“What considerations?” I pressed again.
“Aside from the need to drink blood more regularly and a complete intolerance to sunlight?” Raphael looked back at me. “Most salient, fledglings can’t stay awake once dawn hits.”
I frowned, exhausted once more. “How am I supposed to know when that is?”
“Because you’ll involuntarily pass out the moment the sun rises.”
“And when is that?” My legs were suddenly less sturdy underneath me. I shuffled a bit, bracing against the wall.
Raphael took a step closer. “Right about . . . now.”
Blackness began to claim me. Strong arms lifted me before I collapsed on the ground.
Chapter Three
Samara
My eyes snapped openas I woke with a start.
It’s bright.
I squinted. The ceiling above me was ornate, with gold engraved into it. I was in a soft, plush bed.
And from the layered cedar scent that was etched on the pillows—and next to me—I knew exactly whose bed I was in.
I pushed myself up. I didn’t feel tired, didn’t feel the echoes of sleep that usually clung to me when I woke in the morning. It was as though one minute I had been standing in the cell, and in my next breath I was here. The anger that had sustained me for all that time was mysteriously gone, like a memory I had to work to remember.
Raphael sat in the chair at my side, one hand curled under his head, arm rested on the armrest, while he slowly flipped through the pages of a book. Not looking at me but obviously aware I was awake.
Waiting to see if I was still feral?
I’d felt like an animal in the cell, rabid and starving. Now I was like a pet deposited in unfamiliar surroundings.
I’d been in Raphael’s chambers for shielding training, but I hadn’t actually been in his bedroom before. The lush fabrics that blanketed me were no surprise: rich bolts of red and gold covering the four-poster bed.
I tried to get my bearings. After so many days of endless thirst and exhaustion, it was odd to have my mind returned to me. The room was sparse, but what furniture existed was suitably ornate. A carved bookcase was molded into the wall at the other end. The door was off to the left of the bed and currently shut. I couldn’t hear any noise from the hallways. I flexed my fingers in the sheets. My bruised knuckles had mended. My body felt, to my horror, good. Strong.
I looked down at my arms and frowned. Last time I’d been conscious, I’d still been in my tattered gown from the tri-lunar eclipse.
“Did you change me?” I accused, looking at the vampire next to me.
Raphael shut the book with a quiet thud. “Your gown was soaked with your blood. I wasn’t going to put you in bed like that.”
I rolled my eyes and fiddled with the soft sleeves of the dress. It wasn’t one that had been in my closet before. “Of course. Wouldn’t want to ruin your sheets. But why did it need to be you?” I huffed, flushing at the thought of him undressing me while I was unconscious.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared. This was the least of all offenses committed, yet it came the closest to stirring the fury that had coated me in the cell. Why was it so hard to be angry right now? Why did I feel . . . relief?
“Would you have preferred Amalthea, who you might have attacked in your sleep from hunger? My general? Or a stranger?” he asked with an arched brow.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t lie, and I didn’t feel like admitting I’d lost this petty battle.
But Raphael knew the truth. “It’s not like I haven’t tended to your body before.”
Right. After the Monastery. He’d undressed me, bandaged me. But that was before. Before I’d kissed him. Before I’d truly craved him. Before I’d betrayed him, and he’d betrayed me. I could scent lingering presses of him on me, close to the skin. Not untoward, but . . . it was on me.
Too intimate. His blood was in me. I didn’t feel cold, but I shivered all the same. “Now what?” I meant for the words to be demanding, to give me some semblance of control, but they came out all too uncertain. Would he order me to tell him how I’d colluded with Titus? I needed to explain, but he might kill me for it.
If he learned I was the necromancer he hunted every two hundred years, he would definitely kill me. He’d be furious he’d saved the same scourge he’d been tasked with hunting down.
