Page 109 of Xantera
With a crazed look, he licks his lips and then dips his head to do the same to my tiny wounds before moving down my palm and piercing my wrist with his icy fangs.
He drinks and drinks. So long that my worry knocks around in my chest, and I can feel Lucan’s presence surrounding me, holding me close because that’s the only thing he can do. The venom heats my bloodstream, stronger than the laced doorknob, flooding into my heart with a potency that feels dangerous.
Until finally, Arad pulls back with lust-filled eyes, drunk on my blood.
A hum forms in the back of his throat as his eyes drift down to the gold strappy heels I’m wearing. “May I?”
I nod, gagging in my throat as I lift my leg up.
Arad takes his time undoing the little buckle resting against my ankle bone. He dips his head further when the strap releases, unable to restrain himself.
One of his fingers trails along my shin, followed by his nose. Smelling me.
“Saskia, you are my most delicious prize,” he murmurs, his tongue sweeping out along my knee. Then he slowly undoes the other shoe until I’m barefoot. “Something about you… I’m consumed.”
He smiles, his lips against my skin. His head exactly where I want it.
Saskia, no!Lucan pleads with me a millisecond before my decision is solidified in my own mind. His entire being seems to shatter into a million pieces within my heart.
“And finally, I’m going to bite into that precious neck. When I’m finished with you, you’ll be completely devoted to me—”
Picking up the heavy vase on the table next to me, I smash it over Arad’s skull and run straight for the door.
Out in the hallway, through the Guardian statues, I burst through the open doorway at the very end, feeling a gust of fresh air against my face for the first time since Sanctuary Sunday.
Now, though, I’m not leaning over a balcony from up high but panting on the ground floor, in some kind of outdoor courtyard bordered by hedges and overflowing with rosebushes—the same garden from Sylvia’s memories.
When I look up, the underside of a balcony blocks my full view of the sky, boxing me in.
Like I just ran straight into a trap.
With my heartbeat shooting up my throat, I streak down a cobbled path that winds between perfectly pruned shrubs, searching for the back of the courtyard… but stop when I come face to face with a barrier too great to surpass.
Not just any wall, buttheWall, looming over me with those same spiderwebbing veins that I came face-to-face with down in the catacombs.
Permission granted to speak again,I say, attempting to distract both of us from the fact that I’ve solidified my death sentence. His voice will be the last thing I hear—the only way I want to go.
I can smell you again, little nightmare. Roses,Lucan says in a voice that has every hair on the back of my neck standing on end for him.I’m right on the other side. Right here.
Our connection pulls taut, as if we’re trying to reel each other in, but Arad’s voice drifts out from behind me on the next gust of wind.
“Saskia. Oh,Saskia.” His voice drips with barely-suppressed wrath. “I’ve been so patient with you, but I’m afraid you’ve gone too far this time.”
Shit. I glance around, desperate for a place to crouch and hide. But I can feel his presence strolling closer, and my eyes land on amarble staircase on the far side of the garden, vines crawling up the railings as it twines up to the balcony above.
I sprint toward it and take the steps two at a time.
My least favorite thing in the world, I remind Lucan, trying to breathe through my panic.Fucking stairs.
Focus for me, Saskia. Don’t…
His voice catches and crumbles, like he doesn’t even know what he can say in these last few moments before I finally meet my doom. At the same time, Arad’s footsteps quicken behind me, and I muster a burst of strength to throw myself onto the terrace above.Please be a way out. Please be a way out.
There’s not. Instead, this second level of the garden tinkles with fountains and smooth, lifelike statues situated between hydrangeas every few feet, just as boxed in as the first level was. The Wall still surrounds the back half, while yet another terrace hangs above us, cutting off everything but a few ribbons of sunset that streak through the gaps. The overlapping of light and shadow makes the whole space look like a backgammon board.
With me as a pawn.
And Arad the hand reaching in to grab me.
