Page 61 of Xantera
Three other Guardians are sliding chairs out from under the table… but rather than sit in them, they gesture for their Chosen Ones to sit instead.
Two of the humans—a man with a green badge and a man with a purple one —glance nervously around before taking a seat. The third one, on the other hand, a woman with a scarlet badge like me, keeps her chin high and her posture stiff, refusing to flinch as she settles into the cushioned chair.
I find myself staring at this Chosen One for what feels like an eternity as I take in her expression, how it reflects the one I feel stamped on mine. She looks at me, too, and we share an emotion that has always been forbidden in the city of Xantera.
Defiance.
“I thought you said you could walk yourself?” the Third Guardian croons from behind me. I almost flinch, but stop myself just in time.
That’s it, little nightmare,Lucan says with pride.Don’t give him what he wants.
Bolstered by his words, I turn my head an inch to pin a glare straight into the Third Guardian’s face. Because yes, I can walk myself. But I can alsorun.
If I can just get to that key in the white drawing room before he catches me, I can…
At that moment, the other Chosen woman suddenly pushes back her chair in a flurry.
The legs screech against the floor and she takes off, her cloak flapping behind her, her arms pumping, her breaths sawing the air as she tries to make a break for it.
Faster than I can even blink, her Guardian streaks after her, his body nothing more than a blur.
A viciousCRACKvibrates through my very bones the next second, and when the blur of motion stops, the woman lies limp in her Guardian’s arms.
The adrenaline in my stomach flares and flatlines. I know what I’d put in the system at the Healing Center immediately: patient deceased.
Her eyes pop out of her skull, glassy and unseeing. Her head hangs from her neck by a thin scrap of skin, collarbone poking out of the side. The only movement in the entire room is her blood, squirting in several separate jets from the wound in her neck and splattering the floor.
“All this wasted food,” her Guardian breaks the silence with spitting venom in his words, his crimson eyes following the jets with equal parts disappointment and repulsion. “She could have regenerated the blood after this first time, butno,she had to be a runner.”
One of the other Guardians down the table gives out a little chuckle that scrapes away the breath in my lungs. “Better get to work then, Rufus.”
In evil’s case, “get to work” must mean mutilate a corpse even further. Without even dragging his victim out of the room to give her privacy in death, Rufus lowers his head and tears into her right then and there, ripping and squelching and sucking and oh, I’m going to be so fucking sick.
In my head, Lucan has gone carefully still and heavy, like an anchor to my soul.
Don’t keep defying him, actually,he says slowly, like we’re both caught in the gaze of multiple rabid dogs. But dogs wouldn’t be nearly so threatening as the smile that slowly stretches across my Guardian’s face as he inclines his head toward the seat right in front of me.
“I see that your legs are shaking, Saskia. Better take a seat.”
Okay, so running isn’t an option. I’ll have to play their game and beat them by breaking the Rules later.
Because here in this palace, the veiled threat isn’t actually veiled.
Gripping the edges of my cloak, I force myself forward and sink between the arms of the seat, trying to ignore the feast staring me in the face. There’s no way I could be hungry with the sucking and squelching sounds still emanating from my right, especially when the Third Guardian moves to stand right behind me like a solid bar of iron.
Caging me in.
You’re doing so well,Lucan says soothingly, though I can tell by the murderous quiver in his voice it’s a farce for my benefit.It’ll all be over soon.
Is that what my mother had to tell herself when she faced this? Did she witness any of her fellow Chosen Ones running and dying just as quickly? What will that woman’s family think when their beloved daughter never comes to the balcony? My fists clench in my lap.
Before long, the remaining Guardians drift in with their Chosen Ones, and gasps prick the air as my fellow humans witness the mangled mess of blood and guts that I refuse to look at. When their Guardians urge them all to take a seat, there are no more raised chins. No more defiance.
By the time the eleven of us are staring at each other from across the table, a vampire standing guard behind each of us, the energy in the room pulls tight, the presence of the Twelve Guardians pressing in on us from every direction.
Somewhere behind me, an echoing boom signifies that the double doors have officially closed, locking us in. For the rest of our lives.
Silence stretches and flexes. No one dares breathe. Even Lucan remains silent, as if he’s afraid his words in my mind will bleed out into the air for the vampires to hear.
