Page 200 of Plug and Drain

It was a room. Just a room.

Her room.

She remembered shutting the door when she’d first arrived at the academy and crying. She’d become an adult, but she still felt like a child, and missed her parents and the life she wished she could have had. Eventually, she’d wiped her tears and begun unpacking. There were no shelves like at her private school, so she’d set about stacking them. By the time she was finished, her tears had dried, and she’d let herself be optimistic about her future here.

Her collection had been much smaller then. Her job at the Sleepy Kitten Inn had helped her purchase more, which had become a necessity: each book she acquired helped counteract the things that happened in the nighttime, when her door opened and vampires entered to feed.

Some nights were so bad she’d gone shopping and purchased entire series without knowing or caring if she’d like them.

She’d hardly bought any new books since meeting Arken, and the ones that she had bought from habit she had yet to read.

She drew a deep breath as she stared at her door.

“So stupid,” she mumbled apologetically to Arken.

“Take your time,” he replied, brushing a warm hand across her back.

She nodded.

Slowly, she opened the door. A faint draught hit her as she let it swing inward, as if she had a window in her room. But it looked the same as it always had.

It’s just a room. Where vampires come to drink my blood. Where Arken first bedded me. And then Henrikk…

The thought of him sent her mind into disarray.

The King. The predator. He was everywhere.

She frowned. Her books. They were all there, beautifully arranged. The collapsed tower was gone, but the fallen books had been set aside into neat rows by someone, waiting for her to rebuild them.

A glimmer of hope. It was something to do.

But…

There was the floor, where Henrikk had made her hurt.

There was her bed, where Arken had made love to her.

And then Henrikk. He’d tried to have her on the bed, initially.

Susie felt clammy and feverish. He would always be here, in her mind.

But it was her room.

Maybe she could learn to live here again. And if it proved too difficult, she was sure Arken would let her choose a different room.

He was right. She did need a space of her own that was separate to his, a place where she could be by herself…at least some of the time.

And she had to stay here in the dorms, near the other wolf students.

But could she stay here?

Her gaze returned to where the tower of books had been.

That’s what she would do: rebuild the tower. She would stay in this room long enough to restore it to what it had been. Then, she would decide what to do.

If she couldn’t bear to live here, she would disassemble it and move her things elsewhere. Anywhere else.

But she had to stay, at least for now.