Page 74 of A Dream of Stars and Curses

‘Where shall I bite you next, hm?’ Chiara’s hand runs from the wound to the front of my neck. ‘Sadly, a bite to your throat would kill you too fast, and you don’t deserve a quick death.’ Her hand gently glides down my neck to my breasts, my sides, my belly, my inner thighs. Her eyes meet mine, and her lips curl into a smile. ‘I know.’ She grabs my wrist and brings it up so it’s between our faces. ‘Watch me drain the life from your veins, you sad creature.’

My legs go weak when her fangs extend.

Mischief—

But my spirit kitty doesn’t respond. I hope it’s because she’s busy helping me.

Chiara brings her mouth to my wrist and licks the skin. My whole body goes rigid. I can’t let her bite me again, I just can’t. I try to wriggle my hand free, but her grip is too strong.

She laughs, her breath warm against my skin. One fang grazes my veins. Everything around me blurs. My heart beats too fast. No no no no n—

Chiara pierces the skin.

I scream.

I shove at Chiara with my arm still attached to her.

And a burst of bright, green-yellow energy slams into her face. The force of it rips her fangs out of me and shoves me back against the wall at the same time that Chiara stumbles backwards down the stairs, her eyes wide with shock. Mine mirror hers. I’ve no idea how deep the puncture wounds are. Not very, I don’t think. I don’t know how badly she’s hurt, or how quickly she might catch herself. All I know is that she loses her footing as her heel slides off the step, and then she’s falling.

I don’t stay to check her pulse. I turn around and run.

I stumble out of the basement, nearly falling over my own feet in my panic to get away from Chiara.

‘The fuck did I just do?’ I ask Mischief as I run into the first room I find.

‘More running, less complaining!’ Mischief shoots back. ‘We can talk later!’

I sense through our connection that she isn’t sure, either. She clearly did something that allowed me to push Chiara away from me, but that’s all I know. It almost looked like magic, but that can’t be right. Learning from Kate is one thing—that’s magick anyone can do. This, though... My stomach turns when I remember how Chiara lost her footing and fell backwards down the stairs. She was a horrible person and I defended myself, but...

‘Esta!’ Mischief hisses at me. ‘Focus!’

I swallow every question and worry I have and make a mad dash through the house. The basement opened into a corridor. The first room I try is a bathroom, the next looks like a laundry room. I’m silently amazed that Chiara has need for either, but I suppose she’d have a lot of bloodstains to wash out—and that’ll be me all across the floor tiles if I don’t hurry. I can’t decide if I want her to be dead and therefore incapable of coming after me, or if I want her to be okay because I can’t rationalise having killed someone—either way, she might catch up with me any second now.

‘Oh, thank fuck,’ I sigh when I find the front door. I all but throw myself at it and push down the handle.

It doesn’t budge. The door is locked.

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