Page 35 of Of Spindles and Nightfall
She glowered at the spark of triumph glinting in his eyes. “So you’re saying I should be grateful?”
The spark died, and a hint of annoyance spread across his features. “I’m saying you’re the vampire princess. Manipulation and power plays are part of the game. Either learn to move to obtain what you want, or expect to get crushed.”
She shifted her skirts, brushing her hand against the spot where the Bloodbound mark rested underneath her clothes and cast him a challenging glance. “What makes you think I haven’t moved to obtain what I want?”
He frowned, rage sparking coldly in his eyes. But then, a hint of a smile ghosted across his face. He released a low, humorless chuckle. “We shall see how well that works out for you.”
She lifted her chin. “Yes. We shall. Let’s get started.”
“By all means, Vampress, let the trauma begin.”
She stepped up to the silver needle and sucked in a deep breath to slow her pounding heart. Last night, she hadn’t only bonded with Zarathos, she’d almost died. Not to mention her visions kept getting more and more personal, and the demon arch king saw it all. But it was the only way to get what she wanted. So she raised her finger and pressed it against the tip. The whir of Zarathos spinning straw through the wheel filled her ears just as her vision clouded and the room began to fade.
But as the memory took form, something was… off. She wasn’t herself.
She was a young abaddon boy.
Chapter 14
Zarathos
Ayoung abaddon demon boy stood before his father, noting the murder in his eyes. The dark disapproval filled the room with his malice, turning even the familiar surroundings, the armchair, the stark rug, the empty fireplace into foreboding enemies.
“The maid tells me you are refusing to take your potion.” The boy’s father towered over him, and the boy trembled.
The maid. Gresil had been there for him since before the ten-year-old boy could remember. And yet, after all this time, she was still just the maid to his father. Within the last twelve months, they had moved from a shack in the woods to one of his father’s manors, and she had startedinsisting that she give the boy this potion his father had sent. “I told her that it—”
“Take it.”The boy’s father held a vial filled with swirling clear liquid in his hand. He loomed over his son, anger flashing across his face.
The boy fought not to shrink, biting into the side of his cheek until he tasted blood. “Father, I can’t. It hurts me—”
His father slapped the boy, knocking him to the ground. “Do not speak back to me.”
His jaw throbbed, and the boy stumbled to his feet, cowering before the demon arch king standing over him. A dangerous threat flashed in his father’s gaze. The boy had learned long ago to always take his father seriously.
Tears stung his eyes, but he held them in. Crying was a sign of weakness and very well might get him killed. Slowly, he reached up and took the vial.
He unstopped it and hesitated. He understood he shouldn’t, but he did. His father let out a low growl. The boy forced himself to raise it to his lips and down the liquid. It flowed over his tongue, tasting like the remains of a burned out building and oddly something unexpected, something he wasn’t used to tasting, an added sweetness.
He lowered the vial and raised a wary gaze to take in his father’s satisfied expression. Almost immediately, the boy’s muscles tightened. Panic shot through him as a sourness gripped his stomach. His vision grew fuzzy, like a thousand pins and needles were being jammed into his eyeballs.
Not again.
His father’s lip curled upward. “Rememberthis, son, you are an abomination. You do not deserve to exist in this world. From now on, you shall no longer hear nor recognize your given name. You shall henceforth be known as Zarathos.”
The boy fell backward, his head striking the hard floor, staring into his father’s uncaring eyes as his body spasmed and reality careened out of control. With one more look of disapproval, his father dropped an envelope onto the boy’s chest before turning and walking away.
He couldn’t breathe.
He was dying.
And when unconsciousness came, it was a mercy.
Zarathos awoke with a pounding headache, feeling as if a ground ogre had torn him apart and stitched him back together. His mind wouldn’t work right. Something was missing, stolen from him.
His name.
Zarathos wasn’t his name, but what was it? What had it been? He couldn’t remember. It was the potion. The seizure it caused was normal, but there had been a sweet taste to this concoction that usually wasn’t there. What had it done to him? Made him forget?
