Page 1 of House of Crimson Hearts
Prologue
Any secret worth its merit is woven in the depths of midnight. Spoken in whispered promises and hapless lies. The soft, breathy words lost to the stars and buried with the moon, night after night until even the sky can’t discern the truth.
That was how it happened…
Two families sat beneath the golden glow of fire lamps, a long thin table between them. St Clairs on one side, Randalls on another. Two families bonded by the hatred born of generations of ancestors. Hostility tattooed in their marrow like cancer. Spread thick and fibrous so that it was all they could breathe and feel and think.
As the night struck twelve, they signed a contract. Bloody prints scarred the scroll: a warning, an omen.
Too late, too late. The witch is coming.
Too late, too late. They made the curse.
That was how it started…
Chapter1
OCTAVIA
There’s never enough blood.
A man bleeds rivers of claret over my rug.
It’s not enough.
Never enough.
Even if I drink the city dry, it wouldn’t be sufficient. I want more.Needmore. There’s an aching desire between my ribs, something missing, something lost. I know what it is, but I don’t want to think about it. I had my chance and lost it. Well, I’m done with it… with her.
I knead my temples.
Fuck, I’m tired.
I shift in my seat and the staff boy leaning against the wall flinches. Pathetic. I can’t even remember his name- Fred? Frank? Let’s go with Frank.
“Clean this up. He stinks like piss and fermented fish,” I say, pointing at the bleeding man.
“B-but, Lady Beaumont,” the staff boy stutters.
I snap my gaze to his and go still. The kind of still that makes death look like the frenzy of birth. The kind of stillness that gnaws agitation into a human’s bones. The vacant, fathomless void twists in Frank’s mind until he trembles. I push further. Every cell in my ancient body freezes as if time never existed.
I must say, it’s quite the feat of control not to smile at the way Frank shivers. There are very few things I find amusing anymore, but the fragility of humans is one of them. I wait a beat. Two. Then two more. Just long enough for him to drop his mouth and utter a breathy plea.
I shouldn’t play, Xavier tells me it’s cruel. But I’m not as cruel as our dear sister Dahlia.
Frank twitches. “I?—”
“Do I need to repeat myself?” I say every word as slow as it is sharp, my voice a snap and whisper in the air. Movement filters into my limbs again and his shaking eases.
“N-No. I’ll get a donor instead,” he says and stumbles his way forward to grab the dying man under the armpits.
It’s meant to be our strength—blood. Really, I think it makes us feeble.
“Stop, did I say take him?” I rise from my chair. Frank drops the man on the floor with a thud and a gargled moan and then backs away, confusion rippling his brow. It used to bother me—the way they look at me. The way everyone in this fucking city looks at me. Doesn’t matter that there are thousands of turned vampires. I am the only one born this way. The only one they fear and all because I wasn’t made like the other vampire lines. That, and perhaps my behaviour over the years, hasn’t exactly warmed the city to me.
Born to a mother who abandoned her. A freak with eyes the colour of drying blood. I haunt their nightmares. I’ve tried to embrace it, revel in it, shy away from it. Even mourned the way they treated me for a few decades. But nothing changes.
Humans shrink away from me, hunters hate me, and vampires… well, they don’t fear me, but most pander to and revere me. It’s sickening. That’s why I like to fuck with everyone, because no one ever looks at me for me.
