He wasn’t just dangerous.
He was devastating.
I suddenly didn’t care if he never let me in.
I didn’t care if he kept his walls up and refused to trust me.
I couldn’t stay here—I couldn’t live with him and spend time with him and see him without doing something.
I’d run away from life because it broke me—he broke daily just to survive.
I would help him.
Not out of pity but because somehow, somewhere along the way, I’d started to want him.
And he deserved to have at least one person care, even if I was utterly powerless to get him free.
Clearing his throat, he looked away, breaking the spell and gathering his temper as a shield. “Leave. I’m going to bed.” Looking at me with hooded eyes that couldn’t hide the depth of his exhaustion, he added, “Don’t disturb me. You do, and the next blood you’ll be covered in is your own.”
On that pleasant farewell, he left.
Chapter Thirty
“WELL, WELL...YOU’RE STILL NOT dead.”
I sighed heavily.
God, not again.
Almost every day these two accosted me. And every time I had to put up with their prying questions and snide remarks that if Lucien didn’t kill me soon, they would.
“Shouldn’t you be getting your beauty sleep for an evening of stalking?” I asked with a tight smile, my fist snapping closed around the vial and tucking it behind my back as Evelyn and Lydia morphed out of the gloomy afternoon.
The bottle stung my palm as if it were venom, the red liquid sloshing with every tremble.
Even as stress made my head pound, the thought of drinking its contents...
I almost threw up.
Evelyn wore all black—no longer trying to hide her murderous intentions, while Lydia wore a slinky red dress, looking like the flames that danced in the gardens at night.
I needed a shower. A blazing, burning shower.
I swore a coppery tang clung to me, the splatters of Lucien’s blood on my dress thick in my nose.
The two girls smiled, their teeth blindingly white.
“Honestly, I have no idea what Lucien Ashfall sees in you.” Lydia drifted forward, circling me like a shark.
I wished Whisper had followed me instead of chasing after his master. On the days the panther escorted me back to my pavilion, these two never bothered me. But today...I had a horrible feeling my blood might be joining Lucien’s already covering me.
My headache increased to warning levels.
Evelyn drifted to a stop, smirking as Lydia continued to pace. “Are you really going to stick with the lie that you’re this rumpled and dirty from being his housekeeper?” Evelyn stabbed her finger into a particularly large blood stain on my chest. “Because we all know you’re serving him on your back.”
“Are you pregnant yet?” Lydia said from behind me. “You better tell us if you are because it might be the only thing that will save you.” Reaching between her breasts, she pulled out a tiny, jewelled knife. “We’re getting a little bored, you see.”
My breath caught in my throat; anxiety made me jittery.
I backed up, my spine colliding with one of the black torches that wouldn’t come to life until dusk fell.
Evelyn sucked in a breath, her eyes narrowing on my dirty dress. “Wait...is that blood?” Sudden ferocity filled her pretty face. “Whose blood? His or yours?”
“Might be the panther’s?” Lydia came to face me, eyeing up the red droplets I couldn’t hide.
Grabbing my arms, Evelyn twisted me left and right before shoving me around. “No wounds on you. So it’s his? That’s Ashfall blood covering you?”
My arms flung out for balance, the glass vial glittering in my palm.
“What’s that?” Lydia snatched my wrist.
“Nothing!” I cried out, my entire body flinching in pain as she dug her thumb into the webbing of my hand and pried the vial out of my fist.
Both girls swore under their breath. “What the fuck?” Evelyn spun to face me. “Is that his? Why do you have this? Did you hurt him and take it?”
My mind blanked.
I had no idea what to say or how to protect everything that happened between Lucien and me. If they knew he bled himself every three days and suffered the consequences, they’d burst in there as a horde and hurt him. I knew they would. But if I lied and told them I was the one who cornered him and made him give me his blood...how was that believable?
“I...”
“Tell us.” Lydia pressed her knife against my throat. “Right now. Or you die.”
Swallowing hard, I stretched on tiptoe, pressing against the torch, trying to avoid her blade.
Shit.
Think, Rook. Think!
“Better hurry up,” Evelyn murmured, accepting the vial as Lydia passed it to her. “After staying in this place for so long with nothing to do, we’re getting very, very anxious to get the show on the road, if you get our drift.”
My eyes flicked back to the black stone palace.
No movement from inside because Lucien only lived in the heart of it. Right now, he’d be passed out in his bed with Whisper guarding him closely. He wouldn’t know what happened out here. He’d never hear what I would say.
I could lie as much as I wanted or tell every droplet of truth, and yet...I found myself wanting to hoard everything.
They didn’t deserve to know a single thing about him. Fact or fiction.
“Speak,” Lydia hissed, her blade cutting me just enough to send a hot droplet rolling down my throat.
I strained away from her dagger, rising as high as I could go. My mind raced. I panicked. “It...it was a gift!”
Lydia slowly lowered her arm, her face contorting into a scowl. “A gift?”
Pressing two fingers to the small cut, I nodded and stuck as close to the truth as I could. “He...he overheard me complaining I wasn’t being paid for my labour. I guess he grew sick of it and...” I shrugged, waving at the vial in Evelyn’s grabby hand. “He gave me that for services rendered.”
The girls gawked at each other.
“He just gave you his blood?” Evelyn rolled the vial between her fingers. “He cut himself, put it into this bottle, and gave it...to you?”
There was a trap in that sentence, but I couldn’t see it.
I nodded like an idiot.
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Do you even know the value of that? What his blood is worth? To the machines that require it to start? To the scientists trying to synthesise it?”
“I have some idea.”
“And you’re saying he just gave it to you for no other reason than covering an hourly wage?” She crowded me against the huge torch, her breasts touching mine. “You expect us to believe he’s that generous to you?”
My heart flurried. “Like I said...it was to shut me up.”
“With something this precious?” She strangled the vial. “Why?” She looked me up and down, her upper lip curling as if I’d crawled from the gutter. “What is it about you that he finds so tolerable? Why would he even care that you were whinging? You’re trapped in here at his mercy—he can make you do whatever he wants.”
“No idea.” I swallowed hard as nausea built. “If that’s all, I’ll just—”
“Shut up.” Holding the vial to the darkening sky, she studied it as if she didn’t believe me. The red thickness flowed in the glass as she turned it. The longer she studied it, the more her suspicion blended with greed. “Could you get more?”