Page 105 of B Positive

His face stilled, expression going blank. “Julian has lied to you. You believe you’ve only recently begun the blood exchange but I scent him on you strongly. I’d say you’ve been on his blood for close to two weeks.”

What? That couldn’t be. Two weeks? That would make it—

I stopped dead where we stood, ending our macabre waltz. “Two weeks,” I repeated under my breath, taking a stumbling step away from Titus.

Two weeks.

That first Starbucks cup. On the street outside the compound.

The delicious, spicy blood. I even complimented him on the quality of it.

My head went spinny.

My ass hit the ground.

That was why I’d thought Julian’s blood tasted familiar.

Itwasfamiliar. He’d been dosing me with it almost since our first meeting.

Hands on me. Murmuring, rumbling.

I shoved them away. “Keep your lying hands off me!” I yelled.

I picked myself off the ground, still unable to see my own hand in front of my face.

And then I heard it. The name I’d been listening for throughout this whole horror show.

“Sunny Rivers, assistant to King Julian of Laurel Cove.”

“Sunny,” I whispered and turned toward the voice.

I don’t know if whatever strange magic or compulsion finally let me loose or if it was simply my fierce desire to see Sunny coming down the stairs that saved me from the nightmare, but my vision finally cleared.

She looked divine in her golden dress. She didn’t quite glow like the rest of us under the moonlight, but Sunny still held her own in a courtyard full of vamps.

She made it down the first two steps and then everything happened in slow motion.

Her foot hit the same wobbly spot on the step as mine, and Sunny’s ankle gave out, breaking one of the straps holding her foot in her heels.

She stumbled.

And before I could get to her, Sunny fell down the stairs.

The crack of each bone hitting the slate and snapping brought bile to my throat.

Until the final, loudest snap of Sunny’s neck breaking as she landed on the ground.

No. No.

She didn’t want this.

She didn’t want this!

Someone kept screaming it over and over as I crawled to her. Who else knew Sunny didn’t want to turn?

“Sunny, please.” I cradled her head in my lap, sobbing, my breaths coming in great, heaving waves.

“I’m so sorry, Sunny.”

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