Page 84 of Crimson Shadows
Grim just shrugs, his shoulders rising and falling like the movement of ancient machinery. “Wish I was. Rules are rules, though. Even for a Sanguine. Give it a week, and they’ll forget all about it again.”
For a moment, I consider leaving. The thought of synthetic blood turns my stomach. I have tried it because Adelaide is drinking it. It’s not pleasant, but the thirst is gnawing at me, and I know I can’t ignore it for long. “Fine,” I mutter. “Give me the synthetic shit.”
Grim nods, turning to prepare my drink. As he does, I let my gaze wander around the bar. It’s relatively quiet tonight, just a few other vampires scattered about, nursing their glasses of synthetic blood. The start of term always brings a certain tension to the air, a mix of excitement and apprehension that even we immortals aren’t immune to.
My thoughts drift to Adelaide, as they often do these days. The memory of our kiss in the corridor after the lecture sends a thrill through me. The way she looked at me, her eyes wide with surprise and something deeper, more primal is enough to make my cock hard,
“Here you go,” Grim says, sliding a glass of dark red liquid in front of me.
I take a reluctant sip, grimacing at the artificial taste. It’s terrible, a far cry from the real thing. Still, it takes the edge off the thirst, and for that, I’m grateful.
As I’m nursing my drink, the door to the bar swings open. I don’t need to turn around to know who it is - I can sense their presence, as familiar to me now as my own shadow. Ignatius, Zaiah, and Zephyr make their way over, pulling up stools beside me.
“Corvus,” Zaiah greets me, his voice low and serious. The tension in his posture sets me on edge immediately. “We need to talk.”
I raise an eyebrow, taking another sip of my synthetic blood. “What about?”
“Adelaide,” Zephyr cuts in. “And something else.”
Ignatius leans in, looking serious as all fuck, which is the one thing that makes me pay attention. The other two can be drama queens, but Ig is a take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy. “Zaiah has sensed something. Something dark.”
I set my glass down, all thoughts of my unsatisfactory drink forgotten. “Something dark? Like what?”
Zaiah shakes his head, his frustration clear. “I don’t know exactly. But I know it has something to do with Adelaide. There’s a shadow looming over her future, a threat we can’t yet see.”
A growl builds in my throat, low and dangerous. The thought of Adelaide in danger brings out a fierce protectiveness that makes me want to kill. The synthetic blood in my glass sits forgotten as Zaiah’s words send a chill down my spine.
“It’s like a shadow,” Zaiah murmurs, his eyes unfocused, seeing something beyond the dimly lit bar. “A darkness creeping at the edges of my dreams. I’ve never felt anything quite like it before.”
Zephyr’s fingers drum an impatient rhythm on the bar. “Can you be more specific? What kind of danger are we talking about here?”
Zaiah shakes his head. “That’s just it. It’s not clear. Sometimes I see fire, consuming everything in its path. Other times, it’s a flood of darkness, drowning out all light. But always, at the centre of it all, I see Adelaide.”
“Is she the cause or the target?” Ignatius asks, his tone harder, more serious than usual.
“Both, perhaps,” Zaiah replies, his voice barely above a whisper. “Or neither. It’s as if she’s a focal point. A nexus where all these dark forces are converging.”
I feel a growl building in my chest, my fangs itching to descend. “And you’re sure about this? It’s not just some djinn hunch?”
Zaiah’s eyes snap to mine, blazing with an inner fire. “Fuck you. This is real. And it’s coming, whether we’re ready or not.”
“Then we’ll make sure we’re ready,” Zephyr interjects. “We’ll train her, protect her.”
I nod, my mind already racing with plans. “We need to tell her?—”
“No,” Zaiah cuts me off. “Not yet. She’s only just beginning to understand her powers. If we tell her about this now, it could overwhelm her, maybe even push her towards the darkness we’re trying to protect her from.”
A tense silence falls over our group. I can see the weight of this knowledge settling on each of us.
Finally, Ignatius breaks the quiet. “So, what do we do?”
I lean back, the decision already made. “We watch. We wait, and we make damn sure that whatever’s coming, Adelaide’s ready for it.”
The others nod in agreement, and as we continue to discuss strategy in hushed tones, I can’t shake the feeling that this is just the beginning of something much bigger than any of us could have imagined.
Zephyr nods. “She has power, more than she knows. I’ve felt it. We need to help her tap further into it.”
He’s felt it?That sends a pang of envy through me. I’ve tasted her power in her blood, but it’s not enough to get a real gauge of it. Zephyr makes it sound like he knows exactly what she is capable of.
