If Forge thought he could just pop out from some dark corner and I’d be able to keep a straight face, he was wrong, because the longer I wandered through the empty house, the more freaked out I became. Seriously, who did this sort of thing? It was almost cruel.
By the time I’d made my second pass with no sign of him, I figured Forge could just find me. I headed to the library, or to where I remembered the library being. Because my sense of direction is shit, I ended up back at the greenhouse that wasn’t really a greenhouse at all, more of an empty snow globe. Tonight, the moon was rising just over the top of the tree line.
The slight prickling at the base of my neck returned, and was the only thing that prepared me for what came next. About the time I realized I wasn’t alone, a vampire forced their way inside my head. For what it was worth, my shield stayed in place as the squirmy feeling wiggled through my brain. I slapped a hand to my forehead to stave off the no-holds-barred aggression behind the incursion.
“Jeez, Forge. Enough already. That hurts.”
Thankfully, I remembered to school my face into something other than a grimace of pain before I turned around. If Forge saw anything on my face except a blank mask, I’d never make it to Scotland.
The vampire filling up the doorway was indistinct, a misty form that was more a collection of shadows than an actual physical being. A low, malevolent chuckle issued from the center of the dark shadow, which was most definitely not Forge.
As the trespasser wormed his way further inside my head, I fought back, bracing my defenses like they were my only hope of survival. In response, the pain intensified, knives raking over my skull until I was sure that my brain was being eaten away by little white squiggly things. While my face remained perfectly blank, I was very much afraid, and fear instilled me with enough strength to keep this intruder out.
“Who the hell are you?” I managed, trying to mask the tremor in my words.
“Look at the little human. You’re able to keep me out of your head. Has Bastian been giving you lessons?” Just the tone of his voice told me I was in terrible trouble. It was clinically curious, but at the same time, completely devoid of humanity. “Do you belong to him, girl?”
I don’t belong to anyone, you creeper, I wanted to say, but the words got jumbled up in my throat by terror.
I blinked, and he’d cut the distance between us in half. While I didn’t want him this close to me, I got a better look at him. His coloring was light, and not just his smooth, pallid skin. Where Forge’s darkness contrasted with his skin, this vampire was completely devoid of color; his hair was almost white, while his nearly colorless eyes seemed to swallow the moonlight.
“Where is Forge?” I demanded, realizing too late that if this creature was inside the house, with no Forge in sight, I was in some serious shit. “Again, who the hell are you and why are you in this house?”
“Disrespectful little human,” the vampire growled, gliding further into the greenhouse, as if he didn’t have actual feet. Totally unnerving effect, and one I hoped to never experience again. Between scrambling to shield my precious brain from his painful incursion, and my entire body freezing in fear, I was pretty sure these would be my final breaths.
He’d almost reached me when Forge’s deep voice cut through the silence. “Do not take another step, Dobson.”
“Forge. Thank God,” I muttered, half pissed at him. Of course this was a setup—I should have expected him to pull something like this. What I hated even more was the impulse to throw my arms around him in gratitude. “For your information, this was a really stupid test.”
“This isn’t part of the test, Selena. Do not move a muscle.”
Indeed, neither me nor the strange vampire had moved since Forge appeared. Me, because I’d been pretty certain I was about to become dinner. Watching the stranger’s face, it was apparent that was what he was thinking about, since he eyed me like a side of beef, licking his grey-tinted lips.
“If you take one more step, Dobson, I’ll rip your head off and leave you outside for the sun to turn to dust.” Forge’s voice was thrumming with violence as he took a step closer to the two of us.
Not a test. Forge’s warning finally registered. This vampire was not part of the test, and given how he was looking at me… A ripple of fear shivered through me, and Dobson refocused with preternatural intent.
“You have two seconds to dematerialize. If you aren’t gone, we’ll do this the hard way,” Forge said, his voice booming in the enclosed space. Dobson hissed like he was an actual snake, which sounded so wrong coming out of his mouth.
Right before my eyes, the person—vampire—disappeared into thin air, leaving me alone with Forge, my mouth hanging open once again. I snapped it shut, pissed that I’d probably blown my chance at Scotland.
I was so busy looking at the empty spot where Dobson had disappeared that I barely felt Forge touch my shoulder. “Selena, are you all right?” he asked, and for once, I could read his face—it was taut with anger, but lurking in his eyes was something that looked like concern. When his hand closed around my arm, I realized how badly I was shaking.
“I… Yeah, I think so. I’m not…” Shit, now that the threat was gone, my body was going through some kind of adrenaline-fueled reaction, as my stomach cramped up and the shaking grew steadily worse.
“Did he get into my head?” I demanded
