Page 8 of B Negative

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a card, handing it to me with a smirk. “As you should, young one.”

When he left, I tried my best to shake off the oily residue left in his wake.

I did not like him

I didn’t like being in his tower.

But Sunny was going to need all the help she could get to reconcile being mated to that eel of a king.

I made myself comfortable in the chaise, an effortless task considering the thing might have been made of clouds. Plush and soft beneath my fingertips, someone definitely special ordered the fabric from some luxury company I’d never had enough money to even think about ordering from. And I didn’t know what they stuffed the cushions with, but if someone said it was angel wings, I would have believed it.

But even a cloud-angel chair wasn’t enough to soothe the deep ache in my heart, for both Sunny and her choice being taken, and the mate bond I’d ripped from my chest. The constricted twinge around every muscle and bone in my chest only grew stronger without Titus here to distract me with imminent death.

The pain seared on Julian’s face replayed in my mind, but this time, I didn’t get the same self-righteous pleasure from it.

This time, it fucking hurt.

I’d hurt him.

On purpose.

I shook my head clear of that thought train. I couldn’t afford to focus on that. One, because I had to keep my wits about me if I was going to survive here.

And two, because I couldn’t let myself get sucked into that hole of despair.

The void where the mate bond lived had a gravity all its own, and if I prodded too deep or let myself feel it too much, I didn’t think I’d come back.

It would devour me whole.

It had almost happened when Odette died.

Breaking the mate bond between Julian and me wasn’t the same as losing my maker.

This ache I’d done to myself. And despite feeling fully justified in doing so, a small part of me wondered if maybe I’d acted too harshly.

Judged Julian too quickly.

I sucked in a deep breath. “No,” I murmured to myself. I wouldn’t get caught up second-guessing myself. He’d done the unthinkable.

I glanced over at Sunny and tucked myself under a ridiculously soft cashmere throw, allowing the cloud chair to cradle me into the sweet relief of unconsciousness.

I’d slept most of that day away, and yet, my lids shuttered closed just like they had when I was still recovering from the aftereffect of the mate bond settling into place.

Did that mean some scrap of it remained?

Or that I was just bone-tired from an emotionally draining experience?

I woke, startled, unsure of where I was or what day it was.

I hated waking like that.

I scanned the room, but the pieces of memory only filtered into my sleep-addled brain when my gaze found Sunny’s lifeless form on the bed.

Right.

We were in Titus Tower.

The absolute last place either of us wanted to be.

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