My cheeks would’ve been redder than a fire engine if I hadn’t just been drained nearly dry. “I also told you to ignore me when I spout nonsense like that. I only say that because you drug me!”
He heaved a sigh. “Honestly, sweet one, how many times must I say this? When I feed, my fangs secrete a venom that induces euphoria and acts as a mild paralytic. This is all to discourage you from fighting and running away. What it doesn’tdo,” he said, turning that shit-eating smirk on me, “is induce arousal or lower your inhibitions.
“The begging for me to plunder your pussy is entirely coming from you.” He laced his fingers through mine and kissed my bruised knuckles. “And I’m too much of a gentleman to deny a pleading woman.”
“You mean you’re too much of a shitbrain to be a rat bastard.”
Radu laughed free and heartily. “What does that even mean?”
My eyes narrowed on the chortling undead menace. It was wild how much a fresh dose of blood changed him. Starving Radu was bored, listless, and uncaring of everything and everyone. Fed Radu was bright, joking, and dare I say, peppy.
“Go try your lies on someone else,” I snapped, shaking him off. “I know you’re drugging me with your venom; otherwise, I wouldn’t let you touch me with a ten-foot pole. Not even if the end you were holding was doused in holy water!”
“You’re upset, sweet one, and I do so hate it when you’re distressed.” This man had the nerve to fake pout at me. “How about a distraction? Tell me everything there is to know about your sister and the men who took her. Even the smallest detail can help me find her.” He hummed. “Speaking of small details, tell me everything about you, your parents, and your family history as well. It might give some insight into why, of all the sisters in the mortal world, the two of you were targeted.”
I glared fit to explode his head. “What part ofI’m not telling you a damn thing about Dorado you not understand? Give it up!”
He tsked, shaking his head. “Really, Charlotte, aren’t we past this? Think of the time we’ve spent together these past weeks. Haven’t I cared for you? Fed you? Bathed you? Clothed and pampered you? Haven’t I given in to your every sexual demandeven though you beat me before and after? Don’t you know I’d treat your sister just as well?
“Or do you truly believe your sister is better off in the hands of a psychotic murderer who has already killed twenty people?”
My eyes stung. No, I did not believe Dora was safe in her captor’s hands, but neither was I safe in mine. The door may be unlocked, and my body may be free of cuffs and chains, but I only had to look into Radu’s color-changing eyes to know that it didn’t matter if I escaped hell and went back to the living world.
No matter how far I ran... he was never letting me go.
I SAT UP IN BED, READINGa rather fascinating book written by a vampire author named René Boudin. And before you believe I had the strength to do either, you’d have to know that I was only sitting up because Radu propped me up against the pillows, and I could only read the book because he was holding it and turning the pages for me. Thanks to the greedy jerk, I was still weaker than a newborn kitten.
Even so, the book he suggested for me was more engrossing than I was ready for. It was a dark tale of a young painter who became enamored with a beautiful noblewoman. He was content to just watch and paint her from afar, but it turned out he wasn’t as subtle as he tried to be.
She had her guards drag him and his sketchbook to her. She was going to have the stalker peasant punished, until she saw his paintings. The artist didn’t paint her as a pretty, delicate object of male attention.
He painted her reading, writing, laughing with her friends, learning how to make pastries, and even playing with the village children. She didn’t even look flattering in half of them. The paintings were just her—living her life.
In the book, she thanks him with tears in her eyes, saying these paintings will be the most precious things she’ll ever own. Then, she offers him a king’s ransom—truly an obscene amount of money for the time—and tells him the money is his as long as he takes it and runs. Runs far away, changes his name, and never paints again.
The painter wanted to refuse, but the book said the look in her eyes when she begged him to leave... was terrifying.
He took the money, packed his things, and left that very night.
Years later, he was happily living over three hundred miles away with a lovely wife in a small, but welcoming community. He was so content, he only ever thought of his first love once in a blue moon.
But his first love hadn’t forgotten him.
I had just finished the chapter where her guards hunted him down, killed his wife, and dragged him back to her, chained up and pleading.
“What the hell?” I cried. “Why’d she do that? She was the one who told him to leave!”
“Are you asking me to spoil it for you?” Radu picked up my teacup and pressed the rim to my lips.
I slurped it down without hesitation. Why not? It wasn’t like the guy was going to poison hisfood.
“Yes, spoil it,” I replied, “and if it’s an insane reason, throw the book across the room for me because I can’t do it myself.”
He chuckled. “The reason she had him brought back is the same reason she sent him away. Our dear noblewoman had always been wealthy and beautiful. The two things men coveted most in her world. Ever since she was young, she’s been stalked, harassed, degraded, and seen as nothing more than a priceless object.
“And then, one terrible day, she was kidnapped and raped by a drunken, loutish count who thought thatdefilingher would mean that no other suitor would want her, thereby forcing the girl’s father to give him her hand in marriage.”
“My goodness,” I breathed, heart twisting. “Did her father...?”
