Clothes shuffle, and my suspicious nature thwarts my efforts to sleep. I taste the air and realize his musk is close. Too close. When I open my eyes, Riven is kneeling before me, eyes fixated on my shrouded face. His chin is up. Throat exposed.
Bloodlust rises at his supplicant posture, and now I can’t stop breathing in his scent. It’s not attraction, it’s hunger. My arm strikes and my hand covers his throat. It’s not as harsh a squeeze as with the student in the hall, but Riven’s posture is steadfast.
“Why?” My voice is a rasp. “What do you want?” I fight with disbelief and rage that he would manipulate me in such a way.
“I need you alert.” He remains calm in my grasp.
It makes sense now. The summons to the school, during the day. Hell, I bet he staged the bout with Harlow so I’d be on edge and agree to anything for a taste of fresh blood.
My throat runs dry and saliva drips down my elongated canine teeth. “Alert? You think staging this bullshit merely makes me alert? It doesn’t! It makes me mindless!” I let out a harsh laugh. “Whatever it is you’re asking of me, I hope it’s worth risking your life.” My words slur against the lake of drool collecting in my mouth.
“If you kill me, who would run the school? Certainly not you.” He smirks as if he’s won this round. But then his friendly demeanor falls, and I see the real Riven. The one with sorrow in his eyes and a face drawn in pain.
“What the bloody hell do you want, Riven?”
“What I’m asking of you is bigger than me. Bigger than you.”
Damn a heartbeat. “Then…” I breathe, trying to control the squirming monster that wants to feed. “…ask.”
“There’s a student coming.” His lips are tight and drawn thin. “I need you to protect her.”
Through the haze of blood lust, I hear student and protect. “I already protect them. I’m the benefactor of this school, as you are quite aware.” But my higher brain function is shutting down. All I can really hear is Riven’s steady pulse.
“Jean-Claude,” Riven says, but I hear the word for the shout of mercy it is. I move in a split-second and throw him to the hearth stone slab beneath me. He doesn’t fight me, but rights himself, still on his knees. “She needs to stay with you.”
“What?” I shake my head, trying to clear my mind.
Blood.
The cup beside me is filled with O negative, but it’s nothing to the warm liquid in Riven’s veins. And he knows this. Thus, I cannot understand why he taunts me. Why he throws this temptation in my face. I say as much.
He looks up at me from where he kneels at my feet. “I need to know you’re strong enough.”
On top of everything else, he’s testing me? I throw the damn goblet into the fire. The shatter of glass is gratifying, but it’s not enough. My head aches. My tongue writhes in anger, as if it has a mind of its own. And my stomach folds in on itself. Cold shudders wreck my spine. It has been a while since I’ve fed. I will need to visit Annabell as soon as I return, much though I prefer not to. But it has been too long.
Anger is a visceral thing, replacing the stinging taste of want in my mouth. Fuck Riven! In one step, I lift him off the floor by his pretty blue lapels and shove my hate into his face. I want to tell him many things, but I settle for the kindest.
“If you want to resign, then just tell me.”
Riven smiles. He’s not afraid of me. Fucking bastard.
“Her name is Everly and I have signed you up to be her host family. She is scheduled to arrive tonight.”
THREE♀♥♂♂♂♂JEAN-CLAUDE
At first, I have no idea what he’s talking about. “A host? You want me to be…what?”
“A host family.”
“I am not familiar with the term.”
I set him down and back up a step. I am confused, angry, and ready to chalk this experience up to one of Riven’s games.
Ha-ha. Look how the shadow demon has the great Jean-Claude at his beck and call.
“She’s going to need protection, Count.”
The use of my title snaps me back to attention.
“Please,” Riven is shaking. Hurt stabs his eyes. He feels everything he is doing to me. The betrayal I feel. The turmoil. Everything.
“I don’t understand you, Riven.” He can’t see my face, but he can hear my voice and feel my pain. Yet he is the one to grimace at my words.
I don’t blame him. I’ve spoken the most hateful sentence anyone from Dread can say to another. Understanding one another is the basis for our survival. A vampire can be seen as a bloodthirsty monster or as a predator who simply needs to eat in order to survive. Same with a shadow demon. One could see them as nasty little sadists that wreak havoc on the world. Or they can be seen as creatures feeding on pain, but with so much in the world, they have to expel that pain somewhere.
Riven waits for me with his calm, unblinking stare.
My head aches, my body runs hot and cold, and all I can do for my mental capacity is tie a knot at the end of my rope and hold on.
“I need her, Jean-Claude. The school needs her.”
“Why?”
He swallows hard. “I’m not at liberty to say… just yet.” He glances around himself, as though the walls have ears. Perhaps they do.
“What do you want of me? What does this host family do?”
“Take her in and provide her room and board, Jean-Claude.”
“That’s it?”
He nods
