Page 16 of Prayer of the Damned

I take it from him so as not to offend him, but my hand trembles and firmly refuses to obey my command to bring the glass to my mouth. My hand is so tense that the glass shatters in an instant, and the blood stains me, dripping onto their expensive marble floor.

I raise the hand that shattered the wine glass with barely any strength at all and open it to examine it more closely. I’m not even scratched. My father and Libretto do the same, studying my hand. Libretto grabs my palm before I can protest and jams his talons into it. I scream in pain and fall to my knees.

“Libretto, what are you doing?” my father raises his voice, but Libretto waves him away.

I look into Libretto’s eyes. They gleam white, and he bares his teeth at me. His long fangs are powerfully fixed to his lower lip, and blood is pooling around them. Libretto’s blood doesn’t smell like human blood, and an intolerable itch spreads across my upper gums. He pulls me to him, and I squirm savagely to avoid his fearsome grip. I ignore the sharp pain in my palm, my eyes fixed only on the drops of blood welling up between his lips.

A mighty stench emanates from him, hitting me like a kick to my guts and boiling the blood in my veins. I know with all my being that if I don’t get away from him, I’ll go insane.

My reaction seems to incite Libretto’s fury. He tightens his grip on me and then hurls me to the other side of the hall. My back hits the double doors hard, and I let out a choked cry of pain. I want to weep at how bad it hurts, but the stupid tears won’t come.

What’s happening?!I scream in my mind, and my father hurries over to help me up.

I let him help me and find that I’m limping as my father leads me back to that monster Libretto.

“Tell me what she’s thinking!” Libretto shouts at my father, and he grows still where he stands.

“She’s afraid,” he answers, like a trained circus monkey.

“And she should be!” He shoots me a dark glance and my entire body trembles uncontrollably. “What else?”

“She thinks you’re a monster,” he answers, and I hold my breath. Fuck, my dad’s sold me out and I’m going to die. Shit, I can’t die, which means I might spend eternity in agony!

“You won’t…” my father whispers to me.

“What? Tell me at once!” Libretto commands him again.

“She’s afraid that since she can’t die, you’ll sentence her to eternal torment,” my father replies, and Libretto bursts into laughter. The other Council members join him, and now they’re all having a good laugh at my expense.

“What’s so funny, if you don’t mind my asking?” I dare to ask, manners be damned. This psycho just attacked me. That’s fucking unacceptable to me. My father takes a deep breath. It looks like he’s fighting not to explode himself.

“We got everything we needed; you’re dismissed. The human demon can begin her studies.” Libretto waves a hand as if to sweep us out of his sight, turning his back to us and returning to his throne.

I want to run to him and punch his lights out, but my father pulls me out of the hall. Before the doors close, I peek behind me and see Libretto smiling at me, licking up what’s left of the blood on his lips.

I only now realize that Libretto bled in front of me, and I, the human demon, didn’t shed a drop. Maybe that was what stirred his anger?

Chapter Six

Bellcolor

“Drive to the nearest hotel, we’re not staying here another moment,” my father instructs my driver, shoving me into the backseat.

I’m so confused. I have no idea what happened and how it all fell apart so quickly. The wrinkle in my father’s forehead deepens the further we get from the Council’s castle, and I want to ask him any of the million questions spinning through my mind.

“Not here,” my father whispers to me, and I can’t even nod.

The drive doesn’t take long, or my mind’s managed to detach itself from the chaos rising up around me, and we stop in front of a luxurious hotel the driver decided would satisfy my father.

You must think it’s strange for my father to bark “Presidential suite” at the reception clerk and throw his black Amex card at her, and that we’re going up the elevator a moment later, but that’s my life.

“What did Libretto mean? What exactly did he get out of this meeting?” I don’t wait for a moment after we step into the suite.

“I don’t know,” he confesses, seeming deep in thought.

“How do you expect me to believe you? You’re the mind-reader!”

“It doesn’t work that way, Bellcolor. To get access to the mind I want, there has to be a blood bond.”

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