Page 17 of House of Crimson Hearts
“May I examine your ankle?” she says. Her voice is as soft and warm as her eyes, and I find myself quite unable to concentrate on the substance of her sentences. This is most troubling. I wonder if I’m having some sort of lapse on account of the pain from my ankle. Only the pain isn’t actually that bad. It’s mostly troublesome to walk. The worst of the throbbing ceased overnight.
I lift my leg off the floor. Her fingertips glide against my skin. I swallow hard and have to look away. Every touch is electric. It must be magic. Every press of her finger pads to my calf, my ankle, my foot is unbearable.
Heat and liquid electricity flows from her hands into my body. It swims up my legs, higher, higher. My breathing quickens, my nostrils flare. I’m overcome with… with… I’m not even sure.
She trails her fingers higher up my calf, toward my knee, palpating and squeezing to assess where the swelling stops. Only, with every contact, the current flowing between us soars, until it’s ravaging my thighs.
She touches me again, palpating just above my knee, and I must stop breathing altogether as the tingling sensations slip between my thighs to my core.
To the place I touch when I’m alone.
A bolt surges between my legs, my undergarments grow slick.
This is… I don’t know what sorcery this is, but it shouldn't be happening.
I jerk away, my eyes wide. “What are you doing to me?”
She frowns. “Examining your lower leg to know where I need to put the compresses and apply herbs.”
“You swear on the witch-gods you’re not using magic?”
Her frown deepens. “No, miss, it’s against our ways to use magic without your express consent. You’d see me draw my blood before you felt the magic against your skin. Is everything okay?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, I’ve made a mistake. This is… I must go.”
I’m up and out of the chair faster than I can reliably move. I wobble. She grabs me, catching me before I can fall. But of course, that makes another bolt of what I now realise is desire surge inside me.
I snatch my hand away, deeply confused, and take my cane and hobble out of the shop as quickly as I can. I leave the woman whose name I don’t even know staring after me, that single furrowed line buried between her perfectly teased brows like a marker in the sand of Lantis Bay.
A marker that tells me I can never marry any of the men at the balls.
A marker that tells me Mama is going to kill me.
Chapter5
RED
Listen, I am fully aware that a hunter dosing on a drainer’s blood is… awkward. Hell, it’s a fucking nightmare, and I swear I never intended it to happen. Believe me, I hate myself for it. But I also can’t stop—such is the peril of being an addict.
And yes, I hate myself for what happened on the bridge withher.
But every time I take a dose, even a single drop, I’m stronger, more alert, more powerful. Knowing that is twisting me up inside. Fucking with my mind. We—hunters—hate drainers. What sort of bitter irony is it that their blood is making me a better hunter? The problem is when the blood works its way out of my system, I’m completely screwed. I’m wracked with intense fatigue, tremors, and a hunger that cannot be satiated. If that’s anything like the hunger newly turned drainers feel, then it’s no wonder so many of them desiccate at the end of our stakes for getting out of control.
But of course, the dealers don’t talk about the addictive properties, no doubt a manipulation on their part. Keep us coming back, jacking up their pockets full of silver coins.
If the Academy found out… well, I could kiss goodbye to my job as head of security. I’d never be allowed to teach at the school again. And look, I will give up. It’s just… difficult… and right now, I have it completely under control. I only need a single drop a day, alright fine, a few drops. But I make sure I stay in hunter territory while I take it so that any drainer’s blood I’ve taken won’t be stupid enough to track or attack me. Vampires never come to this side of the city. It’s not worth the risk. Too many hunters too willing to end them on sight and ask questions later.
So I’m safe.
I have it under control.
I step into the Hunter Academy castle grounds, and I’m greeted by a dozen students practicing in the front courtyard before lights out.
“Don’t stay up too late,” I call.
“We won’t,” they shout back. One of the students waves and her opponent seizes the opportunity of her distraction to sweep her legs out from under her. I smile. It reminds me of me and Amelia.
When I first joined the Academy at thirteen, right after Mum died, I used to go home on the weekends. The first thing Amelia would do when I walked through the door was throw pillows at me and pretend to be a monster, squealing when I’d wrestle her to the ground.
