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“What, no hateful words to spit at me?”

“No need. You’ll be dead soon enough.”

I scoffed and shook my head. I didn’t like him, but if I would live with these vampires, I didn’t want to feel uncomfortable.

Nothing would happen with him, but I could be civil.

“Your petty comments are getting old, Jaxon Crimson. How about we agree to an impasse? Agree to disagree, we can’t get along, so let’s be civil.” He slowly looked up with his eyes narrowed oh so slightly. He didn’t like me full-naming him? Too bad.

“Over your dead corpse,” he said, words heavily accented.

My jaw hung open. I had to wrap my head around his words. Unbelievable.

“You’re not taking my olive branch?” I scoffed. “After everything you’ve done to me, you have no right to act like?—”

I clicked my teeth together. It was useless to spout moral codes at him because he wouldn’t care what I had to say, he was an asshole for one, and two, he didn’t see me as more than a pathetic blood bag, so anything I said was useless to him.

All of the others gave me, ‘sweet, adorable human’ vibes when they communicated with me. Nothing I said was truly taken seriously, and him most especially.

Tears of frustration sprang to my eyes and I stiffly pushed off the couch. I padded to the front door with the slippers Maddy had dug out of one of the boxes.

“Where are you going?” Jax snapped.

“Fuck off,” I mumbled and quickly made my escape. The hint of bravery didn’t last long. I took a few steps down until the path veered to the right, opposite from where the body had been. A small cement bench sat within the mass of roses. I plopped my ass down on the cold stone.

Dashing my hand across my cheeks, I rubbed the tears off my face. Hopefully the jerk hadn’t seen them.

I pulled my legs up to the edge of the bench and hugged them. There was something about wrapping my arms aroundmyself that calmed everything. It was the same sort of reaction I had when I was hugged in general, and the only ones that unknowingly offered that comfort were a group of vampires who didn’t take me seriously.

For someone that was never touched often, it was my fucking luck that it calmed me.

A meow reached my ears and I perked up. Binx suddenly hopped up next to me.

His head rubbed against my side and a purr started up in his chest. I sniffled again.

“There you are, Binx.” I swallowed the ball of emotion that rose to the surface again. I’d been looking for him all around the house. My guess had been right, he’d managed to slip outside.

Binx meowed again and nudged against me harder. His little paws perched on my leg, and he sniffed toward my face. I moved my head away before he got too close. I dug my fingers into the top of his head and rested my chin on my knees, staring at the bed of bushes and flowers. From this vantage, I could see over the wrought iron spikes adorning the top of the brick wall surrounding Crimson Manor.

The closest house to them had been mine before they burned it to crisp, but I could see the faint lights a mile down the road. Overgrown dried grass surrounded the outside of the gates in both directions, such a difference from the opulence of their home.

Moonlight beamed across the front of their gated garden. The stone steps reflected the pale light, making them glint. Sitting out here in the silence made everything feel a bit eerie. If I was someone who didn’t know about vampires, I’d definitely imagine them living in a manor like this.

They really should work on keeping up appearances if their goal was to hide their existence.

“Catalina?” A crisp English accent floated to my ear. The cadence falling over me like a blanket.

I jumped.

Binx seemed just as startled as he slunk away in the opposite direction of Tobias’s voice and disappeared into the flowers.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and dashed my palms across my face.

“Jaxon upset you again.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but I still shook my head and waved my hand in the air like I could swat his words away.

Pressure culminated at the base of my nose so I closed my eyes before I started bawling and inhaled the flower’s aroma.