Page 75 of Bloodgrove

No matter how fiercely the other clan tried to hold her down, she rose and shook away the last of the paralysis. Her gaze was devastating, the storm roaring around her as snowflakes danced within her pull. The blood that had risen toward the sky now rained down, and she caught it in her outstretched hands.

“How?” Duke Bohun stammered, stumbling back.

Elodie looked over her shoulder at Will one final time, and a small, devilish smile lifted the bloodied corners of her mouth. He nodded, not granting permission but offering encouragement, and for the first time, he waited eagerly for her vengeance.

She did not wait for the Red Hand’s approval. The moment she had gathered enough blood, she pulled her hands apart, her teeth bared in a furious grimace, and Duke Bohun exploded.

Blood burst from his eyes and erupted from his mouth and ears. His eyeballs popped from their sockets under the sheer force of it, his chest split open, and his body convulsed. Only his clothing held him together.

Shrill screams and panic filled the courtyard, then transformed in the next breath into ravenous excitement. The crowd cheered the brutality of Elodie’s revenge.

“Surrender!” Elodie called to the remaining members of Clan Bohun, her voice still hoarse. “Renounce your titles, or I will take them from you!”

The Red Hand laughed mockingly when several members of the family turned to him for help. “She is only a girl. You do not need my assistance.”

But Will suspected the Red Hand knew who would win this battle, and indeed, his chest seemed to swell with something suspiciously like pride.

The moment Elodie closed her fist, blood erupted from their bodies in the form of crystals. Eight men and women fell before they could offer any resistance. Their faces were distorted, their skin split open, their mouths forever stretched in screams and now filled with red crystal.

“Cowards,” Elodie scoffed. Not because they had refused to face her in battle, but because they had been too cowardly to endure the disgrace of surrendering every title they possessed.

The Red Hand nodded in approval.

Triumphant, Elodie turned toward Will, and her gaze fell upon his hand, from which blood still dripped onto the stones. Before he could gather himself or tear his attention from the corpses, she was beside him and seized his arm. For a moment, he expected her to scold him, but instead, she took his wound into her mouth and sucked.

He felt each thirsty pull down to his marrow. Her fingers closed around his arm and smeared the blood, but her eyes remained fixed entirely upon him.

“A storm,” he murmured, and for a moment, he forgot himself. His free hand swept a sweat-damp strand from her brow, and a smile far too warm rested upon his lips. He fed her his heart’s blood, and here, before every watching eye, her tongue passed across his skin, mingling burning pain with fevered pleasure.

“Enough! People are beginning to talk!” Duke Wilkinson seized Elodie by the arm and tore her away. “Are you proud of yourself? You have exterminated one of Bloodgrove’s oldest families. They were friends of mine and of your father. Do you understand what you have done?” he hissed. At least he possessed the decency to produce a handkerchief and wipe the blood from Elodie’s lips.

“They received the mildest revenge. I had planned something far greater,” she snapped, but gradually the predator receded, and she diminished into a housecat once more. She nestled against her fiancé’s side. “Forgive me.”

When the duke placed his hand against her cheek, Will turned away.

“You no longer need to fight. I will provide for us. I have more than you could ever imagine. My beautiful Elodie, always so greedy.”

Will suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, though he wondered why the words sounded so oily from the duke when only a minute ago, he would have liked to say almost the same thing.

“William Frank.”

Will stopped. Ice dripped down his spine when the Red Hand spoke his name and beckoned him forward with a crooked finger.

Eric stood beside the dais, but his neutral expression made it clear he would offer no help. Just as Elodie had transformed once more into the obedient wife, Eric had become the loyal official again, and Will cursed inwardly.

“Come.”

Chapter 40

Will could not hide the way he flinched every time the vampires snapped at him. Every time, he saw the pale, distorted faces of the monsters from the harbor district, and heard Saint’s desperate screams while his mind broke with pain.

But these beasts were only pitiful creatures, well fed and tormented themselves by whatever the Red Hand demanded of them.

Only when Will had almost reached him did the Red Hand order them to sit still. With his pale eyes, he had watched Will suffer and struggle to keep walking upright. The Red Hand was a sadist, but the realization shocked Will anew.

“Closer,” the man growled when Will stopped beside his swollen feet. Here, the stench of decay and festering wounds could no longer be concealed by incense and cloves.

Here Will could hear the rattle in his breathing. Every word cost him strength. Elodie would be doing him a favor when she sent him into the afterlife one month from now—to whatever torments awaited a man like him there.