Page 112 of Bonds of Starfall

She carefully sat up, feeling the skin at her neck tug from the wounds—the fuckingbite woundsfrom the vampiric prick who claimed she was his Soulbond, yet forcibly drank from her.

Rin tried not to let her anger get the best of her. Yet… not even Cyrus had fed from her by force.

If Rhyden Valkar was telling the truth, Rin didn’t think she would ever forgive him for this.

She moaned weakly as she finally stood, wavering with a hand on the bed and her head hanging low, her hair falling in her face.

"I don’t feel so good," she breathed, swallowing mid-sentence to gather her wits. Her lungs felt robbed of air, and her heart was beating so fast it felt like a hummingbird’s wings, one beat from ripping free from her chest.

The bed was covered with blood, in a pool where she had lain, with the leader of Noctis on top of her. She felt it on her, even now, sticking to her neck, coating her shirt and palms.

She looked like she had stepped out of a gory horror film.

Rin stumbled to the door, finding it locked again—of course.

She leaned her full weight on it, unable to stand upright. Her palms streaked blood across the knob as she wrenched it, muttering a curse when her vision swam.

"I have to get out of here," she slurred, feeling like the whole room was tilting as she turned, searching for… something. Anything.

The hairpin lay discarded on the floor, coated in blood. She made for it, nearly toppling forward as she bent to lift it in clammy, blood-stained palms.

The tip was sharp, and Valkar’s slowly congealing blood dripped sluggishly from it. How long had she slept?

Dazed and confused, her feet tripped over air as she fell back against the closed door, shoving the sharp tip of the hairpin intothe lock. The pointed tip was tapered, and she could not fit much inside—but it was enough to pick the lock. At least, she hoped.

Her every move was shrouded in desperation, thicker and more pressing now than ever before.

For Rin knew what lengths Valkar would go to. And she knewwhyhe wanted her.

Fear pricked against her nape like shards of cold water, making her wish for Cyrus.

She jammed the hairpin inside, shimmying it with uncoordinated, awkward movements, feeling tingles in her fingertips, until, finally, she heard a click. Rin did not let go of the bloodied hairpin as she threw the door open, any caution she may have had being thrown with it, as a long, dark hall loomed on the other side.

She stumbled out, bare feet tripping over lush carpet. No windows, with paintings dotting the dark stone walls every so often, and candles flickering in burnished brass sconces—were the flames real? Or were they merely for show? Even in her dazed state with thoughts drifting through her fingers like smoke, Rin somehow knew they burned true and hot.

Her chest jolted with a painful flutter, like her heart had skipped two beats and grown even weaker. She pressed a hand over her chest and grimaced, her fingers weak as they grasped the hairpin.

The flicker of the flames made everything hazier; the hall was steeped in shadows. Her breaths sounded loud, but no matter how desperately she tried to quiet them, she couldn’t.

Tripping and stumbling in the shadowed dark, Rin didn’t make it far.

She fell against a wall with a loud sound, the hairpin falling from her limp fingers.

"No," she moaned, eyelids fluttering. She had to make it out of here—or at the very least, get to Cyrus.

With that thought in mind, she pushed off the wall, leaving the hairpin behind as she forced strength into her steps. Through her blurry vision, she saw another door. Rin fell against it, weakly fumbling for the handle. Locked.

Her ears were filled with the sound of her breath as she spun away and searched for another door.

"Please, please, please."

Each plea was threaded with the harrowing beat of her erratic heart.

She couldn’t go any further.

Rin’s eyes raised, finding a small camera tucked in the corner of the ceiling, a red light blinking on it. She stared straight at it and said, "Valkar,please."

Rhyden whizzedpast a blur of trees in the darkness, as his motorcycle roared over the plain dirt road in the thick forest on the edge of Lunar City.