Page 1 of House of Crimson Kisses
Chapter1
OCTAVIA
Ipride myself on many things: my exceptional taste in mansions, my ability to keep secrets, and my genuine love for my brother. I do not, however, derive any satisfaction from my mistakes. Of which, I have just made the mother of all fuck-ups.
“I had no choice,” I mutter over and over as I pace the halls of Castle St Clair. My eyes shift to the corridor ceiling. I need to be gone. After I compelled her, Red fell asleep. But even a floor below is too close, so I make my way to the first floor.
Then again, is it really safe for me to leave her, given who she really is? What she really is?
I shuffle forward and back, indecision tearing me apart. I slap the wall between two portraits once, twice, ball my fist and punch it through the plasterboard. It hurts. I like it. The sharp heat in my knuckles travels up my arm right to my brain, and all my fragmented thoughts coalesce into clarity.
I should let her wake alone to ensure there’s no risk of me undoing the compulsion, because the temptation is there. The last thing I want is to endure Red having forgotten what I mean to her again. I make my way to the castle bar. It’s closed. No one is in here, not even staff.
The room is sumptuous, with expensive chesterfield furniture and a black wood burner in the corner. The embers are molten and crumbling into ash. I dart around the back of the bar and pull a bottle of whisky off the optic.
Fuck using a glass. I’m going to drink the entire bottle. I can’t believe I did it, especially after I swore to her I wouldn’t compel her again.
But what fucking choice did I have? This is for her own safety. I skulk back into the corridor and make my way to the back door of my mother’s castle.
I close it behind me and slide down the studded wood to slump in the doorway. I uncork the whisky and take an enormous gulp. It burns hot like the sun as it slides down my throat.
Good.
I deserve it.
“You look like shit…” Rumblegrit says in his raspy voice as he looks down at me. I grunt at him but remember the way Red treated Broodmire, the Whisper Club’s goyle.
I sigh, push up onto my knees, and raise a finger in offer of a drop. His stone collar ruffles, and he opens his mouth, a smile he can’t quite hide lifting the corner of his stony lips.
I push my finger onto his spike and allow not one, but four beads of blood to roll onto his tongue. He bristles, and I swear for a brief second the grey of his skin washes pink.
“Thank you,” he says. “Most unusual.”
“Perhaps I’m changing,” I say.
“Do vampires change?”
“I thought not. But I’ve been wrong about a lot of things recently.”
There’s a scraping of stone against wood as he tilts his grey eyes down at me. He narrows his gaze. “You look like shit, and the whisky stinks like regret. What did you do?”
I sag back against the door and tickle him under his chin. “I broke a promise.”
“And why would you do a thing like that?” he asks.
I smile up at him: a thin slip of a thing. But I stay silent because as much as he is ugly-cute, he’s not my goyle, and I haven’t forgotten what Mother did to that vampire responsible for the carriage attack. She was quick to temper. Quick to violence. That’s not the mother I know, and I can’t imagine my secrets would stay secret if I blabbed them to her goyle.
“Fine,” he shrugs, as much as his half shoulders allow. “Keep your secrets. I have plenty of my own.”
I frown. “Do you now?”
“You’d be surprised what the doors and walls hear, Ms Beaumont. We’re always listening.”
“Perhaps you already have my secret, then.”
“Mmm, I can tell your heart is aching.”
I huff at him. “You know nothing.” But my hand wanders to rub my chest like it is aching.
