Page 89 of Mama Si's Paradise

Becausesense.This whole fucking thing was starting to make sense, and now I didn’t want it to. I didn’t want to understand. I wanted everything to be confusing and senseless again. Mysterious. Scary—anything butthis.

“So that means I’m…I…I’m…” I couldn’t fucking speak.

“That means my dragon tasted your blood when he bit you, and it is most likely to be compatible with us,” Valentine said, and it was so, so hard to breathe. “That means you, out of the five offerings brought to us this year, are most likely to be able to carry the child of one of us.”

I’d have been running by now if my legs could carry me. “Oneof you?” He meanthimand the other men who’d looked at me like they were going to eat me?!

“We won’t know for sure which until the Blood Call, but it’s me. You’remine—I know it.” And he leaned toward me, touching my cheek with the back of his fingers. I was too numb to even feel it. “You belong to me, Sunshine.”

“No.” I could see it in his eyes—he meant it. My God, he actually believed his own words.

“I will take care of you, I promise. I’ll keep you safe. Even before the Blood Call?—”

“Whatthe hellis the Blood Call?!” I shouted, but I couldn’t really produce much voice if I tried in those moments.

Valentine took his hand back, and he had the audacity to lookdisappointed.

“From the moment you step into the Whispering Woods, the second part of the spell is activated. The magic prepares your body for us, in a way. You start to really become Enchanted, and when your blood is ready, it calls for us. It calls for all of us, me and my brothers, and then it chooses one of us.”

Bride-to-be.Those guys hadn’t been kidding at all—they really believed that I was going to be theirs. I was going to be the bride of one of them. I was going to beusedto bear their fucking children—you’ve got to be fucking shitting me!I shouted in my mind.

“Sunshine, look at me,” Valentine said, but even when I did, I couldn’t really see him.

“They…they’re gonna…they’re gonna fuckingkillme.” I saw it in their eyes—his brothers looked hungry. I saw it myself. I felt it—especially the one they’d called Grey.

“No, they won’t. Nobody’s going to kill you,” he insisted. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, I promise you. Your blood will choose me, I know it. You’re mine.”

You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine—he said it like it was a good thing. Like I should be glad for it. Like I should berelieved!

I shook my head and blinked the tears away until I actually saw his face, those wide eyes, the desperation reflecting in them. “But you’re just like them.” He was their little brother, wasn’t he? They werebrothers.

When my words made sense to him, he paused, and after a second, he leaned back in his chair like it just occurred to him. Like he’d just remembered that those men were indeed his family.

Suddenly, he looked just as torn as I was. Suddenly, he looked like he hated the skin he wore just as much as I did.

I was tempted to laugh. How dare he sit here with me and claim me and call mehiswhen he knew exactly what I was?

Nothing but a piece of meat. Someone he or his brothers were going to try to get fuckingpregnant.

Oh, God…

“Are you…are you a vampire?” I choked. I’d seen those fangs, and I needed to know. I needed to confirm it before I lost my mind for real.

Valentine didn’t look at me, only said, “Yes, that’s what they call us. That’s what the magic of the sirens made us.”

I laughed.

I laughed and it came out like a scream. “So, what, you’re going to be biting me now? You’re going to be taking my blood whenever you please, is that it? I’ll be like your own personal blood vending machine?!”

Somehow, I was on my feet. Somehow my legs were holding me, and I was walking. No idea where I was going, but I was moving.

“Sunshine,” Valentine said, and I snapped.

“Don’tcall me that! Don’t call me that—it’s not my name!”

Doors in front of me and I pushed them open. I waked out into the hallway and I hardly saw anything, but again, I was moving.

If someone followed me, I had no clue, but Valentine didn’t call meSunshineagain. He wasn’t there at all when I turned around to look, and then a wall was suddenly in front of me, and I bumped my shoulder on the corner, and it hurt so much. It hurt—everythinghurt.

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