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“This is why he wants you,” he says, and I have no idea what that means.
“Who wants me?”
His gaze lifts over my shoulder, in the direction of the house.
“It’s time to wake up, Mariah.”
“Why?”And how does he know my name?
“You have a visitor.” He grasps my shoulders firmly enough to pinch and shakes me.
I’m jolted awake, for real this time.
It takes me a second to recall where I am—in bed, in the guestroom, at Red Cliff—and half a second more to realize that I’m not alone.
A figure stands tall and imposing in the darkness beside my bed. At first, I think it’s the man from my dream. But then my eyes adjust, and I see that it’s my half-brother, Christopher.
“What do you want?” I ask, my voice hoarse with sleep...and fear.
He tilts his head, illuminating half his face in the moonlight streaming through my curtains, like dipping a cookie into milk. His expression is stern and does painful things to my belly the longer I look at it.
“You’re not like I thought you’d be,” he says quietly. “My father led us to believe that you were somehow special. That you’d bring somethinguniqueto the table. But now that I’ve seen you, it’s obvious that you are nothing out of the ordinary. Just another illegitimate brat whose slut mother couldn’t keep her legs together.”
Anger sets my blood on fire. I sit up and open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, just as his hand shoots out to grab my jaw.
“Never forget that you don’t belong here, Mariah.”
My heart pounds. His grip dents my skin and makes my jaw ache.
“If you let yourself get comfortable,” he says, bringing his face close to mine. “If you even think about overstaying your welcome, I’ll have to come back here and remind you where you stand.”
He lets go of my face and reaches for something in the vicinity of his waistband. My muscles tense. I brace myself on the mattress, ready to throw him off should he try to climb on top of me.
Seconds tick past. Then I hear the trickle of liquid hitting the bedspread.
I jump out of bed and out of reach of the stream. His piss is acrid smelling. I hold my breath, my stomach winding into tighter and tighter knots.
He’s insane, I realize. This whole family is batshit fucking insane.
I close my eyes and wish that I could be anywhere else. But unlike in my dreams, I have no control over what happens. I just have to wait it out.
After emptying an entire pouch of Capri Sun’s worth of piss onto the bed, Christopher puts his dick back in his pants.
“You should clean this up before my mom sees it,” he says. “Wouldn’t want her to think you’re a bedwetter, on top of being a whore’s daughter.”
Chapter Six
William
Mariah vanishes before my eyes, her form dissolving like ashes through my fingers.
I’ve never known a living human who could physically manifest in the twilight realm.
As a vampire, I can visit this place, but I cannot affect it. Powerful spirits who reside here, like Katherine, can focus their attention to influence objects in the physical world. But the bleeding effect between the realms only goes one way. Isabella was sensitive enough to perceive it, but it takes a very powerful psychic to cross the threshold, even in sleep.
I wave my hand through the air where she recently stood. What Mariah has unwittingly accomplished is so rare as to be unheard of, if not impossible. But she made the jump. I felt her physical presence with my own hands—hands that haven’t touched anything solid beyond my cage in years.
I race to the house, reaching Mariah’s room just as Christopher is leaving it.
