Page 12 of Claimed By Blood

“You have no idea,” she mutters.

I bite the inside of my cheek. Time to cut the bullshit. “Why are we here, Immy?”

Her breath catches, and she seems to shrink slightly before she answers: “Because I missed you and I wanted to talk to you before that snake Draven wakes up and starts following our sire’s orders.”

I frown at her, but deliberately take the bait. “What orders? I already guessed he was a plant—although what further surveillance Cain needs when my room is already full of those stupid cameras is beyond me.”

Immy’s eyes are watering, I realise, and it’s not just the sharp wind coming off the river.

“They’re going to blame me,” she whispers. “Cain wants you to trust Draven so he can use him to control you, so he’s going to lie to you and tell you I ratted you and Frost out. When I didn’t.I wouldn’t. YouknowI wouldn’t.”

I frown at her. “Immy, you can’t expect me to believe that. You’re completely sane, without even a hint of blood lust. If you were stuck in a coffin like I was, that should be impossible.”

“I wasn’t in it as long as you were,” she insists. “Cain left me in there for a couple of decades, but he didn’t want to waste blood keeping me alive, so he released me and set me loose on the villagers.” Her tears start flowing down her freckled cheeks, thick and fast. “I slaughtered all of them before I got control of myself.”

Plausible, but I still don’t believe her. It must show on my face, because she swipes away her tears and keeps walking. Her breathing hitches oddly and she takes several deep breaths before she can continue.

“Draven was Frost’s second in command,” she says. “He ratted you out to Cain in exchange for immortality. As a reward, Cain spared him from meeting the same fate as the rest of the rebels and let Callie turn him. But you know our sire hates traitors, so he let Callie play with him until he was certain Draven would obey him without question.”

Again, still plausible. It even fits with what my thralls said about how Draven joined them.

“So where have you been for the last nineteen decades? Not at Court, or the Gala wouldn’t have been such a big event.”

She shrugs. “Cain sent me everywhere. At first it was punishment, letting me rage on whichever city or town had upset him. Then, when I finally clawed my way back to sanity, he used me to turn more of the politicians he needed on his side for the Triumph.”

“And none of our sisters knew?”

I can understand Callie or Morwen not caring about the identity of a vampire running riot amongst dissenting humans, but Bella was just as shocked as I was by Immy’s reappearance, and she makes it her business to know everything.

Immy shakes her head. “At first he took my name away,” she whispers. “No one was allowed to call me by name. I was just ‘it’ or ‘the vampire.’ Just like when we were kids.”

I wince at the memory of the days before Cain named us. Stripping us down to nothing more than nameless children with no identity beyond ‘daughter’ was a crude but effective method of indoctrination.

Any adult who endured what we did would’ve struggled to retain their sense of self. Children had no chance.

Immy nods and brushes away the moisture gathering in her eyes with a shaking hand. “Cain has no shortage of blood-frenzy-ridden vampires at his command. Even when I ‘earned’ my name and my sanity back and was sent out to deal with other vampires, I was forced to use aliases and dye my hair.” She winds an escaped auburn curl around her finger. “No one had any reason to believe I was Imogen, Daughter of Cain. Most people forgot I even existed…”

She trails off, and I know what she’s thinking. Even before the coffin, most people tended not to notice or care about Immy.

“And now you’re betraying him by telling me about his plan for Draven?” I have to work hard to keep my scepticism out of my voice, and I don’t fully succeed.

She turns her wide, beseeching eyes on me again. “I thought maybe, with you out of the way, I could make him love me,” she admits. “I tried so hard. Did everything perfectly. Even started pushing back in little rebellions like you and Morwen do.”

“He doesn’t love.” How could she be that stupid?

Another soft hiccough-sob. “He lovedyou. I felt it every time you walked into the room with him. I wanted that. All I ever got when he was alone with me was hatred and contempt. Even Morwen doesn’t elicit that response from him.”

Why does she sound surprised by that? It’s not like he ever bothered to conceal those feelings from her.

“I was desperate,” she says. “But it didn’t work. And it took decades of being alone to realise I lost the one person who ever did love me. You.”

A tiny part of me which I thought I sealed away the night of the Gala cracks open. The hurt and sadness rushes past my emotional block, and I curse myself under my breath.

I’ve been doing so well at keeping my feelings locked down. Now I might as well shout them aloud to the world. Imogen’s words make sense, but I won’t be fooled a second time. I don’t trust her, and I don’t trust Draven.

“So, from now on,” she continues after a few deep breaths. “I’m on your side, Evie. No matter what. I’ll earn your love back. I promise.”

Her declaration falls onto an awkward silence, broken only by the rhythmic lapping noise of the waves.

---