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I took a long sip of my drink and winced. I’d put way too much alcohol in it and not enough mixer, and was about to turn back to the bar to try to fix it when Jeremiah popped up beside me.
He had two cups in his hands.
“You don’t really look like you’re enjoying that,” he said, motioning to my poorly-made cocktail. He didn’t wait for my confirmation before he slipped the drink from my hands, and handed over one of his instead. “Try it.”
I sipped—of course it was better than mine. Refreshing, limey, sparkling. I nodded. “Yeah, that’s way better.”
“Just come to me if you want another,” he said, bowing as he headed back to the kitchen, likely to throw away the mess of alcohol I’d made. They were good hosts, even if they were secretly plotting to kill me.
I stayed at the edge of the crowd, swaying with my drink, watching couples grind up on each other to the pounding beat. Inaya had wandered off, and I was still trying to work up the courage to sneak away when I noticed a couple at the far side of the room eyeing me.
They were dressed in identical black suits and bowties, their faces painted to look like skulls. The woman’s long, wavy black hair was pulled into a ponytail, and the man’s hair was dark and slicked back. They were both tall, colorful tattoos peeking out from the wrists and necklines of their jackets. They were the type of couple that looked far too absurdly attractive—it was almost irritating to have that much sex-appeal taken up by two people.
They kept staring at me for so long it was beginning to make me blush. There was something vaguely familiar about the guy, as if I’d seen him around campus...maybe I had a class with him. It was the woman who made the first move, making her way slowly across the living room to stand beside me along the wall. Despite the suit, she was wearing steel-toed boots andtoweredover me.
When she smiled at me, I was suddenly certain that she could literally step on me and I’d say thank you.
“Hey.” Her voice was husky. “Having a good time?”
I nodded, flustered as fuck to have a beautiful girl talk to me without prompting. “Yeah, it’s pretty wild. Definitely the biggest party I’ve been to.”
“I’m Sam.” She held out her hand, the slightest stutter in her voice as she said her name. Her fingers were warm and rough, as if she worked with her hands a lot. “Would you…” She nodded back toward her partner, who winked at me as I glanced over. So familiar. Where the hell did I know him from? “…would you wanna dance?”
I was more likely to trip over my own feet than actually dance with them. But her hand was so warm on mine, and across the room her partner was flipping through the music on the TV and selected a song calledDistanceby Apashe.
I smiled and nodded, and she tugged me by the hand across the room, her dark brown eyes on my face as she brought me closer to her man.Then she was in front of me, arms around my neck, and he was behind me, hands on my waist, and our bodies swayed to the dark, swelling rhythm. It didn’t even matter that I couldn’t dance, because between the two of them I was moved however they wanted me, pressed close between them.
Sam’s body moved closer, her thigh edged up between my legs, and her fingers caressed down my neck as her head leaned down—her lips brushed against my ear as she whispered, “You need to stop drinking that, babe.”
But the thing was, I didn’t want to stop drinking. Whatever Jeremiah had made me was good, and the alcohol was finally easing away that vicious knot of anxiety in my stomach. Not just easing it away—destroying it entirely. I felt great. I felt warm. I felt like laughing. And God, I was turned on. The touch of her fingers was vibrant, tingling over my skin, and I raised the cup to my lips again.
She pulled me forward, and then she was leading me again through the crowd. Her man had his hand on my arm, and I was really damn confused as to why we weren’t dancing anymore,until we were in the bathroom, and he’d closed the door, and she—
“I told you to stop drinking it,” she hissed, gripping me by the back of the neck as he took the cup from my hands. “Sorry, babe, it’s for your own good.”
Right as I opened my mouth to ask what the hell she was going on about, she tugged me forward, bent me over the toilet, and shoved her fingers into my throat.
It had been hours since I’d ingested anything but sugary alcoholic drinks, and I vomited up most of the liquid into the toilet. I tried to shove her off, but she was shockingly strong, and shoved me down harder and pressed her fingers back again—more gagging, more vomit. Her man was watching, standing in front of the door like a guard. Only when I gagged and nothing came up did she let me go, to sink down dazedly against the wall as she flushed the toilet and tossed the remainder of my drink in after it.
“What…what the fuck is wrong with you?” I gasped, clutching my stomach, my throat sore from her fingers, my entire back tense with the effort of trying to fight her off. She sighed heavily as she rinsed my cup in the sink and filled it from the tap, then offered it to me as she knelt down.
“You’re gonna need to get a hell of a lot smarter if you’re gonna live, Raelynn,” she said, and I realized I’d never given her my name. “Don’t you ever,everconsume anything Jeremiah Hadleigh gives you.”
I sipped the water cautiously, my eyes darting between her and the man—and that was when I realized: his eyes were golden.
“Zane,” I whispered, and he gave me a cheery salute.
“Took you long enough to recognize me.” He pouted mockingly. “Fucking hell, Leon wasn’t lying about you being a chore to keep alive. Sucking down roofies like you don’t have a care in the world.”
“Roofies?” My voice shot up an octave in alarm. “What—”
“Your drink was drugged, babe.” The woman sighed heavily. “The Hadleighs don’t intend for you to leave this party, let me make that perfectly clear. And I’ve got shit to do, so keep drinking that water, get your head straight—I need you to get it together and leave.”
My mind was spinning, not just from the vomiting and drugs lingering in my bloodstream. Zane reached down, offering me a mint to ease the gross taste of bile from my mouth. Zane was here...so did that mean…
“Is Leon here?” I choked out. Zane just shrugged.
“He’s around,” he said. “Not watching you closely enough, that’s for certain.”
