A few days later,Rin was moved to a plain guest room after Nessen ensured her heart was steady.
Restless, Rin tossed and turned in her bed.
She felt like they were wasting time being here. Taking steps backward. Trapped in this windowless place, far from her home.
Kit was out there. Hunting her.
Rin rolled to her back, kicking the blankets down to her feet. The room was pitch black. Sighing, she leaned up and fumbled for the lamp’s switch, clicking it on as a false yellow glow filled the room.
She stared at the shadows on the walls and swore they stared right back at her.
Then—
"Star of mine. We will meet soon."
Warm lips brushed her cheek. A gentle touch rested against her brow.
"Go to him. He needs you."
Rin gasped awake, jerking upright as she pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was calm, but she couldn’t help but feel like it should beracing.
She must’ve fallen asleep.
The words stuck in her mind like gummy candy between her teeth. She furrowed her brow, trying to remember. The cadence of the voice, the touch against her brow?—
A sudden melancholic sadness made her want to curl up and cry herself to sleep. Her cheeks were wet. She reached up and touched beneath her eye, catching a tear on her pinky.
If she fell back asleep, could she fall back into the same dream?
She had the strangest desire to seek out Lucien, even knowing he’d be sleeping right now. Ever since she’d woken up after her latest episode, she felt so… attached to him. Like she needed him in her sight at all times.
The lamplight made the shadows of her form dance playfully, and she stared at the wall to distract herself.
Suddenly, through the tricks of dim light and shadows, she saw the shape of a hand, trying to break through. The concrete cracked and split, rippling like water as the handpressedagainst the wall.
Her breath stalled in her lungs.
She knew?—
"My shadow," Rin whispered, rising to her knees as she crawled to the foot of the bed.
She reached for the shadow thumping against the wall. The air held a strange quality, like she was still dreaming. Maybe she was.
Her heart thundered as she stretched forward, knees leaving impressions on the edge of the bed. She nearly toppled to the floor. Just before her palm touched the hand pounding against the wall, it jerked back—away from her.
"No."
The concrete was flat. She slipped from the bed and pressed her flat palms against the wall, feeling the coolness of it. She knocked against it with her fist. Nothing. She pressed her ear to it and heard only the pitter-patter of her heart like a drumbeat echoing in the air.
Rin sighed. "I really am going crazy, aren’t I?"
She pushed away from thenormalwall and brushed her sleep-tangled hair away from her face. She wouldn’t be going back to sleep now.
Rin eyed the closed door, and without thinking it through, she opened it, revealing the silent, still hall. Her feet padded over carpet, and the ever-burning flames in the sconces cast golden light on her pale flesh as she tiptoed past. Each closed door held one of her Soulbonds. The room to the right of hers held Auren, and the left was Cyrus’s. Right across from her was Lucien’s room.
Carefully, Rin inched open Lucien’s door, biting down on her lower lip as she slowly turned the handle down to silence the creak. You’d think a rich vampire like Rhyden would have enough money to update the interior of this place, but it felt like being trapped in a time centuries ago, with heavy, creaking doors and unregulated temperatures.
It was so cold inside, she wondered if it would snow.
