“You weren’t going to come down tonight,” I say, the words not making sense to my own ears.
“I couldn’t stay away,” he says with a lopsided smile that vanishes as he takes me in. “What happened? Your dress is torn. You’re bleeding.” With each observation, his tone tightens as his nostrils flare and his pupils visibly expand. Whatever effect my blood is having on him is overpowered by his concern.
I throw a look over my shoulder, trying to see if they followed me.
“Cinder,” Kai gently takes my chin and directs me to look at him. “What the fuck happened. Who did this to you?” Darkness enters his face.
I should be afraid. I should be afraid of him for so many fucking reasons. And definitely still pissed off at him. But one night without him and it was too fucking much.
“My sisters,” I whisper. Then I do what I never thought I’d do. I tell him the whole story. Clenching my eyes shut, it all pours out of me. “After my father died, I was no longer a family member, I became a servant. I served them by cleaning house, by trying to cater to their every whim. I kept thinking if I did a good job for a while they would accept me as a family member, that they were hurting too at the loss of my father. But then they. . .” I couldn’t say it. I could feel myself go flat as I moved outside my own body. As if it was too much to stay in this meat bag.
Oh great.Now?NowI can detach from my body?
Where was this ability five minutes ago?
“They fed on you.” Kai finishes my sentence with a snarl so hateful and brimming with wrath, it suddenly snaps me to awareness. I take in the way his muscles bunch and coil, from his shoulders and pecs, to the way veins now throb at his neck.
“It was a long time ago,” I say, trying to keep the events far in the past. But they are here, I am here, and it feels like only yesterday their fangs tore into my flesh as they sucked the lifeblood out of me with uncaring savagery.
And it almost happened again just now.
To this day I can’t figure who was worse—Anastasia, with her blatant hunger for power—power over me, power she gained from me—or Drusilla. Being younger, her fangs ripped and shredded my skin with a lack of precision. Like a tiny piranha out of its mind with bloodlust.
“The scars on your body,” Kai whispers, almost to himself. “It wasn’t rogue vampires. It was your family.”
Then that rage disappears and it’s as if his emotions have flatlined, like mine do all the time.
“I’m going to kill them.” He turns on his heel and I’m too late in realizing he’s not reacting like me at all. He hasn’t detached. He’s simply made a decision and now he must execute.
“Kai, no,” I run after him, clawing at his arms, trying to hold him back, but I can’t.
The entry hall is empty except for my stepmother and sisters and two thralled familiars helping them into their coats. Ana and Dru sport numerous visible and deep scratch marks on their faces from a certain devil cat.
“You,” Kai snarls. “You three aren’t going anywhere.”
Chapter 44
The Power of Charm
CHARMING
“You hurt her. You fed on her, you fucking monsters. She was just a child.” My accusations erupt in a torrent of rage.
Marisela's face contorts into a mask of fear and panic, her features frozen like a helpless animal backed into a corner. Then slowly, her muscles relax and the tension shifts to her calm and composed demeanor.
“What happens in my household is my business, Your Majesty.” She drops into a slight curtsy, her eyes darkening with an ill-concealed sense of superiority as she gazes up at me through her long lashes. She thinks she has me.
She doesn’t even try to deny it.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I must take my daughters home. They have apparently been attacked by some beast let loose in the castle,” she sniffs.
“It was massive. It has to be some kind of monster from the forest,” Anastasia cries. Dru only scowls with what appears to be disappointment.
There are no explicit rules against feeding on humans. It’s one of the main reasons I want to dethrone my monstrous father.
“You think you can treat her like a blood bag? Why don’t you see how it feels?”
My eyes lock on the woman who caged and fed on an innocent child. A fiery red blurs my vision, and my pupils expand, swallowing the whites of my eyes.
