Page 4

Then it’s just me, Marcus, and Casimir.

My stomach sinks to somewhere near the street below.

When I chance a glance at Casimir, his face is hard. But it’s Marcus who gets the next word in.

“I thought you had better taste, brother.”

Casimir’s expression tightens at the use of the wordbrother, but he doesn’t say anything as Marcus continues.

“I wouldn’t have expected this little blood bag to hold any interest for you.”

I feel like I’m going to puke.Blood bag. A vampire groupie, essentially. A human to be used and discarded.

“Especially considering what she’s after. A bloodbond, isn’t it, Ophelia? That’s what you wanted from—”

“Enough.” Casimir’s harsh order cuts through the night.

Marcus’s mouth snaps shut, and he gives me one more derisive glance before he chuckles and shakes his head. “I’llleave you to it. Hope you have better luck with this one, Ophelia.”

Blood rushes in my ears as I watch him go, and stains my cheeks with hot shame.

The door into the building closes behind Marcus, leaving me and Casimir alone once more. But there’s no more magic in the night. No sea of stars below us. Nothing but heavy, uncomfortable silence.

Casimir turns his gaze on me, hard and flat. “Ophelia? Care to explain?”

I open my mouth, then close it, reaching for some way to excuse Marcus’s accusation.

Only to come up completely empty.

Marcus is an ass. A cocky, arrogant ass. I never should have gone near him, never should have let myself get involved, never should have lost my head over a handsome face and all those muscles.

And I especially never should have insinuated I would be open to a bloodbond with him.

It was stupid, a mistake, and he all but laughed in my face when I told him. Like I was so far beneath him the very idea of it was offensive.

I don’t really blame him. At least not for that part.

If I’d thought it through for more than five seconds, I would have never said a word to him. I would have known that in no possible world would I ever want to be bound to a guy like him. But after three tequila shots and a night of feeling abandoned by my sister as she went off chasing the woman who might just be her own bloodbound one day, I’d been sloppy, careless, spoken without thinking.

So now, trying to come up with a way to explain myself, I can’t.

I watch as Casimir’s expression shutters even further. I shiver at the cool rush of night air between us as he steps away, and panic rises in the back of my throat at the hard, ancient, displeased glint in his crimson eyes.

2

Casimir

A fool.

That’s what I am.

A godsdamned fool to have looked at this woman and wanted. To have breathed her intoxicating scent deep into my lungs and hungered. To have thrown care and caution to the wind and gotten close to her.

A shiver wracks Ophelia’s frame, and the immediate instinct to shield her from the bite in the night air, to put my body close enough to hers that no breath of wind would touch her, is another damning failure.

I should have known better.

How many nights have I spoken to her, seen her across a crowded room and been drawn to her like a moth to a flame?