Page 69 of Blood Vows
But the smile she gave me wasn’t my mother’s. It was stretched too wide, too knowing.
“Poor little girl,” she cooed, her voice sickly sweet, almost tender.
“Always running from ghosts.” The edges of her form shimmered again, the illusion rippling like heat on glass, and before I could breathe, my next horror came, as he stood there…
My father.
His expression was cold, carved from the same cruel disappointment that had haunted me all my life.
“Useless!”he spat, his voice low and venomous, slicing through the air like the crack of a whip.
“Just like your mother.” The words struck like a physical blow. My lungs locked. My heart pounded so violently it felt as though it might burst through my ribs. The room seemed to tilt, walls pressing in closer with every breath I couldn’t take. I stumbled back, shaking my head, trying to claw myself free from a memory that wasn’t real…couldn’t be real.
“Yy… you’re not… not real,”I stammered, my voice splintering. But the more I denied it, the more his presence filled the room, his scent, cigarettes and cheap whiskey curling into my nose like the stench of the past I’d buried.
He sneered, the veins in his neck standing out, his shadow stretching long across the floor until it swallowed my feet.
“Why don’t you just do the world a favor?” he hissed, sneering at me.
“Kill yourself, like that dumb bitch did.”
The words ripped the air from my lungs. My knees buckled, and I caught the edge of the dresser to stop from falling, my trembling fingers slick with sweat. I wanted to scream, butnothing came. The familiar terror, raw and suffocating, rose like a tide inside me, dragging me under. Every bruise, every broken plea, every night I’d spent praying for the shouting to stop came roaring back in that instant.
And somewhere in that storm of memory and fear, I realized that someone else was doing this to me. The strange, haggard woman who had first entered the room. She, whoever she was, was doing this to me. She was feeding on it. Twisting it. Turning my fear into her weapon, and I was bleeding from the inside out.
The figure laughed, a sound that cracked and bled into another tone entirely. The illusion burned away, melting into someone new.
A woman.
One I didn’t recognize this time, as she was not the same as the first to enter the room. Her beauty was sharp and terrible, her lips painted the red of ruin, her hair a halo of shadow that framed a face both regal and deranged. The air thickened with the scent of iron and old roses, and I realised then that whatever she was, she was still gorging herself on my fear.
She smiled, a cruel, delighted thing.
“Ah, there you are,” she purred, her voice curling through the room like smoke.
“Now I see what he saw in you.” My stomach dropped.
“Who… who are you?”I whispered, still backing away, unsure of whether or not she would strike, but waiting for it all the same. The woman tilted her head, the gold in her eyes catching the light, a reflection of something monstrous lurking just beneath the surface.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she murmured, stepping closer, the knife in her hand glinting like a promise. A knife I had forgotten about until now.
“You…”she hissed, the knife trembling in her hand.
“You can’t have him.” My heart stumbled, my mind struggling to make sense of what I was hearing.
“I… I don’t understand,” I stammered, backing away, the edge of the chair hitting the back of my knees. My hands reached out to steady myself.
“Who are…”
“I won’t let it happen again!” she screamed, cutting me off. Her voice was shrill, splitting through the air like broken glass.
“She stole him away from me! But I won’t let it happen again.” My stomach turned to stone.Took him once? Was she talking about Vas?
But before I could find the words to argue against her, she lunged.
The knife came at me in a flash of silver, wild and clumsy but fast. Instinct took over. I threw myself to the side, the blade slicing through the air where I’d stood a heartbeat before. Pain flared hot across my upper arm as the edge caught me. It was only shallow but burned all the same.
I gasped, clutching the wound as she spun around, snarling like a feral thing. And that was when I saw it, the glint at her throat.
