Page 25 of Fated Blood

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“You remember that time we ran away from the castle to pick blackberries? You said they were your favorite berries when you were a human, but June wouldn’t let us pick any?”

Fayla’s voice wakes me, and I roll off the wall with a groan and peer through the hole. She’s wearing her nightgown again, but it’s suspiciously shorter. I rub my eyes, trying to see clearly, and gasp.

She has Mara’s hands through the bars and tied with her ripped-off nightgown. Fayla’s leaning up against the bars, talking to her dead friend as if nothing has changed. The creature just snarls and gnashes its teeth, trying everything it can to get a bite of her.

“We were gone for hours, picking the berries and throwing them at each other. By the time they found us, our skin was so stained it wouldn’t come out in the bath.”

Fayla laughs, a musical and delightful sound. Then her voice changes, and she reaches through the bars and grabs her friend’s chin to make her jaw move.

“June never let me live it down,” Fayla says, pretending it's Mara talking. “She didn’t let me come back to your place for a week!”

“I know, Mara! It was so mean!”

“Have you lost your ever-loving mind?” I ask loudly, startling her. “Get your hands away from that thing! You have no sense of self-preservation!”

“I’m going to die anyway, right? What do you care?” She shrugs.

I roll my eyes. “Die quieter!”

“Remember when we talked about love at first sight?” Fayla says, turning back to Mara and twisting her hair around her finger. “You said you believed in it, I said I wanted to. I found out the hard way it’s all a lie. No matter how good it feels, they will turn on you. Want to watch you die.”

“Oh my god!” I roar, slamming my fists on the stones.

“They’ll make you feel so good, Mara. Like you’re going to come apart at the seams with emotion, and just like that, those soft fingers want to wrap around your throat and squeeze.”

“If you’d told me who you were to begin with, that never would have happened!” I growl.

She looks at me and scoffs. “Your dad’s responsible for the slaughter of my family, that's why I’m the leader of the Blood Knights,” she mocks my voice, and I grind my teeth. “And I’m supposed to follow that up with, oh yeah, I’m a vampire. His daughter, in fact?”

“This is worse than being tortured…”

“Good, I’m glad you're uncomfortable. I’m still the same person I was when you promised to save me, but you? I don’t know who you are.”

Her words wound me in ways I never thought possible. In that, she isn’t lying. She hasn’t changed her behavior at all. She’s still the Fayla she presented herself to be. Meanwhile I’ve turned on her completely.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you can turn off your feelings like that, Sebastian. Look at me and tell me it all meant nothing!”

Her voice is closer, begging and pleading. When I look back through the hole, we’re practically nose to nose. “It all meant nothing,” I say with a straight face, and watch her beautiful features crumble.

“Liar…” she whispers.

She’s not wrong. I’m lying. The feelings are still there, how could they not be? But how can I let myself feel them, knowing who she is?

“It all meant so little to me that I can tell you how I’d kill you, if I could get through this blasted wall!” I snap.

She laughs at me. “Oh yeah? What would you do, big tough vampire slayer?”

“I’d strangle you. You’re so weak right now, how could you stop me?”

“And if I bite you? What then?”

“You’d never get that close!” She’s pissing me off. There’s no way she’d ever sink her teeth into me. “I’d filet you alive, Fayla, let you see each piece of your skin as I rip it off you.”

“With what knife?”

“I’d do it with my bare hands!”

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