Page 18 of House of Crimson Hearts
Amelia went to live with our mum’s best friend, Oriana. And even though Oriana treated her like her own daughter, Amelia still craved the weekends when I’d return. I did too. We clung to each other because we both carried the same loss, the same scars on our heart. I think that’s why her becoming a vampire hurts so much.
One of the first years yelps, pulling me back to reality. I glance over just as they’re dropped on their ass. Bless them. The first-year students are always this keen. All of them seeking approval. Fighting to be the best in their squad, the brightest, the one with the most hopeful future.
Maybe that’s why I’m dosing. Desperate for a little fun. I spent years being responsible. Staying late at training, doing extra shifts so I could send Oriana coin for Amelia. But Amelia was always reckless, a wild and free child in a way I never was. Like that time she brought home a stray cat. She hid it in the garden shed for a month, called it Scraps because she was feeding it the leftovers from dinner. Oriana lost her shit when she found out, but Amelia had fallen in love with the cat. What was I going to do? I ended up bringing it back to the Academy and looking after it for six years until it died all so she could continue to visit. She never did think anything through.
Well, maybe I’m just embodying my inner Amelia now. I’ve spent my life being sensible, and for what? To lose my sister to the one fucking thing I tried to protect her from.
My fingers trail over my arm, the red tallies totting up. I’ve added two more in the last couple of months. There’s fifty-eight now. One for each kill. Though some of those tallies are creatures and not vampires. But there aren’t enough drainers on my arm to satisfy the rage that pools in my gut for what they’ve taken from me.Who they took.
I make my way through the castle, past the lecture rooms and training halls. Past the student accommodation and into the staff digs. Most of the staff and trainers have other homes. Families they return to so they don’t stay in the castle.
My family is dead. Or might as well be.
When Amelia turned two weeks ago, I lost everything. There’s no one left now except me. I unlock my door, slide onto my bed and pull the vial out, popping it on my bedside table.
I pick up my sketchbook and a charcoal pencil and I draw. I lose myself in marking the paper, my mind wandering as I smudge lines and use my tiny putty rubber to wipe away highlights. When I’m done, I realise what I’ve drawn. Who I’ve drawn. Even without a red pencil to mark the colour of her eyes, there’s no question.
I scream and throw the sketchbook across the room.
Octavia fucking Beaumont.
I hate her.
I snatch up the vial and drizzle a couple of drops under my tongue and sigh. When I glance at the vial it’s empty. What the fuck? Did he trick me? Some kind of vanishing blood? There should be three-quarters of a vial left. I’ll have to go back and demand a refund tomorrow. That’s the last thought I have as I fall asleep; I don’t even take my clothes off.
My dreams take me back to the club. The beat of the music thumping through my chest.
Beat. Beat. Beat.
Warmth at my back. Octavia fucking Beaumont.
“Don’t. Get. Any closer. Most vampires this close to me end up dead,” I say, repeating the words I said in the club.
Only the dream veers away from the memory. Octavia smiles against my neck, tilting her head into the crook, inhaling the scent of my skin. She spins me around, and this time, I’m slammed up against the wall.
The blade pointed at her gut is gone. Instead, it’s my hand gripping her waist, a thumb skimming under the fabric of her top. It sends a pulse of heat to my groin. It’s all so familiar…
No. No. No. I can’t dream about her. Not like this.
“You want me,” she breathes into my ear. Her words thrumming under the bass of the music.
No,I’m screaming silently. I want to kill you.But that’s not what comes out. “Yes, I want your blood, Octavia.”
She smiles, her full lips curving into a broad fang-filled grin. Her movements are quick, so fast I don’t see the flash. I just smell her blood as it oozes from her wrist. She licks her lips, smearing the blood across her fangs with her tongue.
My pussy twitches.
“Use your words, Red. Tell me what you want.”
But I can’t. Because I shouldn’t want this. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. It’s everything hunters hate. Everything I hate.
Isn’t it? But dreams aren’t reality, so instead of slitting her throat as a good hunter should, an unexpected set of words slip out.
“I want to lick the blood off your fang.”
This makes her eyes glint, a spark bursting to life. “Go on then, I dare you…”
I step up off the wall and into her personal space. For a cold blood, the space between us is ferociously warm. I slide my hands up and around the back of her neck. For a moment, we just hold each other in time and space. Her crimson eyes bore into me, pouring electricity and desire and something so molten and forbidden it steals the breath from my lungs and I stop breathing.
