Page 68 of The Serpent's Bride
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Tears streaked down her cheeks.
But she had to roll the dice.
Shehadto.
Her whole life had been about this.
Stepping out into the hallway, she faced right, in the direction of the screams.
Just in time to see Raziel step from a room to confront John’s friend who was running toward the chaos. Raziel looked like something from a nightmare. He had taken off the coat and vest, leaving him in only the black pants and white linen shirt. His long hair flowed like black silk down around his face. He almost always had it tied back. But tendrils of it hung down along his sharp features in contrast against his pale skin.
The man lifted the gun.
The smile that Raziel paid him in response had Nadi’s blood running cold.
And all he had to do was merely speak. One word, and the man’s life was over. “Kneel.”
The man dropped to his knees like he was made of lead, heedless of the pain it would cause him.
Raziel’s expression turned gentle. Almostkind.There was no malice in his expression. No cruelty. He walked up to the man and, crouching, whispered something in the man’s ear.
Like a sleepwalker, he stood and headed into the room that Raziel had just exited.
Someone grabbed her by the arm, yanking her around roughly. Her gun fell from her hand, clattering to the ground, as the stranger dragged her back into the cedar room, slamming the door behind her. She heard the door bolt shut. “Saeiga—you fool!”
It was Luciento. She hadn’t seen where he’d come from. He was already pulling her toward the hatch in the floor. “Don’t—don’t call me that.”
“I don’t know how you got mixed up in this nonsense or what you think your game is, Nadi,but we need to get out of herenow.”Luciento grabbed the ring of the hatch and gave it a yank. It was stuck. He snarled, gave it another pull, and it creaked open.
“Does he know?” She was shaking.
“What?” He looked up at her, those iridescent eyes so much like her own real eyes. He shook his head, only sorrow on his features. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Does he know?” she repeated, harder. She pulled the knife from her belt and shoved him up against the wall, pressing the blade to his throat. “Did you tell him who—what—I am?”
“What iswrongwith you?” Those eyes searched hers.
“You know what he did. Youknowwhat he’s cost me. I—I have given up my whole life to see him and his family dead inexchange—” She kept her words low, hissed through her teeth. “I’m not about to give up here.”
Something slammed into the door from the other side. Raziel, she assumed. He was a vampire—he would find his way in soon.
“I have kept your secret, mysaeiga.”Luciento held his hands up in surrender. “I haven’t told him what you are, or that you are myniece.We do not betray our kin to thosethings.”
Her hand was trembling. Her uncle’s message was clear. He wouldn’t hurt her. Would she hurt him? Could she kill her own kind?
Killing him would earn Raziel’s trust. And his respect. It would get me closer to him. It might get Volencia to change her mind about the sacrifice. It might even get Raziel to spare my life tonight…This could solve all those problems.
“I have dedicated my entire life to this.”She gripped the knife tight in her hand, forcing it to stop shaking. “I vowed I would see him and his entire family rot for what they did to mine.”
Luciento’s shoulders lowered. She had seen that expression a thousand times. The face of a man who knew he was about to die.
May the void take her.
“Forgive me,saestren.”
Suddenly, Raziel wished that he had his cousin Oliren’s gift of turning into mist. It would have made slipping beneath the locked wooden and metal door a breeze.
