Page 16 of Their Blood Queen

Other times they are paralyzing.

And I can feel the itch of a night terror episode about to roll over me, taunting me from the recesses of my mind.

Pushing myself onward, I decide my room will be the safest place for me if I have a bad episode. At least where I’m located on my side of the wing, no one can hear me scream. I don’t think too long or too hard about why I have a whole wing to myself.

Knowing my father doesn’t want to deal with my hysterics doesn’t make me feel any better. He can’t fully fix me, not when he has to focus on my mother, who has invariably been his priority anyway.

I’ve always been a broken doll stitched back together. I’ve just been very good at pretending until I fall asleep.

My march now feels more like retreating, so I curl back my shoulders and straighten my spine.

“I’m not broken,” I say to both myself and the darkness that feels like it’s creeping in.

The hallway is dimly lit by magical globes floating near the ceiling. I used to enjoy their soft, purplish ambience, but tonight all I see is shadows leering at me from every corner. A strange draft I don’t remember noticing before circles through the hall, making me hug myself.

Are our finances so pitiful that my father can’t even afford to fix any drafty windows? I get that I’m in one of the more unused wings of our mansion, but it’s still poor form to let it go into disrepair.

I pause at my door and glance at the reflective handle. Normally, it’s silver.

Tonight, it’s black.

Somehow I feel like my nightmare has already started. The only problem is that I’m still wide awake.

Unfurling my arms, I let the chill in, hoping it’ll ground me in reality. I run my finger over the handle, finding the surface colder and more unforgiving than I remember it to be.

“I’m going insane,” I whisper to myself as I withdraw and make a fist. My nails bite into my palm, but the pain doesn’t seem to change what I’m seeing.

Even my words seem to echo in the hall, giving me the strange sense they’re being carried on an invisible wind.

But who’s listening?

Surely not Cain.

Perhaps praying to him was a bad idea.

He might not be a God, but he is a monster. And monsters tend to have various gifts.

But everyone knows the Elite City King’s power lies in dreams. Praying to him is just a vehicle for him to spread his influence through the city, to remind his followers to think of him so that he can fill their minds.

I’ve never dreamed of him, and I won’t start tonight.

Right?

For some reason, having prayed to Cain for the first time gives me an uneasy feeling, as if I’ve unlocked a new danger around every corner, but maybe I’m just exhausted.

And of course I’m uneasy. I just signed a blood contract with a dangerous Earl. Blood contracts are expensive, and the terms were no less costly.

Men like Earl Rinhold want to flaunt their wealth just to show they can own anyone or anything.

And my father had been the one to orchestrate the whole ordeal in the first place.

I hate men, I growl in my head as I rest my fingers on the door handle and force myself to adjust to the cold sensation.

I squeeze.

Tighter, a voice taunts in my mind, sounding far too much like my brother, making me frown.

It’s not unusual that I hear voices in my nightmares.

---