Page 19 of Club Blood

Just fuck her already and get it over with,Narcissa had said.

My legs had a mind of their own, and I stood toe to toe with her closed door. Long past knocking, I stormed in. She was dressed this time, but the shock was still the same. Tall in stature, I knew I was intimidating— but I watched as her shoulders slumped slightly when she realized it was me. I couldn’t help but smirk at the relief she felt in my presence, whether she wanted to or not. Our bodies responded to one another as second nature.

“Would it kill you to knock?” I heard her mumble. It only made my grin widen.

“It is my house, little flower. It is hard to remember that I am not a welcome guest in every room.”

I took a few steps closer to her, making sure to decelerate the movements so as to not scare her.

“What are you doing here? Didn’t you say you were leaving?”

“Shortly,” I confirmed, “But there was something I wanted to do first.”

Quickly, so that I didn’t have time to think about it, my steps widened until I sat directly across from her on the bed. The entire movement only took about half a second. My face was close to hers and I was studying every bone and every imperfection that graced her face. She was not ordinary, not in the slightest.

“Is this okay?” I whispered, closing my eyes and feeling the cool of my breath hovering around us. To my delightful surprise, she nodded.

Slowly, carefully, I tapped her lips lightly with my own. It was delicate, and while the fire raged inside of me I kept my stillness on the outside. She was soft and warm, and I closed my mouth around hers, my teeth careful not to puncture.

Satisfied with my composure, I released her from my grip. Another half a second passed and I stood at the door frame, as if the last twenty seconds had never happened.

“Narcissa will be giving you a phone. You will have a direct line to me if you so need it.” She nodded silently.

“I will come back for you, little flower,” I promised, Narcissa’s words sitting in the back of my mind. “Survive for me.”

And then I left her. Three days was all the time she needed to stay alive for. Just three days, and I would be home to deal with the mess I started.

When she saw me next, she would be looking at a Queen.

13

CECELIA

My resolve crumpledthe moment Mercy left. I was actually sad that the person keeping me locked up was leaving me— how fucked up was that? I wondered how easy it was to develop Stockholm syndrome because that was the only reasonable explanation for the pit I felt in my stomach knowing she wasn’t going to be around me.

The thing about Mercy was that she was an addiction in herself. Beautiful, powerful, terrifying. She was everything I wanted and everything I feared. And even though she was keeping me locked away, essentially making me bait for her army of Known, I couldn’t stop the idea that I wascravingher. In my body, my soul, I wanted something from Mercy. Even if it was the last screwed up act of my life, it would be the most adventure I ever had and I ached for it.

I ached for her.

It felt like three days were going to last a lifetime from the moment I was left alone. During the day, I had free roam of the house but Narcissa was tasked with being my protection, and I wanted to minimize any contact I had to have with her. I had heard her whispering to Mercy to kill me, and saw the look in her eyes that showed just how much she wanted that to happen.

The night of Mercy’s departure, Narcissa knocked on my door. “It’s Narcissa. Open the door, blood bag.”

A thousand profanities sat on the tip of my tongue but I resisted, knowing it would only cause me more issues. When I opened the door up to her, she thrust a mobile phone into my hands with extra force. “From Mercy.”

I slid the phone into my back pocket and nodded, taking a step back so I could close the door. Conversing with her really was not on my to-do list. Besides, I could feel a smile creeping on my face knowing that I could contact Mercy if I needed to.

Narcissa closed the space between us, her face barely an inch away from mine. Her voice was dripping in venom as she spoke and I tried my best not to shiver. “I see that pathetic little look on your face, human. Let me tell you just how pitiful you really are. Mercy,myqueen, will be bored of you so quickly and you’ll end up dead and buried. She doesn’t care for you, for anyone. You are merely a new toy. That number? It’s not for your protection. It’s protection for her newplaything.”

Tears stung in my eyes and I abruptly pulled away from her, feeling like she had slapped me in the face. Narcissa’s laugh was as cold and brutal as her personality.

“You poor, pathetic thing.” She looked me up and down, licking her canines seductively. “I will be so happy to see her drain you. You humans are too breakable. Mercy will realize that soon enough.”

Spinning on her shining Louboutins, she exited my room and closed the door with a slam. I waited until I couldn’t hear the click of her heels before getting up and locking the door.

It was pointless trying to stop the torrent of tears from dripping down my face so I let them fall as Narcissa’s words seeped in.

Would Mercy really kill me? She had made such a huge deal about me surviving, but Narcissa made it sound like it was purely because she wanted me to play with. Like I was being kept just to be fed on until I wasn’t useful anymore.

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