Page 43 of Blood

Pain.

So much pain.

It’s everywhere. Consuming me. Biting at me. Raking its poison-tipped claws down my spine.

Violet... Jack says weakly.

My precious treasure!

And then I’m aware of nothing but darkness.

CHAPTER 16

VIOLET

Hell’s prison has a waiting room.

It’s surprisingly cozy, with plush white couches that line the far wall and a few cushioned chairs opposite it. A demon mans the receptionist desk, her long fingernails clacking obnoxiously as she types on a computer.

The demons in Hell are...interesting, to say the least.

I’ve only seen a few during my time here, but they all look relatively similar. Lucifer sure does believe in conformity down below.

The receptionist, for example, is what you’d get if you took a woman and skinned her alive. Her red, patchy flesh looks particularly brutal under the fluorescent lights. Two horns erupt from the top of her head, curling slightly like a ram’s. They’re black as pitch and quite literally refract any and all light. Her face is just as grotesque—two nostrils where a nose should be, lips stitched into a perpetual smile, and bulging eyes that remind me distinctly of a frog. She has long fingernails as well, though it appears as if she painted them. I see pink and purple stripes adorning each of her five-inch nails.

Memphis arrives from a back room, dips his chin respectfully at the receptionist, and then turns toward me.

“We’re ready.”

Restless anticipation skitters across my flesh like an army of beetles. My hands are suddenly slick with sweat, yet none of that moisture can find its way into my mouth. It’s as dry as a motherfucking desert.

Alex glares at Memphis but doesn’t protest as I amble to my feet and walk toward the door.

This is it, I mentally tell myself. You can do this. You’re a strong, independent woman and the mother-effing Queen of Hell.

Even as I think that, fear threatens to strangle me. It’s a type of terror so visceral that it cuts me to the bone.

I don’t want to die.

I’m not ready to.

And yet...

“Violet, you don’t have to do this,” Alex begs for the one millionth time in the last hour. “We can find another way.”

“You can’t,” Memphis singsongs.

“Not fucking helping!”

“Alex...” I pause and turn to face the brooding necromancer. In the bright, artificial lighting of the prison’s hallway, Alex’s face appears even paler than usual. His cheeks are sunken, and dark circles mar the skin beneath both of his eyes. It looks as if he’s aged ten years in a span of ten minutes, and my heart cracks down the middle. “I’ll be okay.”

“How can you be sure?” He doesn’t yell the question. It’s a broken whimper from a broken man who doesn’t know quite what to do with the emotions percolating inside of him.

That fissure down the center of my heart expands and grows.

“Because I’m Violet motherfucking Dracula,” I say determinedly, refusing to allow him to see my own fear. “And I refuse to fade away.”

Alex snorts. “Even if you die, you’ll never fade away. You’re too damn stubborn for that.”

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