Page 31 of Bought for Blood

Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry!

My wolf comes up and plants herself, facing the door. She doesn’t settle. She waits there, hackles up, on watch. Not that she could do much right now. Between the runes and what that animal just did to me, I can barely keep my eyes open.

“Serenity.” Kalli’s voice comes through the concrete, low.

“I’m here,” I manage.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I don’t sound fine.

A pause. “What did they do?”

I open my mouth.

A stranger fed on me. It hurt.

And the worst of it was thathewasn’t the one waiting for me. They sent me to someone else. And I’m not going to say that. Not to her. Not to anyone.

“Serenity.”

The wound beats under the tape. It hasn’t closed.

I press my hand over it, and I don’t answer her.

Chapter 12

Bastien

I hear the ward door open two floors down, and I’m standing beside the fire before I notice I’ve stood. I never stand for anyone. Tonight a lock turns in a basement, and I’m on my feet, facing the door, waiting, ignoring the fact that my hand is shaking.

It unsettles me. I stay standing anyway.

Her footsteps come up the corridor with the guard’s. Too slow. She usually hurries the last stretch, every visit, feet quickening on the carpet before she catches them and makes them behave. I’ve listened to her fight that small fight and lose it every time.

Tonight there’s no fight in the sound at all. Short, even steps.

Her heart is wrong.

Fast—it’s always fast—but high and thin tonight, no weight under it.

The door opens. She comes in and stops three steps inside the room.

“Come to the fire,” I say. “You’re cold.”

“I’m fine here.”

Flat. Aimed past me. Something in me pulls tight at the sound of it.

“I said come here.” Firmer now.

She moves toward the chair and the firelight reaches her throat.

The glass snaps in my hand.

I look down. The stem is in my fingers. The bowl is on the carpet, wine soaking dark into the wool. I never felt it break.

My gums are burning. The fangs push through on their own, wanting out. I work my jaw to hold them seated. Cold climbs my spine. Spreads through my shoulders. Down my arms. Into my hands.