“Nox…”
He’s not listening, and the more I focus, the more I can isolate the sharp pain that’s rippling through my neck. So intense that I want to cry out, but my mouth won’t let me.
“Nox…” My breath is panicky now. Something is wrong. “Nox, stop.”
The teeth digging into my flesh retract, and he appears as shocked as I am when he does as I say.
When he pulls away, the force of his body pressing me against the wall does too, and I crumple to my knees.
My elbows hit the cold stone floor, and pain rattles my bones upon impact. I gasp for air, but it sounds more like a wheeze.
Something warm and wet and sticky trickles down my neck.
It splats against the floor in droplets.
“Blaise!” Someone gasps, and my mind rakes around to assign a face to the voice. Mismatched skin and hair.
Gunter.
Gunter’s at the dungeon door.
There’s no rattling of a key in the lock, though.
“Nox, you don’t wish to hurt her. It’s Blaise. It’s Blaise you’re feeding on. Blaise you’re killing.”
Everything is foggy, but there’s something about Gunter’s words that ring true. Familiar.
And because they match up with the worry coursing through my bones, I believe them.
Right here. It’s the best path to get to my heart from the front…
My victims, they’re eager.
My heart gives a weak little sputter, and it hits me.
Why I felt I’d give anything to Nox when he told me he wanted something selfish.
When I look up at him, Nox is towering over me. Blood—my blood—coats his lips and dribbles down the front of his shirt.
But this is not Nox.
This is evil.
He lowers himself over me and grazes my bloodied neck with two fingers, bringing them to his lips.
“Tell the old man you don’t mind,” he whispers.
But that’s all he gets to say.
Because I grab the stake lying on the floor and thrust it into his stomach.
CHAPTER 31
NOX/FARIN
Pain lashes through me as the splintered edges of the stake brush against my heart.
The agony ripples through my body in waves, and it’s enough to have me gasping for breath and send me jolting backward.
It’s enough for the girl to scramble on her hands and knees.
She leaves a trail of bloodied handprints on the stone floor, the intoxicating substance wasted as it leaks into the grout.
I lunge for her, but it only serves to drive the stake deeper into my musculature, and I bite a chunk off my inner cheek in reaction to the pain.
“Come on, Blaise. You’re almost there.” The mentor’s words are steady, but his feigned calmness doesn’t fool me.
I can hear his heart pounding as if my ear is pressed to his chest.
The girl lets out a muffled whimper like she’s biting down on her lip, trying to stifle the cry, but she heaves herself forward.
A click of an iron key in the lock, the scraping of hinges, and the girl is on the other side of the door.
Another slam, another click, and the male has locked me inside.
As if that pitiful excuse for a door could ever hold me in.
Nox, sure.
