Page 12 of House of Crimson Kisses
I tilt my head, trying to examine her facial expression, to see if I can work out what’s going on. Was this one time too many with compulsion? Have I actually broken her mind?
She’s breathing hard as she pushes me against the wall.
“I hate you,” she says, but the words are forced, like she’s trying to hate me. And for the first time, I wonder whether my compulsion is faulty. Did I do it wrong? Has it only half taken?
Ridiculous. This is just like all the other times. Her head is telling her one thing, and her heart is saying something else. I narrow my eyes at her.
“I don’t think you do,” I say.
Her nostrils flare wide, her jaw tightens.
“See, I think you want my blood. You crave it.”
“Fuck you, Octavia.”
That makes me grin. “I’d love you to.”
She pulls me off the wall and thrusts me back against it. I cock my head the other way, baring my neck, and lock eyes with her. This is what she wants. What she needs. I will always give her what she needs.
She steps into my personal space automatically. I raise a finger and draw it down my neck until it hovers over a juicy vein.
“Sure?” I say, tapping the risen thread of skin. This is our dance: the dare, the tease, the temptation. This is how it always starts. “Can’t have my teammate in anything but the peak of physical health. Even if that means allowing the little hunter to dose herself into oblivion.”
I dig my nail into my neck, threatening to pierce the skin. She rears back, her nostrils wide.
She looks up at me. “I do. Hate you, I mean. But this… I…”
We hold each other there, a million things passing between us. All of them unsaid. The air festers with everything we should confess, all our unspoken lies and promises, deceits and betrayals.
“Don’t be ashamed. Take it,” I whisper, pushing against my neck.
I swallow my next words, my throat aches with the need to purge them: take all of it. I’d give it all to you if it meant I could keep you.
Her face hardens like granite and steel and the coldest storm I’ve ever seen. And I know before she opens her mouth, I am well and truly screwed.
“What? Like you tried to take my memories?” she snarls.
Oh. Fuck.
Chapter5
CORDELIA
One Thousand Years Ago
My horse gallops through the morning air, its nostrils flaring as I press my heels to his sides, urging him faster. I have to make it to Eleanor’s apothecary because I can’t go on not knowing whether she…
I push the thought away. I can’t bear to ponder such awful things.
Air whistles past my ears, joining the scuffing of hooves against grass and mud as he flies across the fields.
“Yahh, yaahh,” I shout, flicking the reins.
Finally, I make it to town. Frustrated, I slow the horse into a canter and then drop into a trot over the stone cobbles.
Better to be safe than not make it to Eleanor.
By the time we get to the other side of town, the sun is rising high in the sky. Morning warmth trickles over my skin. But it doesn’t thaw the ice wrapped around my heart.
