the vampire king.
“My mother didn’t deserve to die that way,” I hissed. “No one does.”
“I don’t argue that point. I’m simply bringing your attention to the fact it wasn’t a vampire who decided she would die that way.”
But it was a vampire who did it.As civilized as they could act, they were ruthless creatures. Maybe that one had been starving, but I’d seen exactly how cruel they could be in service of their own desires.
For a moment, I thought I’d had a chance to help stop it, however misguided. What I’d done was wrong, but it didn’tchange the fact that, unchecked, the vampires were capable of every ounce of viciousness the nightmares that had raised me said they were.
“It was a horrible tragedy, in any case,” Thea said, breaking the tension. “And then what happened?”
I swallowed down the anger, hard as it was. I needed to focus. “I… my loyalties were divided. All I knew was that this was a brutal, brutal world. There were so many parts, but after the donor’s murder, and then your initial reaction…”
“You decided to poison me,” Raphael supplied when I trailed off.
Thea, back in her seat, twisted to glare at Raphael for his bluntness. But I could only shrug. There weren’t two ways to tell this truth.
“These people matter. All of them, the donors, the weak ones, the humans, the voids. We—” I choked. I couldn’t use that word anymore. “I told Titus I would help him. I didn’t know what he had planned. I can’t say I would have disagreed given everything up until that moment. I was so angry and powerless to do anything else with that anger. But once I made the choice and he revealed his plan, what could I do? Go to you?” I finished through gritted teeth.
“Yes!” Raphael was in front of me in a flash, his hands braced on either side of the arms of my chair. “Yes, you were supposed to come and say,Raphael, I fucked up. And I would have accepted that, because we all do, and I would’ve snapped the pathetic weasel’s neck before he ever got to stab you in the stomach!”
He was inches from my face, the air between us taut. I glared back. “And just trust you wouldn’t be the one to kill me? You seem to be fond of killing first, asking questions never.”And you might still kill me if you learn that I’d planned to help thenecromancer—let alone that Iamthe necromancer you’ve been hunting.
Raphael was across the room again, his back to me as he ran a hand through his hair and dragged a palm over his face.
It seems even I was able to get on his unending patience.
“I couldn’t go through with it.” I said it quietly, but I knew he heard. “I know it doesn’t count for much. I know I messed up. But can’t you understand that I couldn’t pretend everything here was peaceful and right when it wasn’t?” When children were used as bargaining chips for power, when the vampires attacked, donors were exploited, and humans debased themselves because of their aspirations to become one of the monsters.
