Page 6

He’s not dying. He can’t.

The thought arrives hard and absolute, from somewhere much deeper than logic. I press my palm harder to the wound at my throat at this impossible, vicious, beautiful monster who has upended every part of my life twice now.

He spent six years hunting a girl he never truly saw.

He found me instead. And now my blood has done this to him.

‘Valentin,’ I whisper. ‘If this is because of me, then you need to wake up and be angry about it properly. I know how to handle you angry. This corpse-prince routine? Very irritating. Deeply unsexy.’

A rough sound scrapes from him and I hold my breath as his eyelashes flutter and his mouth moves. But no word comes out.

I lean closer, stupidly, because apparently one brush with his fangs wasn’t enough to teach me basic predator safety.

‘What?’ I whisper.

His breath ghosts over my wrist… then his voice enters my mind, broken and distant.

Confess.

I recoil.

No, no, no.

Eyes still closed, his face tightens as if he’s fighting something as his hand twitches on the sheets, claws extended and tearing through silk.

Confess… Hunter.

The second time hurts, punches through my skull and lands behind my tongue.

A compulsion pulls at me, bringing with it words I cannot speak. Like my name.

The old one. The dead one. The one his blood is hunting even while his mind drowns in the dark.

Confess!

A wild, reckless thought seizes me.

Maybe this isn’t strategy any more but the truth that will wake him. Because I’m almost certain strategy died the second the Tower went dark and an ancient vampire collapsed because my blood set his curse on fire.

My throat tightens. I ignore it, my pounding heart and the warning shrieking above my blood that this is a very bad idea.

But apparently it’s an idea I can’t resist. Because my throat works harder, ready to spill secrets I’ve guarded with blood and tears for six long years. ‘Okay, vampire. You win. I… I’m—’ The word stops.

My throat seals shut. Hard. Like a wrenched faucet.

Pain clamps around the inside of my neck, clean and vicious, as if invisible fingers have hooked around the word and dragged it back down. I stumble back a step as I choke, one hand flying from the bite to my throat.

There’s no external grip. No thrall. No vampire command.

This is magic.

Cold, ancient magic.

This is… oh Gods… Bride’s Mercy. The potion delivered by a witch. A potion I willingly took.

My pulse lurches. ‘Oh, you have got to be kidding me,’ I wheeze.

Outside the door, Malachi goes silent. I realise too late he may have heard the choke, maybe even smelled the sudden sting of pain in my blood.