Page 75 of The Serpent's Bride
That wasn’t the issue. She knew that.
It was the fact that…itbotheredher. It twisted something in her that was akin to pain. No—not pain, worse than that.Shame.
She was ashamed of what she was through his eyes.
Her jaw twitched as she clenched her hands into fists hard enough that her nails bit into her palms and squeezed her eyes tight. How dare he. Howdarehe make her think about herself in such a way! No one had that right. No one in the world, in all of Runne, had the right to make her ashamed of who and what she was. Of how she was raised, where she grew up, or what she looked like.
Anger boiled in her. She embraced it like an old friend. Let it seethe into hatred. Added it to her armor like the scales of her tail. She was letting him too close. Lust was one thing, lust was useful. She could wield that against him, and there wasn’t any harm in enjoying it while it lasted. But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—let him any closer than that.
She wouldn’t survive it.
Letting out a wavering breath, she muttered a quiet prayer to Luciento and her family in her native tongue. An apology and a plea for forgiveness she knew she didn’t deserve. She wished she had an altar where she could light a candle or place an offeringout for Luciento’s soul. A binding of bones, or a small animal sacrifice.
But she had nothing. Nothing but her own sorrow, anger, and rage. And a promise that blood would flow in exchange for theirs—hers or Raziel’s, either way, their ghosts would be paid.
Getting dressed, she decided to wear something polished, but not fully formal. Something that showed deference to the family, but that still said she had been through the wringer in the past forty-eight hours and was eager to get back to bed.
Whether to sleep or do other things remained to be seen.
She swore at herself in her head. “Idiot.” Yes, fine. Sex with Raziel wasamazing.And now that she knew what it was like? She wanted more. The problem was, Monica would be far more battered-up. As a fae, Nadi felt…not great, but not the worst she’d ever felt, honestly.
A little tired from the blood loss, sure. But once she had some food in her, she figured she’d be fine. She just had to not let on that was the case. Zipping the red and black silk dress up the side, she smoothed it down over her legs and walked up to the mirror to examine her neck. The bite marks had even faded a little over the hour she had been asleep. Damn it. The puncture wounds she could scratch at and keep fresh, but the bruises? The bruises would be hard to fake.
Blaming it on good genetics could only get her so far.
But Raziel seemed completely bought into the illusion that she was Monica. Chewing her lower lip, she sighed. There wasn’t much she could do, except maybe hide it. Monica wasn’t from the metropolis. She could play it off as being unsure if it was a faux pas to flash bite wounds at the table or not. Finding a thin silk scarf in a drawer, she draped it around her neck, slipped on a pair of heels, and headed down to dinner.
Patiencewas the word that Raziel kept repeating to himself in his head like a mantra as he poured his sister a drink. Lana was attempting to goad him into a fit of rage. She had begun by insisting on bringing her favorite pet Azazel along to dinner, which was purely to offend their mother and put her in a bad mood.
Which, in turn, was purely to puthimin a bad mood. But delivering the jab in this way, one step removed, made sure any attempts to call her out would seem melodramatic and petty.
Siblings. Sisters were always the most devious.
Patience.
He had a prize waiting for him this evening if he managed to make it through the night without smashing a bottle of wine over the table and digging the shards into his own skull to end the banal double-speak and thinly veiled insults.
His little murderer.
What a wonderful bundle of surprises she had turned out to be.
Bloodthirsty. Not only capable of killing but able to face it with an unflappable resolve that rivaled perhaps even his own. To not only murder Luciento—to drive a knife into his skull—but then to allow him to savagely fuck her with the corpse as witness?
How wonderfully and singularlydepraved.
Could it be, he might have found someone whose capacity for violence—if trained and tailored and polished—might match his own? But adrenaline had aided her in the kill. Luciento had likely threatened to take her by force if she didn’t go willingly. Hewondered how she would perform if there was no threat to her life.
“Are you going to finish making that drink anytime this century, brother?” Lana sighed dramatically.
Patience.
Walking over to where Lana sat at his dining room table, he placed the cocktail down in front of her a little harder than was polite. Mael shot him a glare as if to reprimand him for his bad attitude. Yes, becausehewas being the problem child here. Not Lana.
“Have you given any thought to the trip north, brother? And what your choice will be?” Mael was sitting at the head of the table, frowning down into his wine glass. Raziel suspected his brother had already become fond of Monica, despite only having met her a few times.
“My choice is to make no choice at all.” Raziel shrugged. “I thought I might postpone the trip for a while, if not indefinitely.”
“Don’t blaspheme, boy.” Volencia grimaced. His mother was seated at the opposite head of the table, leaning against the polished wood back of her chair, a long cigarette holder perched between painted fingernails. The smoke curled up and away from the end. “You leave on the trip as planned. And she dies.”
