Page 77 of A Vow of Shadow and Blood

Athriel.I call out his name in desperation, but I sense an apprehension that has never come from him in all the years that we have been together.

I cannot,he whispers as if telling himself rather than me.Something is preventing me.

My stomach drops as realization dawns and the delicious sensation of the bite takes over. The hands that were once tryingto push the prince away pull him closer. I am disgusted with myself, yet I cannot stop. A strange pull is making me long for his bite. If he drained me right now, I wouldn’t even care. I would die in blissful pleasure.

Without warning, the prince pulls away, stumbling back as though he, too, is as enamored by the feeling of the bite as I am. Surprise is etched onto every inch of his face as he looks down at his arms and hands.

The healthy glow has returned to his skin, and his body has filled back out to its deadly size. My eyes widen. I’ve watched vampires feed many times, but the effects of our blood have never been that fast.

He turns to glance at the girl again. “You were right,” he all but whispers.

A smile splits her face, and her grip on the book eases.

“What now?” he asks.

Her eyes flit down to the text in her hands, and she scans across the words at speed. I watch the exchange, and confusion fills me. What the hell is happening?

“You must complete the bond by partaking in the ritual of bindings. Otherwise, it will mean certain death for both of you.”

“In Kalish, please, Iza,” he says.

“Sorry, Your Majesty. You must feed her your blood.”

I shake my head and move back a couple of steps, but my back slams into a hard wall of flesh. I turn to find Eamon looking down at me, thunder swirling in his eyes. He nudges me back toward the prince, where I find him biting into his own wrist.

“I’m not drinking your blood,” I hiss.

He ignores me.

Crimson red blood trickles down his arm as he moves quickly in front of me. Before I can question him, he presses his wrist firmly against my lips, filling my mouth with the heat of his blood. I try to fight, but Eamon holds me in place. A muffledscream leaves my mouth, sending threats of violence, but the screams turn to moans as the caress of his blood fills me, stroking every inch of my body in a sensation that has my head falling back on Eamon’s chest and my eyes fluttering closed. I curse myself for giving in again. I have never drunk vampire blood. It’s not something I’ve ever known to be done, and yet I feel a rush of euphoria swelling through my veins.

The prince pulls away, and I can feel the cuts in my skin knitting themselves together and the ache of the bruises beginning to fade. The weakness that kept me fragile dissipates as the weight returns to my body. I look up at the prince, my mind reeling from the entire exchange.

“That’s impossible,” I whisper, but he’s staring at my arm like it just grew a head. I follow his line of vision and almost scream when I find a strange black pattern wrapping around my upper arm. I wipe at it, but it doesn’t budge.

“What did you do? What is this?” I scream, but the prince is too busy ripping the tunic from his body, revealing a rippled chest of muscles. His eyes trace over his own arm, and right there in the same spot as mine is an identical mark that wraps around his bicep.

Ajax comes to stand beside me, his eyes flitting from me to the prince as though we’re both insane.

“I don’t understand. I can’t see anything,” he says.

The girl with the white hair, the one the prince called Iza, steps forward. A slight smile of wonder curves her lips upwards as her eyes dance between me and the prince.

“You won’t,” she says. “Onlytheycan see the marks, that’s what makes them so special.”

Her words seem to awaken something in the prince, and an actual growl falls from his mouth.

“There is nothing special about this.” He stares at me with an anger that causes me to take a step back, and then he looks at someone over my shoulder. “Get that little witch away from me.”

His voice booms through the room, and nobody dares to disobey. As much as I crave answers, I keep my mouth firmly shut, knowing it would be foolish to push him now.

A firm hand grips my arm, and then I find myself disappearing into a mass of darkness once again.

Since the prince demanded I be removed from his sight, I was taken back to the room I had first been brought to when I arrived. I waited until after dinner to make my escape. Dinner was brought to me by one of the palace servants before the familiar sound of someone locking my door filled the silent room. It was then that I leaped from the bed, making my way to the bathroom and squeezing through the stupidly small window.

Scaling the wall had been nothing like sneaking out of the bloodhouse. For one, it is ten times the size, and two, there was barely anything to hold on to. In the end, I decided to use an old pipe that trailed the entire length of the wall to climb down. The plan was going well until the damned thing started to detach from the wall, almost causing me to plummet to my death. I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast in my life.

And now I’m hiding in the shadows of the bushes that decorate the lower edges of the castle as I search the darkness for guards. It’s been a few minutes, and I’ve seen no one. I need to take my chance now.