Page 54 of Bewitched By a Vampire

Crimson invaded Night’s eyes as he narrowed them on his brother and his pupils transformed into thin elliptical slits.

“Really?” Bastian snarled and then looked at her and she tensed. “That is not the impression she has given me.”

“Well, it’s what she’s told me. She tried to leave you, Bastian. She doesn’t want to be yours and you cannot force her. It isn’t right.” Night squared up to his brother and she feared that at any moment, they were going to come to blows.

Suspicion coloured Bastian’s crimson eyes. “It sounds to me as if you want her for yourself, Night. Tread very carefully, brother. You are on dangerous ground.”

Night bared his fangs at Bastian and didn’t back down.

He didn’t deny that he wanted her for himself though.

“As noble purebloods, surely we should do as society expects of us and uphold our good name by letting humans decide whether or not they want to be owned by us,” Night snarled, darkness washing across his features as his eyebrows knitted hard. “If society learned that you have a habit of owning humans against their will… Imagine the fallout, Bastian. Imagine how it would tarnish the Van der Garde name. We are supposed to set an example for all to follow. Or do you no longer believe that? Are the Van der Gardes now no better than common elite?”

Bastian’s face had been slowly darkening throughout Night’s tirade, but the moment Night mentioned elite, the name given to vampire bloodlines with turned humans in their ranks, he looked ready to murder his own brother.

Bastian wasn’t lying. Night was on dangerous ground, and she had the feeling he knew it and was intentionally provoking his brother. Why? To cover the fact he desired her or to force his brother’s hand and make him release her?

Bastian drew down a breath, the darkness lifting from his face as his shoulders relaxed and his appearance changed, becoming unreadable. He was up to something. Every instinct she possessed said that.

“I will give her a choice then.” Bastian’s tone was calm as his gaze slid to her. “Do you want to be mine?”

Night’s head swivelled towards her.

Lilian stared at Bastian, mind spinning, thoughts whirling together as duty and desire ripped her in two directions. She knew what she had to do. Bastian was right in front of her and she could fulfil her mission, could give the coven the peace of mind they needed and the vengeance they desired if she discovered through his blood that he was responsible for the attack.

She looked at Night.

But letting Bastian claim her would destroy what they had, and would turn him against her. Whether Bastian was innocent or not, her blood would be the death of him without her coven here to remove the poison from him if he wasn’t guilty. Not only that, but Bastian was making it sound as if she was choosing between them. She didn’t want Night to think she had picked his brother over him. She didn’t want to ruin what they had.

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to say no to Bastian. Her sense of duty wouldn’t allow it. Her coven was everything to her and she feared stepping into a world without them in it. She wasn’t brave enough to turn her back on them. Especially when things between her and Night were so uncertain. What if she took the leap and he grew bored with her and discarded her?

She pressed her hand to her chest, over her heart as it warred with her head. Her head said to stick to the plan and say yes to Bastian. Her heart said to scream no and seize Night and run far from Bastian.

Far from her coven.

She frowned as something struck her. She didn’t have only two choices. There was a third option. The mission was falling apart, the plan nowhere near on track, and her coven wasn’t here to guide her. She was on her own.

Meaning she could do things her way.

“I need your blood,” she said to Bastian.

Before she could explain why, Night pivoted on a growl and was gone.

She leashed the urge to curse. It hadn’t come out right. He hadn’t given her a chance to explain things. He had assumed she was giving his brother the green light to own her and had left. Bastian grinned at her, showing her that Night wasn’t the only vampire making assumptions and solidifying a feeling she had—one that said he wouldn’t be interested in giving her blood to clear his name. He wanted her as his servant.

She really hadn’t thought her new plan through.

Bastian probably wouldn’t feel inclined to reveal whether or not he had been the one to attack the coven. He viewed her as an inferior being after all. A vampire as lofty as Bastian didn’t answer to someone lowly like her. She could threaten him with magic or her coven coming after him, but he was old and powerful and fast enough that he could probably kill her before she could cast a spell.

And it wasn’t as if she could put him off trying to make her his servant by telling him that her blood was poisoned and he would die if he drank it.

Revealing that to the vampires would be a death sentence.

Bastian would want to kill her, and Night would be furious with her for wanting to kill his brother and probably wouldn’t stop him.

She huffed. This was why she needed to master her bad habit of making rash decisions. She wished she could be as calm and collected as Night, thinking things through and picking the best course of action after calculating every possible outcome.

She wasn’t going to master it any time soon though.

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