“We don’t call them slaves anymore,” the man beside Tyresius murmurs to him.
“Perhaps that’s the problem,” Tyresius grumbles. “No sense of propriety anymore. I won’t argue any longer. Turn her.”
“No!” A harsh, panicked voice rises up from the back of the room, and I whip my head around in time to see Connor run into the council chambers.
My heart feels like it might collapse in on itself as joy and anguish mix within me at the sight of him. Connor. Sweet, sweet, too-human Connor.
“That’s not fair.” He shakes his head, his face stricken. “You can't do that to her!”
“Silence!” Tyresius barks.
It’s not a request, it’s an order—one that’s carried out by the guards who pull Connor back through the crowd and out of my sight, muffling his cries for justice as they drag him from the room. The fact that he still believes in justice in these vampire-infested halls hurts my heart, and I swallow hard.
He stood up for me, even though he must know by now that I’m a vampire hunter. Even though I betrayed him too, he tried to help me. But he failed, and as I’m dragged toward the Elders’ table, I pray to god they won’t kill him for trying.
I don’t think Rome is even here. Maybe he snuck off somewhere deep into the palace to be alone after he left my room. He probably won’t even hear about this until it’s already too late.
Until it’s done.
True panic builds inside me like a fucking tidal wave as I fight against the vampires holding me. I was ready for the death. I made my peace with my mortality a very long time ago. But I won’t be made a vampire. I won’t. To live on the blood of humans, to become everything I despise in the world…
No. I won’t let them.
“Get your hands off me!” I growl, kicking out with my shackled feet and flailing with my head. I knock a few of my captors off-balance, but they compensate too quickly. More vampire guards join the ones holding my arms. It takes five of them to carry me to the table. I would be smug about that if there was room for anything in my head except panic and despair.
They slam me onto the table and jerk my head to one side. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Bastian.
He’s looking away, gazing out over the crowd that has gathered, his eyes fixed on a spot on the far wall. Tyresius the ancient grins down at me, his eyes taking on a predatory glow. He slaps one cold, bony hand over my temple and presses the other into my collar bone hard enough to break it. I hear it pop and feel it give, but panic overrides the burst of pain.
His teeth sink into me. I barely feel them, sharp as they are. I barely feel anything.
Apparently dissatisfied with that, Tyresius shakes his head like a dog, ripping the veins and muscles in my neck until I cry out in pain and terror. He caught my jugular. I can feel the blood spurt out with every rapid beat of my heart, faster than he can swallow it. It spreads, warm and distant, under my head.
My face is cold.
My eyes won’t focus.
I’m pretty sure I lost my feet somewhere, and I can’t remember the last time I had them with me.
My brain is trying to find me. The room spins, first this way, then that. I want to grab hold of something, but my fingers have gone missing too.
There’s a heavy black smell between my nose and my head, and it’s spreading, spreading, taking me with it into the dark. I don’t feel anything anymore, not even panic, not even my own heartbeat.
The last murmurs of sound fade from my ears, and I drift. I should be afraid, but I don’t remember how to be.
And then…
There’s an unexpected something in the dark, a bitter flavor, stale and cold—the way a thirty-year-old refrigerator smells in the middle of summer, but in a thick syrup that slides over my tongue. I can feel my tongue. I swallow to get the taste out, and sensation returns from my throat to my belly.
I wish it hadn’t. I feel like I swallowed a car. My throat burns. I swallow again, not realizing until too late that my mouth is full of something other than spit.
The flavor changes. The old refrigerator smell dissolves into something hotter, more metallic. A desperate thirst presses hard against my chest, and I drink deeply, desperate to quench the fire, but it only serves to spread it.
I have fingers. They’re wrapped tightly around something that feels like paper-wrapped steak. My toes are back too, and there’s a drumming in my head, slow and steady and utterly maddening.
Thud, thud-thud, thud, thud-thud.
A heartbeat.
I can’t tell if it’s mine.
My eyes fly open to meet Tyresius’s. His open wrist is in my mouth, filling me with his toxic blood. I break away, coughing and sputtering, trying to throw up. My throat hurts, my neck hurts, my belly hurts, and that godforsaken throbbing in my head just won’t stop.
Tyresius fades away out of sight, but not before I catch the smug grin on his face.
I don’t have time to be upset about what just happened. There’s no room for emotions left in my body. There’s only room for pain.
The fire in my belly is spreading, consuming me cell by cell. If the pain came in waves, maybe I could deal with that, but it doesn’t. It’s slow, constant, and building. I can’t see through the tears, and I can’t hear over the sound of my own screams, but
