Page 27 of The Shadow Bride

“Célie.” Michal’s voice softens inexplicably as he brushes the damp, tangled hair away from my face. It brings his wrist closer to my mouth, and I clamp my eyes shut, refusing to breathe. Refusing tothink. Because I cannot drink from Michal again. Not now, not as a vampire. To do so would be abhorrent, unnatural—intimate. So incredibly intimate. Though I cannot explain why, I know deep in my bones that something will change between us if I do.

As if to reassure me, he sweeps a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “You won’t hurt me.”

Don’t be disgusting, Mila once said.Vampires only drink from vampires inverynonfamilial situations.

I never asked what she meant, never dreamed such a thing would ever be relevant to Michal and me. And perhaps it’s the pain in mystomach—or perhaps I really am the worst sort of liar—but the consequences seem to matter even less now than they did before. I have already done the worst. I have already attacked someone I love—almost killed him in a fit of passion, or perhaps blind rage. Jealousy. Perhaps Odessa was right, and all emotions keenly felt as a vampire blur into hunger.

Eyes still closed, I seize Michal’s wrist just as the bite marks begin to heal. I cannot stand to look at them. I cannot stand to look athim—not as my lips close around his skin, not as my teeth sink deep where his have just been. His forearm falls away from my chest at the first pull of my mouth. It snakes around my waist at the second, steadying me when my knees give way. “Easy,” he murmurs, bearing us gently to the cobblestones.

But it isn’t easy. It isn’t easy at all.

The taste of his blood—nothing could’ve prepared me for it, and nothing can ever compare again. Immediately, I know I’ve made a terrible mistake, but if Hell itself descended upon us now, if revenants crawled from every grave, I wouldn’t be able to stop. It explodes on my tongue in a heady, arcane rush of heat, ofmagic, and by the third pull, my head threatens to spin from my shoulders. My body threatens to collapse. Still I keep my eyes closed, pulling him closer, drinking him deeper until white stars burst across the darkness of my eyelids. I suspected Michal to be stronger than the average vampire, but I’d never known howmuch.

It isn’t until I feel him flowing through every part of me—powerful,potent—that I realize he hasn’t told me to stop. He hasn’t pulled away. Indeed, he still crouches before me, stroking my hair and murmuring encouragement. Allowing me to take as much asI need. To... use him. “That’s it.” Another stroke of his hand. “Good girl.”

And I feel better now. I do. As my eyes flutter open, I feel fuller, satiated, almost like myself again, except... different.

Fluid and graceful.

Strong.

He watches me with an inscrutable expression, his hand stilling on my hair when I finally lift my mouth from his wrist. His voice, however, is hoarser than before when he asks, “Did you get enough?”

“I...” My own voice sounds distant, dreamier, as I stare up at him, transfixed by his silhouette in the torchlight. “Yes, thank you.”

“And you’re... all right?” he asks quietly.

His eyes search my face with that same impenetrable intensity.

Too late, I realize how filthy I must look—hair wild and tangled, feet bare, my nightgown soaked with rain and mire and blood.Hisblood. I wipe it slowly from my mouth before tearing my gaze away from him. Another mistake.

The rest of the scene trickles in slowly at first. Though Michal has positioned himself to block the street, my senses have sharpened, and I do not need to see Jean Luc to hear that his pulse has steadied. His bleeding has slowed. His breath remains shallower than it should be, and Brigitte pants as she struggles to drag him to the door. The rapid, panicked beat of her heart, the slick sound of his clothes against the cobblestones—the sharp tang of his blood, so muchblood—no longer fills me with rage, however. It no longer fills me with hunger.

No.

My entire body trembles as I push to my feet. Michal riseswith me, still standing too close. Still shielding me from the street. “Célie,” he starts, placating, but I sidestep him swiftly. His blood rushes to my cheeks at the scene before me. It churns viciously in my stomach, threatens to rise.

The rain has stopped.

It leaves a river of scarlet in the street. My throat thickens at the sight of it.

I—I was not clean in my attack. I was not gentle.

“No,” I choke, starting toward Jean Luc.

“Don’t touch me.” As if waking from a trance, he stops fighting Brigitte now, scrambling backward, and the scent of his fear is a living, poisonous thing between us. In the full light of dawn, I can finally see why: his shredded skin, his mottled flesh, his glazed eyes and ashen color. “Just—just get away—”

I nearly tore out his throat.

Any strength I might’ve felt vanishes as I leap forward, seizing his Balisarda and dragging it down my forearm. “Please—” I fling the blade aside, thrusting my arm toward him desperately. “Please take it, Jean. It’ll heal you. It’ll make this—all of it just—”

All of it just what?asks a nasty voice in my head.Go away?

Any strength I might’ve felt slips like sand between my fingers as Jean Luc staggers to his feet, shoving my arm away and collapsing against Brigitte, who does her best to support his full weight. That strength heats and melts into brittle despair—because something like this doesn’t justgo away. Something like this starts a war, starts a bitter crusade like the one we just ended.No.As if reading my mind, Brigitte sneers, her face red with exertion as she helps Jean Luc to the Tower. “We’ll hunt you for this. We’ll make youpay.”

“But I can fix—”

“You can’tfixthis.” She reaches behind to pull open the door, struggling to heave him across the threshold. “Captain Toussaint is the only reason the Chasseurs haven’t burned your island to the ground.”

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