Page 4 of House of Pawns
“Ian?” I ask tentatively.
He doesn’t respond.
“Ian?” I ask, using every ounce of strength I have to keep calm. “Are you alright?”
Again, he answers me only with silence.
I’m about to call to him again when Rath grabs my arm. I look over at him and he just shakes his head. He gently guides me away from the door, this time leaving it open.
“Give him a few moments,” Rath says. He doesn’t let me go as he walks me down the hall. “It will take some time. He’s just become everything he hates. And you’ve just been witness to him having no choice but to succumb to it. Having the person you love most witness your undoing isn’t an easy thing.”
There’s that word again. Love.
I made Ian make a promise to me, a few months back—to not fall in love with me.
I think you knew damn well I was breaking that promise from the day you made me make it.
We’d screamed the words at each other just days ago.
The fissure in my heart cracks just a little wider.
“I will stay close to him,” Rath says. “Take some time.”
“Promise me you won’t hurt him,” I say. It’s a ridiculous request. Ian is a vampire now, Rath should not beableto hurt him. But Rath is Rath, and nothing about him is what meets the eye.
I can tell it’s a pained promise to make, but he nods in consent nonetheless.
Take some time.It’s as logical an idea as any at this point, I suppose. I dismiss myself and walk back up the stairs. I change into fresh clothes in my room. Jeans that hug my legs from hip to ankle. A heavy sweater. Boots and a coat. My father’s key necklace.
I ignore the multitude of bruises I’ve gained because of Ian.
I pass my father’s office on my way back to the stairs. I pause in the doorway.
There’s the Conrath family crown, sitting on the desk. Behind it is the chalkboard with my schemes of revenge upon it.
Jasmine’s name is written at the top with a big X through it. There’s Micah, as well. Lillian, Anna, Christian, Samuel, Cameron, Trinity, Markov. My enemies. My possible allies.
Just hours ago, I was prepared to turn against everything I was when I arrived in Silent Bend. I was prepared to become a human vampire monarch. I wanted revenge and blood.
In just a few short hours, everything has changed.
But sitting there in the corner, wrinkled and destroyed, lays the dress I wore at the House just days ago. The dress I was to wear as I died—to save Ian. The dress I was to resurrect in.
The dress that is covered in Ian’s blood.
Jasmine murdered him.
She drove a sword through his stomach, right in front of me.
Hatred builds inside of me. I didn’t know I was capable of the true meaning of the word until she took from me the one thing I was willing to literally die to protect.
Ian may be here now. He may have resurrected.
But my desire toendher hasn’t changed.
Chapter
Three
