Page 62

His eyes finally finished their long journey to mine and I balked at what I saw in them. Heat. Obsession. Not a small amount of lust that made me want to pee the pants I was not wearing. That obsession ran borderline with crazy, and him fixating on me in a sick way was the last thing I needed in my life right now or, better yet,ever.

"We bled you," Adrian shared in a hushed, excited voice. If anything, his eyes got even brighter, more excited, at this admission. "We're all riding the high of your magic mingled with ours. It was so intense that you weren't the only one to lose consciousness. Three others did as well, and the rest of us were brought to our knees. Only Marcus held it together enough to undress you and put you in the tub. Someone else had to cut you because he wasn't able to stomach that given his feelings toward you. No matter though, it got done. Now that you're awake, we'll move on to the next level."

He sent a weird, out of his mind smile my way, and I found myself with the urge to puke again. Marcus Cole, a man I once upon a time thought of like a father, undressed me until I was buck naked and placed me in this stupid bathtub. There was a good chance we weren't going to be able to be friends after this, and not only because he'd seen all of my special girl parts that made me a girl.

That shit was not cool.

The fact Marcus would take my clothes off at all was a gross violation of my person that we would never come back from no matter what kind of moves he made to try and earn back my trust. I wasn't sure what to do with this, but I did know one thing for certain, and that was if he didn't try and make those moves then I'd be done with him for forever.

Make no mistake, that would be the end of Marcus Cole and me.

Rain would rejoice.

But me?

My heart would be broken. The type of broken heart you would never be able to fully mend, because you'd always know there was a piece of you missing, and without it you would never function the same again and forever be doomed to walk with a limp.

"Now," Adrian said, tearing me out of my wretched thoughts, "we are going to bleed for you, and you're going to feel it when it's all mixed together. Then we'll wrap it up with the sacrifice, tying us all together. I can't wait to get that done."

I was not mixing my blood with any of these crazy people.

And I wasn't...

Hold up.

Did he say sacrifice?

"Uhh, Adrian?" I mumbled uncomfortably. "I'm not going to be down with watching you people"—I kept going, despite the dirty, angry glare he gave me— "slit the throat of some poor chicken or goat. Maybe—"

He cut me off. He did this by weirdly stating, "I'll go first." And then he stood up straight, shrugged off his heavy robe, and stood before the foot of the tub completely naked.

Here we go again.

Geez.

He held up a knife in one of his hands that I had not noticed before. The edge of the knife was pressed into the middle of his upturned wrist. The knife dug in. Blood bloomed and Adrian did not hesitate to drag the blade all the way up to his elbow.

I stared in shock.

Dear God, that had to hurt like a bitch. Adrian acted like he was a man on his own and nothing ever gave him any sort of pain. He had to be in agony, but he didn't so much as twitch.

Adrian held his arm up over the bathtub and myself. He held his pudgy arm over my feet and blood rained down on me. It ran off my ankles and feet, slipping down to mix with my own blood that was the only thing in the tub beside my body.

Adrian's blood mixed with mine and his arm immediately began to heal. What in the holy hell was up with that?

I looked down at my entirely healed wrists and my body belatedly started to tremble. Had I been cut up that badly?

Another mark against them, and another one I would not ever be able to forgive or forget.

Adrian and I stared at each other in silence for several long minutes, and it was safe to say the whole time had not been a comfortable silence.

The snide, irrational part of my brain raged about how unfair it seemed that he only had to cut one arm when it looked like they had sliced open both of mine.

Adrian swayed on his feet and stumbled to the side. He threw his head back and laughed maniacally. Someone bumped into him from the side and grabbed a hold of his bicep. He was dragged away and another robed figure took his place at the end of the bathtub. Their hood remained up, but the front gaped open wide, exposing things I really did not need to see.

He pulled a knife out of the pocket of his robe and dragged the long sleeve up past his elbow. He lifted his arm and held it out over the bathtub. The knife kissed the skin at his wrist and he easily sliced his forearm open wide. I winced because it had to have hurt, just like Adrian's had to have hurt him too, but neither of them acted like it.

I guessed they were still riding the high of our magic mixing together. Yet another thing that gave me the creeps about this.