I can feel her pulse—she’s so close—and my mouth waters.
Dread fills my stomach as I recognize the scent of jasmine and vanilla.
The parasite has altered Blaise’s body, but she has not altered her blood.
It’s then I remember the intense cravings I’ve felt for Blaise ever since the night of my dream. Gunter had suspected that my feelings were contributing to my bloodlust, but he was wrong.
Because during the last full moon, I sipped on Blaise’s blood for the first time.
And she unknowingly sipped on mine.
“Let me guess, my kin, as you call him, informed you about a ritual involving bloodsharing.”
“So clever,” she croons, nuzzling her nose up against my neck and pressing a kiss to my exposed skin, causing it to crawl. “So you already knew of its effects?”
“Not exactly,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “Bloodsharing is a common ritual among the lychaen when they wish to develop a pack leader. But no. I was not aware that there was any significance to my blood.”
“I was told by my lover that among those like you, the night-stalkers, it is a ritual often done between those who wish to become one another’s eternal mates.”
Mates. My stomach shrivels at the word, as the idea that I performed this ritual with Blaise without her knowing what she was doing threatens to crush me.
A wicked grin twists on her lips. “When two vampires drink one another’s blood, sharing it freely, it binds them together as one. It is a ritual that places each in complete subjugation to the other, a symbol of utter trust among a breed who’ve been freed from the inability to lie. The powers of such a bond are mostly negated by the pair’s mutual authority over one another, but it had me wondering what would occur if a vampire were to allow a human to participate in such a rite.
“Of course, when I asked my lover about it, he shut me down immediately, and I suppose that was enough of an answer. You see, the ceremony is rarely performed with a human, as the human has no vampire blood to offer, which leaves the vampire—”
“A slave to the human,” I say, my voice hoarse, my throat dry.
“Indeed,” she says. “And you, Nox, were so willing. Tell me, has it always been a fantasy of yours, to allow the female you love to sip from your veins? Did it feel natural to you to offer your blood, your will, so freely?”
I grit my teeth, but the answer comes out before I’ve fully formed it, before I’ve discovered the truth for myself. Because she told me to tell her, so I must.
“It felt like the most intimate part of me I had to offer.”
Cinderella pulls away from me, frowning in distaste. “The most intimate part of you? And you gave it to a girl you hardly knew? Who, for all you knew, could have simply been bored, lusting after you out of a lack of viable options to entertain her?”
“Well,” I say, “I suppose that is what ended up being true, considering it was you I was actually sharing my blood with.”
Though her eyelashes are heady and batting, her voice is dripping with venom. “You flatter me.”
It seems I’ve struck my mark.
“I wonder,” I say, fixing an icy stare on the creature before me, “how many would have been willing to offer you the same, knowing what you truly are?”
The woman before me stills, and I take my chance to strike, not with my immobile fingers, itching to claw at her throat, but with my words. “You slip into bodies that aren’t yours and warp them, change them into something you assume others will find attractive. You fashion a body based on what you observe, the figures you witness male gazes following—”
“Then you do find me attractive,” she says, and I don’t miss the girlish blush that coats her pale cheeks, peppering her skin with flecks of blood.
“And yet, this is the second time a male you’ve sought to seduce has rejected you. Been disgusted—no, repelled—by you. So tell me, Cinderella, what could it be that you’re getting wrong?”
Silence hangs between us, punctuated by her ragged breaths. I can see it in her eyes, the way she’s chasing a confident retort, a way to make the insult glance off of her and back at me, but every time she blinks, I can tell the words slip through her grasp.
That I’ve hit a nerve.
“You have the form down,” I say, dragging my gaze up and down her body as if I’m at all interested. As if I’m fantasizing about undressing her and not imagining slicing her horrible body to pieces. Like Blaise is simply stuck inside her, and if I only rip Cinderella apart, Blaise will be free. “And the eyes, as well as the mouth…” I rest my attention at each point, and I watch as she shudders underneath my stare.
“And yet I’m missing…?” Her question is meant to come out throaty, but her voice dips and cracks in the middle, betraying her thirst. Her desperation.
A smile curves at my closed lips.
Her demeanor freezes over in response. “Tell me what I’m missing,” she snaps.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to keep my breath controlled. Calm. Even as I want to heave her across the table for using Blaise’s body like this.
I chance a glance at the runes on the floor, bouncing my gaze across them, searching for something, anything, to clue me in on what I missed when I conducted the ritual. But all the runes are in place, every trace of blood in order.
I realize then that I performed the ritual perfectly, and that is what frightens me most.
“You have to tell me,” Cinderella says, flicking at her long fingernails now.
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“Tell me now what makes you want her and not me,” Cinderella snaps, and I take my time returning my attention to her.
“I could tell you what makes her better than you,” I start, and there’s nothing I wish more than that I could move, that I could advance on her, tower over her in this moment. “I could tell you Blaise can tell a joke that I’m still laughing at hours later. I could tell you Blaise carries herself like she’s the sole owner of whatever room she currently occupies, and that she couldn’t care less that this is the case. I could tell you Blaise scours through books to get the answers to her questions, even though she has to work twice as hard as anyone else to decipher the words. I could tell you Blaise has a heart that dwarfs that of anyone I’ve ever met, that she loves fiercely—and a bit chaotically, perhaps—but when she loves, she holds nothing back.
“So yes, I suppose I could tell you why I like Blaise better than you. But surely you understand that Blaise isn’t the only girl in the world who can get a laugh with ease, who works harder than her peers, who loves unconditionally. Yet I still prefer her above all others. I can’t describe why or how; I just do. Blaise has something. Something I’m afraid you simply…lack.”
Cinderella hisses and launches from her perch on the dais. Her doe eyes have warped into those of a cornered snake, her perfect lips curled into a snarl. “I could make you do anything I wished,” she says, running her hands underneath my shirt, tracing a path of ice and needles across my torso.
