I’m not exactly like him, then. Most likely not like the others, either.

I’m not like anyone.

CHAPTER 42

BLAISE

The next several days are a blur of seclusion and darkness and bloodlust.

My bloodlust isn’t like Nox’s—at least, that’s what he tells me during the brief occasions he visits me in Abra’s laboratory.

I think he’s avoiding me. I also think it should hurt, but I’m too hungry to think of much else.

When Nox does visit, he brings vials of lamb’s blood. It’s savory and rich, but there’s something about it that’s missing.

Nox says nothing quite tastes like human blood. That it’s better never to taste it at all.

In my more coherent moments, I know he’s right, but my coherent moments are shells on the seashore, and my bloodlust is numbered by grains of sand.

Still, Nox says I’m doing better than he did. I haven’t tried to break out of my confinement, and though I’m not exactly coherent, I don’t black out for hours on end.

I remember everything. Every swallow that scrapes like sandpaper against my throat. Every drop of animal blood that satiates the pain, a blissful reprieve for a moment before vanishing into the ether.

But I expect Nox just thinks I’m doing better than he did because I haven’t killed anyone. Yet.

I can scent them, though—the servants roaming the palace halls. Their pulses drum against my ear, fingertips tapping against a hollow table. They smell of wildflowers and cinnamon and mulled spices, and I find myself fantasizing about how their skin would feel against my lips.

My canines ache from lack of use.

But still I stay. I stay in the queen’s sterile laboratory, the eerie greenish vials glowing in the eerie greenish candlelight, their pristine surfaces mocking me with their purity.

I’m surprised she hasn’t come to visit me yet. Not that I expect the queen to have any interest in pointless chatter, but I could see her hands slipping, a stake finding its way into my heart as she was “checking up on me.”

Apparently, she’s granted me a reprieve—I’m free to leave when I wish—though I can’t say I trust her motives. Our deal was that she would free me if I helped hand over the parasite, and though the parasite has likely been extracted, Nox still doesn’t know what happened to it.

For all we know, it perished with me.

I’ve decided that if the queen comes to visit, I might just have to bite first and ask questions later.

Nox refuses to restrain me, though I tell him he should.

He has faith that I won’t hurt anyone.

I’m pondering the likelihood of this when footsteps sound in the room adjacent to the queen’s laboratory.

I know immediately they don’t belong to Nox, and although I haven’t seen the queen since I turned, I’m fairly certain they don’t belong to her either. They’re too hesitant, too jittering to belong to that disgustingly austere female.

The stranger’s pulse is flighty, skipping erratically, and some primal instinct in me pairs it with the musk of the human’s sweat and recognizes it as fear.

The scents of freshly baked rolls and fresh lamb’s blood hit me a moment later, and I realize it’s a servant bringing me dinner.

Or perhaps it’s breakfast. It’s not as if I have access to the sun to inform me either way.

“Miss,” the servant girl says, her voice jittering through the cracks in the barred door.

I say barred, because Nox technically closes an iron rod across the other side when he leaves me, but we both know the actual wood stands little chance should I wish it splintered.

I suppose Nox just can’t stand the thought of locking me up.

I’m afraid it will cost this servant girl her life.

I say I’m afraid, but only as an expression, because I’m not afraid at all.

I’m just hungry.

There’s a slat. A gap between the floor and the bottom of the iron door that makes me wonder how many people Abra has chained up in here over the years if she has a door perfectly built for sliding food underneath.

That’s exactly what the servant girl does, careful not to allow her fingers to pass over the threshold as she nudges a tray of boiled potatoes and roasted lamb underneath the door.

The blood is served in a nearly flat bowl rather than a cup, I suppose so it can fit nicely under the slat.

“Thank you,” I say, sliding to my feet from the exam table. My muscles are still sore from the Turning, or perhaps they’re sore from lack of human blood.

I’m not familiar with the nuances of my new body yet.

The servant girl mutters a noncoherent response, clearly not expecting to have such a grateful prisoner.

She’s right to be suspicious.

“Oh, don’t go yet,” I say as soon as I sense her feet tense in preparation to skitter away. “I’m starved for company.”

It’s a horrible pun, and even in my bloodlust, I’m aware enough to cringe at myself. Though it’s probably the least worthy thing to cringe over.

What’s truly disturbing is my voice.

It’s dropped half an octave, into a sultry sort of cadence that drips off my tongue like honey.

I feel the girl still on the other side of the door.

So it does work—this strange compulsion—even if the victim can’t see me.

That’s another question Nox has been hedging these past few days.

I know I should feel something—guilt, perhaps?—for ridding the girl of her free will, but it seems whatever scale inside my chest that used to measure the need for such an emotion is damaged.

“Why don’t you open the door?” I ask, fully aware that this has to be some trick of the queen. Nox knows better than to send a human to feed me when I’m hungry, and so does Abra.

I’m not sure what she’s playing at, but I intend to find out.