Page 148 of House of Crimson Kisses
She mocks a gasp. That manipulative bitch.
“I won’t do it.”
Her face darkens. “You have to. Or you’ll die.”
“But at least dying will be my choice, for once. You’ve taken everything from me. My death is the one thing I can choose.”
“Don’t be stupid, Red. You have to drain her.”
I smile and laugh, it’s crackly and filled with bubbles of blood which splatter out in a pretty pattern. “I don’t have to do shit.”
Every word hurts. Hot pain, ice, wracking throbs that course and sear through my body. My legs, my face, my ribs and my back are all broken.
Sadie appears in my field of vision. She signs at Eleanor. “Give me a moment with her.” The Chief narrows her eyes. “Trust me, I can convince her.”
“Be quick, her heart rate is dropping. I do not want to lose her,” the Chief says and backs away, exiting the ring.
Sadie inclines her head as she crouches down and places her hands either side of my shattered skull. I wince as more bolts of pain lance through me. I black out for a moment.
But it doesn’t matter because her words filter through my subconscious. “It’s your choice what you do, Red, but I made you a promise. And I always keep my promises. You were never good enough for Octavia. You should have chosen her. You’re going to die knowing that all along this was your fault. You hurt the one woman who could have saved you, and now you’ve ruined her chances of winning the only thing she ever wanted.”
“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
“To you?” She huffs, it’s a strange, silent sort of sound, as if there should have been volume and it got sucked away. “So arrogant. So selfish. Even now you think this is about you. You’re all the same. Everyone thinks Dahlia and Octavia are the only ones in this fight. That it’s brains or brawn that will win. But it’s the quiet ones you need to watch. Didn’t you read fairytales as a kid?”
I cough, blood splattering the ground. But finally, I pull my eyes open again and take in her face as I ask, “What do you really want?”
“I want what’s mine, Red. What I’m owed. And I want Cordelia to pay for what she’s done.”
“For locking you up? Caging you away for a hundred years? Until you screamed your own voice away?”
She smiles, her eyes razor sharp as they lock onto mine and I can see that this is all it was about. A poxy hundred years in an immortal vampire’s life. Gods, could I have been more stupid?
My body relaxes the moment the compulsion slides over my consciousness. Like silk and velvet, it caresses the furthest depths of my brain.
And then my mind unlocks, and I am flooded with a tidal wave of memories.
Surge after surge. Because she did it too. Not only did Sadie only give me half my memories, but she intentionally only gave me half the story.
The night in Elysium rushes back to me. Octavia telling me I was the first human to ever truly look at her. The hours of making love, the way she cradled me and caressed my wound. The way she asked to see me again, the innocence and desperation in her voice.
The moment I awoke from the blood lust. I was awful.
“I’ve made a mistake. You’re a mistake. This was a terrible idea,” I say, panic-stricken and thinking only of my sister.
“What? No. We… I thought,” Octavia says, her beautiful red eyes filled with wet tears. Bile claws at my throat in real time as all the memories of everything I should have known wash over me.
Octavia has her arms wrapped around her legs as I crawl across the floor next to her. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I really am, but I have to look after my sister.”
But she can’t bring herself to look at me, “You’re like the rest of them. What was this, monster kink? Fuck the city villain and tell all your mates about it?”
“It wasn’t like that. But I can’t. We… Gods, Octavia. I’m not just any hunter. I’m the head of security and you’re… Mother of Blood, you’re one of the original three. Can you imagine what this would do to me? To my career?”
“To you?” She laughs and yanks her arm out of my grasp. I wasn’t even aware I’d touched her.
“Octavia, be reasonable. I saved you, you saved me. We had a good night.”
How could I say this to her? Of course it would hurt her.
