I smile half-heartedly at his joke, then shake my head, glancing around at the feast that’s still going on around us. “I don’t think I’m allowed to leave. Am I?”
He drapes an arm over my shoulder and leads me off the dance floor. “Let me tell you a secret, Darcy. As long as you’re with a vampire, you can go wherever he takes you. And I’m fixin’ to take you to your room.”
“Oh. Um, okay.”
I shoot Nathan one last glance as Connor steers me toward the door. My brother doesn’t look gray or clammy anymore, but he doesn’t look healthy either. His eyes are too bright and his skin is all flushed, the way he gets when he’s been popping prescription amphetamines. I have to wonder again if they’ve been feeding his addictions while he feeds theirs.
Leaving the noise and blood behind us as we step out into the corridor doesn’t help my mood at all. I want to run back in there and start taking monsters apart. Sure, I don’t have my blades, but there were forks and knives on the tables. Even if they’re just butter knives, I could do plenty of damage considering the amount of raw fury coursing through my veins. I can’t remember the last time I walked away from a fight, and I don’t like how it feels. Like surrender and passivity, like I’m becoming the woman I’m only supposed to be pretending to be.
I hate it.
Even more than that, I hate that I’m finding some semblance of comfort in Connor’s mindless chatter.
“Okay, so I think we turn right here. I turned left once and ended up in some kind of armory, but it was like this medieval armory?” He chuckles. “I guess some of the vampires here like to keep things from their earlier lives or something. It’s weird, right? Immortality? And the way some people cling to the past, even if that past was hundreds of years ago. I mean, I’m pretty sure Bastian is older than dirt, but he doesn’t look it, does he?”
“I guess he doesn’t,” I murmur absently. The hairs on the back of my neck are sticking up, but they’ve been at attention all damn day. What I need is a good, bloody battle followed by a whole lot of raucous sex, but that’s exactly what I can’t do. Trying to stop my mind from churning, I tune back in to Connor’s stream of chatter.
“—and I know you guys have kitchens and things back here, but the main kitchen makes some killer dishes.”
Poor choice of phrasing, I think, but I keep my mouth closed.
“Like, they make this little fruit tart thing? It’s tiny, but it’s got more flavors in it than anything I’ve ever tasted before. It’s fucking amazing. I mean, I don’t really need to eat food anymore—it kind of makes my stomach hurt for a while, honestly—but damn, some of the things they put together are totally worth the pain.” He grins at me, and I smile back at him.
I’m only playing a part, even though the smile came spontaneously. That just means I’m getting better at my role, right?
Eventually, after a few wrong turns and retracing our footsteps a couple times, we find my door. I open it cautiously. I wasn’t given a key, so I assume courtesy is the only thing keeping other people out, and I’ve never relied on other people’s courtesy for anything. I’m definitely not going to count on manners keeping me safe in a den of vampires.
A quick glance is enough to assure me that the room is clear. It will take a closer inspection to assure me that no one’s gone through it, but I can do that after Connor leaves.
“I hope you feel better soon,” he tells me, sincerity shining from his big brown eyes.
“Thank you.” Weirdly enough, I sort of mean it. I can’t trust him, but he did get me out of that fucking great hall.
He squeezes my hand and grins. “It’ll get easier. I promise. Goodnight, Darcy.”
“Goodnight.”
Damn his charming face. He turns and walks away, but shoots a parting glance over his shoulder. I stare after him, unable to look away. He ambles like a man, like a human, without the practiced grace or hunter’s gait I’m used to seeing. If I saw him on the street, I wouldn’t even think to follow him.
Once he disappears around a corner, I step all the way into my room and shut the door firmly, pressing my back to it.
Don’t get confused, Mikka. He’s a vampire. A monster like the rest of them. Don’t lose sight of that.
The image of Nathan getting snacked on pops into my head, and I have to pin myself to the door to keep from opening it and racing through the halls to find Beatrice and lop off her fucking head.
Adrenaline courses through me, making my hands shake with unspent energy.
Dammit.
This is going to be so much harder than I thought.
Chapter Ten
I spend the next several hours carefully pulling my weapons out of my dress and hand-stitching the lining back together. I try to fix the wardrobe drawer to hide my things, but it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. After a few rather loud mishaps, I decide to hide the weapons in the hollow space beneath the drawer instead, though they’re much more difficult to get to in a hurry.
Of course, the only reason I would need to get to them in a hurry is if someone identified me as an assassin, which they would only do if they found the weapons, so they’re
