Page 154 of Fated In Blood

Then I lifted my head and strode down the golden, mirror-lined main hall of Darkmore Castle, reminding myself to find someone to water those fucking palm trees—they looked a bit wilted.

Blake kept all his promises the night we went to Darkmore Castle, except for one.

He did not burn Tyrell’s castle down around him.

Not only that, thisfucking mausoleum, as Blake called this horrid place, was now our new home. The official royal palace of the Nocturne Vampire Court, which so far was only the four of us, Riordan, Blake, me, and my sister—who hardly noticed where she was these days.

Tyrell had lied about many things, except for two.

Angelique was his true mate.

And she was pregnant.

As promised, that very first night Riordan had taken away her memories, from the night she’d been kidnapped from our apartment in Ohio to that morning after we’d killed Tyrell.

But ignorant bliss only went so far.

She barely ate, was haunted by nightmares, and spent all her time staring blankly out of windows or wandering the vastness of this horrible place as if she was searching for someone, until we finally cordoned off the entire west wing.

I couldn’t reach her, didn’t know how to comfort her, and failure was eating me alive.

I’d gone into town that first day and picked up a pregnancy test at the campus clinic for myself.Negative. And my status would stay that way, given neither Blake nor Riordan could get close enough to me to feed or for me to accidentally fall onto their cocks.

Silas and my uncles were out there, somewhere, biding their time.

Valaine had gotten away, and so far, even Blake couldn’t pick up his trail. Collum and that small contingent of loyal guards had disappeared. The consensus was he and Valaine were regrouping and would, eventually, turn up.

As for my dream of freedom, Riordan, of all people, had trapped me as neatly as before.

I was still trying to decide how self-serving his motives were.

He’d kept his word and offered me everything he’d promised after that night.

Money, transportation, even a clan that would take us both in.

But my sister was having a baby. She needed a steady supply of vampire blood. A safe place where she would be protected, day and night. Doctors familiar with vampire births and the right kind of medical care for a female in her first trimester, all things a powerful, well-connected king could provide here at Darkmore Castle and I could not, no matter how badly I wanted to.

I resented him and needed him and hated him all at the same time.

So far, His Royal Majesty hadn’t compelled me to stay, but I had to wonder how long his restraint would last. How far he would go to keep me here. Because Riordan Graves, the king of the Nocturne Clan, the new head of the Tyrell bloodline, was addicted to my blood.

I doubted he could let me go even if he wanted to.

And my sweet, sad sister was the perfect tether to keep me chained to him for the foreseeable future.

The back of my neck prickled, a strange sense of foreboding tightening my chest like a vise that kept wrenching down and down and down until I could barely breathe.

I looked over my shoulder.

The mirrored hall was empty, there was nowhere to hide, but…

Someone was definitely watching me.

Blake, perhaps, who’d been keeping his distance, afraid he’d hurt me, until the effects of his blood craving faded enough for him to control himself. I sighed and kept moving, immune to the lavish grandeur around me, trying to decide if I’d ever felt as alone as I did right now.

I reached the staircase when another trickle of unease crawled over my shoulders and down my spine, and I turned one last time, giving the echoing space another thorough once-over.

Every bone in my body warned me of danger, but no matter how closely I looked…I couldn’t see a thing.

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