Page 14 of Bloody Kingdom

“Areyou going to pout the entire time you work with us?” Duke finally breaks the silence after fifteen minutes of driving in awkward, heavy, air. He’d opened the passenger door for me when I’d come downstairs with my suitcase, but being the hardheaded brat I am, I opted to throw my luggage at him before climbing into the back seat.

Childish?Possibly, but I have no regrets.

“Come on, Quincey,” he sighs, his eyes watching me intently through the rearview mirror. “You’re only going to make this harder for yourself if you alienate everyone. I can be a friend to you if you’d let me.”

I want to hit him, but my life is currently in his hands with him driving this damn car. “Friends don’t drug and help kidnap people,dick.” My fingernails dig painfully into my bare legs. I was given a pair of sweatpants to wear home this morning, but I’d changed into some ripped-up jean shorts before leaving Lucy. Little crescent moons appear all over my thigh from my nails. Slowly, I watch each mark fade. “There had to be a better way of going about this. He didn’t have to abduct me and blackmail me.”

“You’ll learn quickly Silas doesn’t do anything unless he knows he’s got a foolproof plan. He leaves nothing up to fate, everything in that man’s life is meticulously planned out.” Duke’s loyalty is clearly cemented in Silas. “He made it so you had no other choice but to say yes to him. And let’s be real for a second, Quincey, you would have turned him down had he asked you nicely.”

He’s right. I would have turned down any job offer given to me if it meant I had to touch a patient again, but Duke doesn’t deserve that validation. “I don’t get the impression many say no to Mr. Laurent.”

Duke chuckles. “Not if they value breathing, they don’t.”

My mouth dips into a frown. “You find that funny? That he kills anyone who disagrees with him?” I can’t believe I’m employed by a murderer.

I finally meet his eye in the rearview mirror as he says, “No, I don’t find it funny, but I do find it interesting you told him no and expressed your interest in harming him with a scalpel, and you’re still sitting here breathing.” Clearly Silas confides in Duke.Interesting. Even a man of Silas’s stature needs someone to vent to. “Why do you think that is?”

“Maybe he finds me wildly endearing and enjoys my company?” I smile sweetly at him. “I’ve been told I’m a complete joy to be around.”

“Yeah.” Duke shakes his head. “I don’t think Silas enjoys anyone’s company.”

“He must enjoy Ira’s if he’s gone through all this trouble for him,” I muse aloud as some of the puzzle pieces fall into place. Silas has a soft spot for Ira. “In his own fucked-up way, he cares about Ira and that’s why I’m still breathing. If Ira didn’t need me, he never would have put up with my bullshit,” I answer Duke’s previous question.

Duke gives me a knowing look. “You’re not as helpless as you think, Quincey. Remember you have more leverage than he wants you to think.”

Frustration causes me to dig my nails extra hard into the skin of my thigh “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I can be your friend if you’d just let me.”

Idon’t dream.

Haven’t in centuries. I spent decades pleading with the universe to make the dreams of the life I lost stop and eventually they did. While I would like to think the universe listened to my pleas, I think it’s more likely my body forgot how to perform such a mundane skill. How they stopped doesn’t matter to me, just as long as I don’t dream of the person I lost so many years ago.

Until today, I was met with inky black nothingness while I slept. Just the way I liked it.

And then she showed up.

For the first time in over three hundred years, I had a dream, and it wasn’t about them like they always used to be. No, I dreamed ofher. Quincey Page somehow found a way to poison my dreams.

Her powder blue eyes framed with thick lashes blinked slowly up at me, her pale pink lips parted with a gasp as my fangs sunk into the smooth column of her neck. Her blood tasted sweeter than I imagined it would. With a single drop of it on my tongue, I’d lost all control. I’d ravaged her like a starving man, taking every single ounce of blood from her. When I was done, I sat and stared at her limp body lying across the end of my bed. Those eyes of hers that had looked at me with so much life before, now dull and still. And to my dismay, an emotion I can only describe as remorse filled me to my core.

That’s an emotion I haven’t felt in a long time.

I’d woken up with my fangs aching painfully, my throat burning as hunger racked my body. The first bag of blood I’d consumed barely scratched the intense appetite I woke with. By the third bag, I felt more like myself and was able to leave the sanctuary of my room.

Out of pure habit, I make my way to Ira’s room, intent on seeing how his day went. It’s not until I’m standing in front of his open door that I remember the woman I killed in my dream would be in this room with Ira.

My hopes for a quick retreat burst when I lock eyes with her across the room. She’s pulled one of the side chairs from the seating area closer to the hospital bed. She sits with her feet propped up on the end of Ira’s bed, a book in her hand.

I force myself to ignore the bandage on her ankle and the red spot from where she’d bled through the gauze. My eyes trail up her exposed tanned legs to the pair of revealing jean shorts. It then dawned on me I never gave her a dress code. Everyone who works in my home is expected to adhere to certain guidelines regarding clothing.

Her shorts and casual T-shirts are simply not going to do.

She’s not even wearing shoes.

“I thought you said I wouldn’t have to see you much?” Quincey looks up at me briefly before returning to whatever book she’s reading. “I went over twelve hours without hearing or seeing you, I was starting to grow hopeful you were telling the truth, but no surprise, I find myself disappointed.”

“Not that I owe you an explanation, Miss Page, but I always visit Ira around this time.” He’s my first stop after I wake for the night.

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