Page 65 of Magic of Sins

Caden stares at me, wide-eyed. He looks guilty, and that’s answer enough.

Anger boils up inside me. Anger like I’ve never felt before. I can’t hold it in. It’s too late to be virtuous now. I’m in too deep. There’s no escaping this.

“Who do you think you are?” I spit at him. “My savior? Did you think for even a second that I might have liked to decide my own fate?”

Caden blinks as if this thought never crossed his mind, and that further fuels my anger.

“I had a life, and you took it from me. What, am I supposed to thank you now? Is that what you expected to happen?”

He raises his hand as if to reach for me again, but I back away. If he touches me now, I don’t know what will happen. I want to punch him, but he looks like he can’t take another blow. Instead, I stand up and put as much space between us as I can, even if it’s only a few steps. I force myself to breathe evenly.

In and out.

In and out.

I am usually good at controlling my anger. We learn this sort of thing in kindergarten—to suppress anger, to be calm andcollected, and to not be led astray by sin. But right now, I’m having an immensely hard time not lashing out at Caden. I’m sure he can taste my anger. I hope he chokes on it.

We’re both silent for a while. Only the insistentdrip, dripof water and Caden’s labored breathing break the silence. I pace restlessly up and down in the small space, aware of Caden’s gaze on me. He doesn’t say anything to defend his actions. Not that there’s anything to say.

“What are we going to do now?” I ask some time later. “Do you have a plan to get us out of here?”

“Before I came here, I let some of my people know. They’ll get you out.”

“And what about you?”

Instead of answering, Caden is shaken by another cough. It doesn’t sound good. When he pulls his hand back from his mouth, there’s blood on it. Is that why he only mentioned me? Because he doesn’t think he’ll make it?

Just like that my anger is gone. I sink down next to him on the mattress, stare at the blood on his hand, and feel terribly helpless.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask quietly.

He coughs again. Then he gives me a pained smile.

“There is something, but you won’t like it.”

“What is it?”

I don’t want to admit it to myself, but I’m afraid for Caden. He looks so weak, and his clothes are covered in blood. I’m sure he’s got some broken bones. Maybe some internal injuries as well.

“In order to regain my strength and speed up the healing process, I would need to feed on someone,” Caden says.

“I didn’t know we could do that.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know yet, love.”

True. And he was also right to assume that I wouldn’t like his proposal. Although Caden didn’t say it outright, it’s clear that hemeant me. He wanted to feed onme.

In my head I go through the seven sins—pride, greed, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, and laziness. Pride, greed, and envy won’t work, and I’m pretty sure a lavish feast is not in the cards for us either, so that rules out gluttony. And I don’t have the time to indulge in sloth right now. That leaves lust and wrath.

“Well, you may not care for its taste, but wrath is something I have in spades right now,” I say bitterly.

That tortured, weak smile again.

“I would need more,” Caden says.

“What do you mean, more?”

“I would need to pull on the threads.”

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