Page 58

“I’ve got no lover, sir,” I insisted. “But you need to go back to your own room, sir!”

“You’re a fucking liar, little Bob!” he snarled, baring his fangs. “Your lover’s stench is all over you, and it has replaced my mark on you!”

“Your imprint didn’t stick,” I said. “It never does because no one can mark me.”

It was the truth. I ate magic, curses, spells, and ownership claims like candies and asked for seconds, but he wouldn’t understand my ability and nature.

“I won’t allow anyone to poach you!” he spat. “I dare them! I saved you, and you belong to me and my house. Time to learn to be loyal, little Bob! Your days of shenanigans are over. I won’t tolerate your stupidity and insolence anymore!”

He lunged before I could jump off the bed. Faster than a flash, his fangs sank into the main vein in my neck as he drank, fast and furious. He didn’t even savor it like before. He took my blood into him as if it were a fountain of a god’s nectar.

I felt my strength fading, an alarm blaring in my head.

“Stop, sir,” I called.

He wouldn’t stop.

He pinned me down with his brutal vampire strength and drank faster from my vein, his power increasing rapidly as he took that much blood. The vampire prince was now drunk on my power.

I knew the feeling. He felt invincible.

He wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t, as he was lost to his bloodlust. No one else’s blood could offer him that kind of high. My blood was more addictive than any drugs.

It was almost like Ruin was feeding on me again, except instead of pain, pleasure rippled through me from his potent venom, and thus I was in worse danger.

“Fuck off!” I yelled.

He couldn’t hear me anymore, lost to bloodlust and the power trip he got from my blood. He was going to drain me. I shoved him away, but he clung to me with his vise-grip. I elbowed him and punched him to no avail. He was like an unmovable rock. With his power reaching its pinnacle, boosted by my blood, and me weakened from losing blood, I couldn’t shake him off me.

Sy roared, trying to surface, but Louis’s venom prevented her from breaking out of my skin. Even if she could take over, at this point, she was no match for the vampire prince. I could try and suck the magic of the house into me to stop him, but once I did, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to stop.

I reached for my pillow, my fingers curving around the hilt of Deathsong. He didn’t like my struggling, so he yanked me against him roughly, his fangs sinking even deeper into my vein, as if he’d found eternal sunshine within.

His nostrils flared at my scent. His fangs started to tear my flesh.

It was the last straw.

I rammed the dagger into his chest, then twisted the blade to inflict more pain, so his bloodlust-muddled mind would register.

Louis howled. His fangs dropped from my neck. I shoved him, and he went down.

It all happened so fast.

The vampire prince stared up at me from the floor by the bed, shock on his face, his hand clutching the hilt of the dagger buried in his chest. The haze of bloodlust cleared slowly from his pale blue eyes.

“You stabbed me,” he murmured weakly. “I kept thinking of you even when I was away.”

Even now, he was disgusted with himself at being drawn to me, a servant boy. He’d had this dark, possessive lust toward me the moment he’d tasted a drop of my blood, and that had been his downfall right from the beginning.

Dark blood oozed out of his chest. I hadn’t aimed for his heart.

I breathed laboriously, my head dizzy, my vision dancing gold from losing too much blood.

“You’ll live, prince,” I said. “The blood you took from me will make sure of it, but I won’t be here when you wake up. I’ll send Drusilla for you.”

“Don’t go, little Bob,” he pleaded. “I won’t retaliate. I—I wasn’t myself.”

“We’re done,” I told him. “Don’t ever come for me.”