Page 49 of Wicked Bonds
“Drake is a ghost with his own agenda,” Lucien says. “Whatever he’s told you?—”
“Is probably more truthful than anything you’ve said.” I scoot to the edge of the bed, still keeping the sheet wrapped around me because I just remembered I’m only wearing panties and this fucking guy does not deserve to see them, even though they’re cute; black lace with little embroidered white ghosts with big eyes. I was actually kind of proud of myself for conjuring them up, and I have to admit I had Drake’s reaction to them in mind when I came up with the idea. “He told me all about how the Coven is going to suck out my life force like I’m a supernatural Capri Sun.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Blah blah blah. You said that before. It always is with you, isn’t it?” My anger is building again. “Nothing’s ever simple. Everything has layers and politics and reasons why you can’t just tell me the fucking truth.”
He runs a hand through his hair, messing up that perfect vampire aesthetic. For a second, he looks almost human. But then he opens his stupid mouth. “You think Drake doesn’t have his own reasons for befriending you? You think a ghost who’s been trapped here for over a century suddenly develops altruistic tendencies?”
“At least he’s not reporting my every move to the Coven,” I snap.
The silence that follows is deafening. Lucien’s face shifts and he looks away.
“He told you that too,” he says quietly.
“He didn’t have to. It’s obvious. You’re their lap dog, remember? Following me around, making sure I don’t step out of line, probably writing up little reports about my magical surges and who I talk to and—” I stop because the look on his face tells me I’m right. “Oh my god. You actually are. You’re literally writing reports about me.”
“Rose.”
“No.” I stand up, dragging the sheet with me, and for once I don’t care how ridiculous I look. “You don’t get to ‘Rose’ me right now. You’ve been spying on me this whole time. Documenting every single thing I do. For them, the people who are going to take my life in twenty-four fucking months.”
My magic stirs, responding to my anger, and the bloodmark on my arm starts to burn. The glass of water on my nightstand begins to vibrate, and I feel like I want to scream. I want to set something on fire. I want Drake to show up and do his poltergeist thing just so I’m not alone with Lucien and all his justified reasons for being a complete asshole.
But Drake doesn’t come. Just another disappointment in this trio of men who claim they want to help but really just want something from me. My body, my power, my compliance.
The worst part? I let them. I let Soren into my dreams. I let Lucien kiss me against that desk. I even let Drake watch me sleep. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Lucien takes a step toward me, then another, and I automatically back up because having him this close when I’m wearing very little but a sheet and some shame is not happening. But my room is small, and there’s nowhere to go. My hip hits the edge of my nightstand, and the bump sends the cup I left there teetering.
“Don’t,” I warn, but he keeps advancing slowly, like he’s approaching a wild animal. Which maybe he is.
“You need to understand something,” he says, and his voice has lost that icy edge. Now it’s just tired. Centuries-old exhausted. “The Coven isn’t just some organization you can rebel against and walk away from. It’s a system. A hierarchy that’s been in place longer than this country has existed.”
“I don’t care about their history.”
“You should.” He’s close enough now that I can smell him, that vetiver and mint that makes my body want to overrule my brain. “Because that history is what’s keeping you alive right now.”
I try to sidestep, but my elbow knocks the glass. It falls in what feels like slow motion, hitting the floor with a crash. Water spreads across the floorboards, mixing with sharp fragments.
“Shit,” I mutter, immediately moving to clean it up, but Lucien holds up a hand.
“Don’t. You’ll cut yourself.”
And then he does something I don’t expect. He kneels.
Lucien, the vampire lord, the Coven’s perfect soldier, gets down on his knees in my shitty dorm room and starts picking up pieces of broken glass with his bare hands. His movements are careful, as if this is the most important thing he has to do today.
A shard slices his finger, and I see blood well up before the cut heals itself in seconds. Vampire advantages. He doesn’t even notice, just keeps collecting the pieces in his other hand.
“The Coven has eyes everywhere,” he says quietly, not looking up. “When they assigned me to watch you, it wasn’t a request. It was an order backed by my family’s oath.”
“So you chose your duty over telling me the truth. Over my life.” It’s not a question.
He looks up at me then, and there’s something raw in his eyes. “Yes. And I’d do it again. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been trying to protect you within the constraints I have.”
“Protect me?” I laugh. “By lying to me?”
“By telling you as much as I could without triggering the oath’s consequences.” He stands, carefully depositing the shards in my waste basket. “Every word I say to you is monitored by the magic that binds my family to the Coven. If I directly contradict their interests, if I actively work against them, the oath activates. Do you know what that means?”
