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I see a shadow in the doorway out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t give myself the chance to see who it is. Instead, I hurl myself off the ledge, out the window, and into the bone-chilling depths below.
Chapter Six
I must swim for a mile.
By the time I reach the shore, my teeth are chattering, and I’m shaking violently with the cold. Crawling up onto the sandy beach alcove, I hang my head, gasping for breath and coughing up handfuls of saltwater.
“Fucking vampires,” I curse under my breath. Well, I suppose I should sayfucking gargoyle-vampiresfor accuracy, but the gargoyle addition has yet to implant securely in my brain. It’s like some bizarre hybrid of two incongruent creatures. I can’t fathom the magic that makes them possible, but I can fathom perfectly well how much I want every last one of them dead.
I’ll go back and end the bastard for good soon. Very soon. In fact, the second I’ve regained my strength and made my provisions, I’ll be back on his doorstep with a stake full of sunlight. And I’ll get my damn bobby blade back—
“Brava, love!” That deep voice sends an ice pick through my already frozen belly.
I’m on all fours, looking at damp sand, summoning the waning strength left inside me to lift my head.
He’s here.
I look up to find Derith-fucking-D’Orsay standing right in front of me, arms crossed, shirt billowing, and expression smug. If I had the strength, I’d punch him right in his self-impressed grin.
“Truly, I am quite impressed,” he says, sounding strangely earnest. “No one has ever escaped from Castle D’Orsay before.”
“Perhaps they enjoyed your hospitality,” I respond, spitting sandy water at his feet as I take another deep breath and push to my feet. Looking up at the irritating creature, I notice he appears annoyingly unperturbed.
“Do you mind me asking how you achieved it?” he asks. “I assume my servants were simply careless once again?”
I shake my head, not sure how I’m going to get away from him this time, but awaiting an idea to fall into my head, all the same. “No.Youwere.”
“I was?” he frowns.
I nod. “I lifted the key from you when you took me on that high-speed tour of the castle.”
The smug expression freezes into an embarrassed rictus. “Well… doesn’t that make me look foolish?”
Not as much a fool as I must look, crawling out of the freezing cold water, only to be caught again. But I don’t say as much. In fact, I say nothing. Instead, my eyes dart around my surroundings, trying to spot a way out. But the only real way out is the sea, and there’s no telling how much farther I’d have to swim to find land again. I’d no doubt drown in my attempt.
“I’m not going to take you prisoner again,” the bastard says, clearly reading my expression.
I look at him scrupulously, quirking up an eyebrow. “You’re not?”
“Well, not just yet.”
My patience with this son of a bitch is wearing thin. I want to strike, to attack, but I’m still without a stake and without sunlight. And I’m exhausted so, odds are, I’d fail. And I doubt he’s stupid enough to let me keep him out here until dawn, when the sun will come up and turn him into charcoal.
Suddenly, there’s a sharp pain in my calf that feels like it’s ripping through my leg. With a scream, I collapse to the ground, clutching my leg as I try to fight the agony that’s already taking over.
Derith is immediately beside me, crouching down and making an effort to look concerned. I want to spit on him and tell him not to waste his effort, but I’m in too much physical anguish to bother with him at all.
I know this pain. I’ve felt it before, and that means, I don’t have long. Last time, I managed to survive by the goddamn skin of my teeth. “It’s a water ghoul,” I say between clenched teeth. With another wave of pain, I bite my tongue in accident and cry out again, but that smarting pain is nothing compared to the pain in my leg.
I have to act quickly.
“What can I do?” Derith asks, eyeing me now with actual concern—which is strange, but I don’t have the wherewithal to wonder why. “You’re not dying, are you?” There’s apprehension in his voice.
Ah, so he doesn’t want me dead. He wants meforsomething. Some purpose, some big plan of his that I’m sure I’ll want no part of.
I press down on every inch of my leg, looking for the hot spot. It takes me another second or so, but I eventually find it: an unfamiliar red freckle on the side of my knee. It’s the nook where the water ghoul entered my body. I press down on the spot, and the pain that shoots through me could blind the gods.
Screaming out, I curse for a few solid seconds, but I know I don’t have much time before the water ghoul will consume my body from the inside out.
