Page 75 of House of Crimson Hearts
“I didn’t think so. Not everyone hates you, Octavia.”
“You do.”
“I dislike your actions because you took my sister’s life. You as a person? I’m not sure what I think anymore.”
I desperately want to correct her. To tell her I didn’tkillher sister. I want to explain what really happened that night, but it’s not my position to get between sisters. I know how much hurt she carries over her family, and I don’t want to step in the way of that. Even if it means playing her villain a little while longer…
After all, I did actually turn her sister, she witnessed it. So even if I do try and explain, she wouldn’t believe me anyway.
I wipe a hand over my face, frustrated that I can’t convince her otherwise, that she needs to have a conversation I can’t be part of. But I respect it for what it is and tell her the same thing I’ve always said.
“She would have died.”
“Maybe she was meant to.” Her eyes are soft, distant, watery.
“You don’t mean that. You need to talk to her. She spends much of her time either in the Whisper Club or Castle Beaumont. I will happily arrange a dinner—at my expense—for you both. I know she would love the chance to talk to you properly.”
She smiles, but it’s strained and doesn’t meet her eyes.
“Thanks,” she says, but that’s the end of the conversation because she walks off at that point, and fast enough that without my speed, I have to trot to keep up with her.
“Can you not forgive her?” I ask.
I know before she answers it was the wrong thing to say. I’ve stepped over a line I shouldn’t have.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she growls under her breath, nudging us away from the rest of the group. “Amelia nearly killed me too.”
“I… I know, I’m sorry, I should have gotten control of her.”
“Control? You shouldn’t have turned her in the first fucking place. And don’t even think about telling me she had a choice. She choseyourside, Octavia. Despite everything I’ve done for her… Despite everything your kind has done to us. She chose vampires and then she nearly killed me because of it.”
Her voice falters on the last syllables and I’m certain she’s about to tell me to go fuck myself or shut up or to fuck off out of her business. But instead, she sags against the hallway wall and stares up at me.
“After our parents, I can’t believe she…” she lets the words drift off, not finishing the sentence, and then sighs. It’s the kind of heavy breath filled with stories and memories laced with hurt. I’ve seen and felt that pain so many times. You don’t live for a thousand years without centuries of that pain buried in your marrow. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just end. To be human and have the ability to make everything stop.
Of course, I’ve wondered if that is what the Morose Mourning period feels like. I glance up the corridor, the rest of the group have left us behind already. We’re alone.
“Father left. He chose work over us… chose some vampire noble over his own flesh and blood. When he left, we thought he would come home at the weekends, send coin to help our mother. He did for a while. But eventually he stopped coming home, and then he got completely embedded in vampire culture and just stopped contacting us at all, stopped sending money.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it.
“He left us destitute. Mother always worked but she didn’t have much of a choice. She tried to keep us on the savings she had for a while. But it wasn’t enough.”
“It never is. Our society is designed to drain you. Keep the wealthy rich and the poor struggling.”
She nods at me, her expression all hard lines and cold glares as she wipes a hand over her face. “When the money ran out, she had to do something that would earn more.”
I reach out for her but hesitate. I want to hold her, pull her into my arms or do something to make the pain carving lines into her forehead stop. But she shrinks away from me, so I step back.
“She sold herself for her blood,” Red says, and she turns away.
I can’t hold back anymore. I reach for her chin and pull it around to face me so I can look into her eyes. “Your mother was amazing. She looked after you, made the ultimate sacrifice so that she could continue to care for you alone. Single mothers are incredible.”
“I begged her to stop. All donors suffer the same ending. But what choice did she have? She worked for a couple of years. But they were draining her too much. Too frequently. She had one of those blood types that vampires love.”
“Does she have residual magic?”
“Only a little. I think way back, a few generations ago, like before magic was eradicated, we must have had dhampirs in the family. But that’s not unusual for hunters. Most of us can trace our lines back to a dhampir if we look hard enough.”
