Page 135 of House of Crimson Hearts
“When you attacked me?” I say.
She drags her eyes away from me. “Yeah, when I attacked you. I was mid-transition, but now… I’d never. I hope you realise that I’d never ever do it again.”
She steps forward, her arms open, but I shrink back, hold my palm out to stop her. “Not yet,” I say. “I’m not ready yet.”
I remain standing, preferring to be able to escape fast if I need to. Octavia sits in one of the balcony’s velvet armchairs.
“Okay, okay, I understand that,” Amelia says and pushes her blonde hair behind her ears. While her eyes are green like mine, they’re a different shade, and tonight they’re closer to blue. It makes her alien to me. Her porcelain skin, she was always young-looking but she holds an impossible permanence in her features now, as if she’s sculpted from marble instead of the squishy little sister she used to be.
My throat clogs.
This is pointless.
“What could you possibly say to make this better, Amelia? You’re a vampire, and I’m a hunter.”
“Yes, and by the looks of it, you’re in love with a vampire too.”
My mouth falls open. How is it only your fucking siblings can talk to you like this?
“I have n—” I say but she speeds across the balcony and slaps her hand over my mouth. I freeze, my body rigid and hard. Her palm is cool where it used to be warm, but her skin still smells like her, and it makes my stomach ache and my eyes sting. Fuck, I’ve missed her. I flinch against her touch, but she doesn’t let go, she also doesn’t try to hug me. She just stays, holding her hand to my mouth until I stop trembling.
And when I do, she says. “Don’t even try and deny it. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”
I drag her hand off my mouth. “Yeah? And what do you have to say that’s going to make up for this?”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Octavia saved my life, Red. You need to stop being shitty with her.”
“She TURNED you,Amelia.”
But Amelia shakes her head at me, her eyes full of pity. “I was going to die.”
“Yes, becauseshedrained you.” I stab an accusing finger at Octavia and all the rage I used to feel bubbles back into my body. I start shaking, my heart hammers in my chest so hard it aches. And once again, I’m not sure if I want to stake Octavia or fall into her arms. I wipe a hand over my face trying to remove the cocktail of confusion, but it won’t pass.
“You’re not listening. Octavia didn’t drain me,” Amelia says.
My head snaps up to face her. “But that’s impossible, she turned you. How else would she have turned you? She… She…” But I’m no longer sure what I’m going to say, so instead, my mouth hangs open with nothing but air exiting through it.
“You don’t remember that night…”
My jaw hardens, my eyes flick to Octavia, but she’s intentionally looking out over the balcony. “What do you mean ‘I don’t remember’?”
Amelia sags. “I’ll tell you everything, I’ll explain why you don’t remember, just… hear me out first.”
My eyes flick to Octavia again, a burning in my chest telling me I already know why.
Amelia sits down in one of the balcony chairs. “We’d argued earlier on that night. You were worrying about me as usual.”
“Let me guess, you put up a fight about it? Saying I was being overprotective.”
She nods at me, her lips pressed together. “You were so mad at me, Red. I’d pushed too far. This was one party too many. You found out that Derek dared me to break into this vampire noble party and you let rip. You kept screaming about how easy it is to get addicted to blood. How anything can happen at these parties, and of all the stupid things, a vampire party… on and on you went.”
My insides coil at the hypocrisy of what I’m hearing. But I know myself, I was trying to prevent her falling to the same fate I have.
“I was drunk. Honestly? I was probably also on drugs, I can’t even remember now. But I snuck out and we broke in.”
I slump down into an armchair opposite Octavia and lean my forehead against my hand. Derek was her dickhead ex who I hated. Awful influence, but the more I hated him, the more she fell.
I can’t take this. I don’t think I want to know where this story is going. Everything is shifting and it’s leaving me unbalanced.
