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“You wouldn’t understand.”
The callousness in his voice causes her face to crumple before twisting into a simmering mask of vile hatred. “This is the final warning I’ll give you. Screw her. Play house with her. Pretend you actually care about her. Whatever will get her and this mortal fetish out of your system. But by the time this school year is over, if you’re not publicly done with her, I will make it my mission to tear your life apart piece by piece.”
Then . . . nothing.
30
When I wake up, I’m in bed. Although I can’t be sure whose bed until . . . Sweet Jesus, the silkiest, most luxurious infinity thread count Egyptian cotton sheets wrap around my legs.
Wait. I know this place.
One groggy look at the ice-blue curtains swaying in the honeysuckle breeze from the nearby window, the ivory rug, and my suspicions are confirmed.
Yep. In my old bed again—in the Winter Prince’s cottage. My thoughts are slightly derailed as I stretch, the sheets gliding along my skin. Oh, outrageously expensive sheets, how I’ve missed you.
“You’re awake!” Mack screeches from the corner where she sits, holding her phone and a book.
Squeaking in surprise, I barely have time to sit up before she’s strangling me in a death-hug.
“You scared me,” she accuses. “Never, ever do that to me again.”
“I’m sorry . . . what am I apologizing for?” I ask through a yawn, my brain scrambling to figure out why I’m waking up in Valerian’s on campus house and not my own dorm. Holy Fae hells, I think something died in my mouth. “I have the breath of a troll—how long was I asleep?”
When she pulls away, I make note of even more alarming details. Like that I’m in an oversized Evermore Academy T-shirt and someone’s very soft silk boxer briefs.
Who the frick put me in this?
A slight ache drags my attention to my left shoulder, poking up from the wide hem of my worn shirt. I touch the jagged red scar that starts at the very end of my collarbone, snakes down my shoulder, and ends mid-bicep.
“Wicked.” Or it would be—if I could remember how I got it. A hollow bubble of panic swells beneath my ribs. “What am I forgetting? How did this happen?” I frown as bits and pieces of my memory float to the surface. “Why didn’t they heal this?”
Her lips tug into a frown. “You don’t remember the darklings?”
Darklings. Right, mindless humans-turned-zombie. They were here . . . inside the main hall.
“Evelyn,” I whisper.
At our friend’s name, Mack’s eyes mist over, but she pulls it together, no doubt for my own benefit. “Do you remember the vault?”
My eyes stretch wide as the image of the darklings swarming over the stone walls flashes with perfect clarity inside my head. “We were looking for weapons to fight them.”
“Yes, and during the fight, a darkling bit you, severing an artery, part of the muscle, and some tendons.”
“Ouch. So I bled out? That doesn’t explain why they couldn’t heal my wound.”
“The blood loss was bad, but not the thing that nearly killed you. Apparently, sometimes the forbidden magic that infests darklings can enter a human’s bloodstream after a deep bite. For Evermore, it’s like having a bad case of the flu.”
“And for us?”
“For mortals, it’s almost always fatal without the antidote. Only a few mortals have ever survived without it . . .” Her mouth tightens, and frown lines etch across her forehead.
“What?”
“Ruby said there’s rumors that the humans who do survive a bite turn months or even years later from their exposure.”
“Oh, God, does that mean—”
“No, you received the antidote in time. There was still a chance you wouldn’t wake up, but the antidote stripped all the corrupted magic from your body.”
