Page 46 of The Pureblood Princess
Honora wraps one hand around Nadia’s throat, and she presses the dagger to her cheek with the other. Nadia’s breath catches, and her heartbeat quickens. The dagger shifts, its edge biting into her flesh, and she holds her breath.
Honora leans in close, the tip of her nose brushing Nadia’s throat as she breathes in deep.
“I told you I’d rip your pretty throat out,” she whispers, pulling her lips back to reveal her fangs. “And a ladyneverlies.”
There’s a flash of pain, the sensation excruciating. Honora’s fangs are buried in Nadia’s neck, and she can feel her blood being drawn from her body. When Theodore drinks from her, she relaxes into his touch, but before Honora’s venom can make her compliant, she grabs her hair and yanks her head back.
Honora hisses, and in the scuffle, the dagger cuts a line across Nadia’s cheek.
The wound it opens burns like fire, and Nadia screams. In her momentary distraction, Honora grabs her hand, slams it onto the rickety wooden nightstand, and drives the dagger through it. Nadia’s screams turn savage, and the pain that radiates from the silver impaling her is almost enough to send her spiraling into the darkness.
“You willdiehere,” Honora says, her blue eyes flashing with rage in the darkness. “Your preciousTheodoreis not coming for you.”
Hearing his name on Honora’s vile tongue brings Nadia some sense of purpose, and amidst the pain and the tears streaming from her eyes, she finds the strength to say, “You know nothing. He choseme, and no matter how you torment me, that willneverchange.”
Something like pain glints in Honora’s gaze, and she reaches once more into her cloak, drawing out a stoppered vial. Seeing it, Nadia tries to pull away, but her hand is still skewered to the table, and the motion brings fresh pain slicing through her.
Honora grabs Nadia by the back of the head and wrenches her neck back. Though Nadia tries to squirm out of her grasp, there is no escaping her iron grip. Honora rips the stopper from the vial with her teeth, then forces it down Nadia’s throat. It burns going down, the taste bitter like poison.
“You’d best hope the viscount visits you in your dreams,” Honora whispers, “for you’ll never see him in the flesh again. But don’t worry”—she draws a fingertip down the side of Nadia’s throat—“I’ll enjoy his touch for you.”
The draft floods Nadia’s senses, overpowering her already-weakened body. She slumps against the wall, then brings her free hand to her head, trying to fight the spinning. Honora’s gaze locks onto something, and a moment later, she’s grasping Nadia’s left hand and yanking the wedding band from her finger.
“You won’t need this anymore,” Honora says, but her voice sounds like she’s underwater. She lifts her hand and slips the band onto her ring finger, and the ruby is as red as her smiling lips.
Nadia knows she should feel angry, should fight to get the ring back, but her mind is spinning, and she finds herself losing touch with reality. Her vision blurs, her limbs grow heavy, and the world spirals into darkness.
Chapter Twenty
Nadia stands in a void.She turns left and right, searching for something, anything, to tether her in time and place, but she’s lost in a never-ending expanse of darkness. Her feet are still bare, and she wears a soft cotton dress, her hair loose and hanging about her shoulders. Here, at least, there is no cold, no pain. Only emptiness.
“Nadia!” a woman screams, and the voice is so loud it echoes in the black.
She whirls around, startled by the woman’s voice, but finds only more darkness.
“H-hello?” she calls out tentatively, her voice small and scared.
“Nadia!” the woman calls out again, the word laced with urgency and desperation.
A sudden feeling of loss stabs through her, though she can’t determine its source.
“I’m here,” she says. Stepping forward, she moves through the inky blackness, her heart pounding as she looks left and right. “Where are you?”
“Trebuie sa te regase?ti,” the woman says, her voice farther away now, as if she’s drifting into the sea of black.
“I don’t understand.” Nadia picks up her pace, almost frantic as she pursues the formless voice. “I don’t understand!”
Feminine laughter echoes through the darkness, prompting Nadia to turn around, and when she does, the scene surrounding her shifts. Now she’s standing in the library at the Rosettis’ country house, and the fire in the hearth blazes, casting flickering light upon the two naked bodies lying before it. Their skin glows with a sheen of perspiration, their lips swollen from kissing.
The man lies on his back, the woman atop him moving slowly, gliding up and down his length as she tips her head back and exposes her neck and the bloody marks marring the skin.
“Theodore,” Nadia says softly, trying to keep the pain from squeezing her throat closed.
He ignores her, too lost in the rapture of Honora’s touch.
A ring on Honora’s left hand gleams in the firelight, and Nadia remembers now how Honora stole the wedding band from her finger and slipped it onto her own.
Tears make her vision blurry.
