Page 17 of Chain Me

“Don’t be like that. You’ve hurt her once—you and I both know it. I doubt even someone of your fortitude has the willpower to do it twice. Especially about this. Just tread carefully.”

A weighty silence didn’t reveal his answer either way.

Finally, Yulia sighed. “I’m just asking you to think this through. Your decisions may have far greater consequences than even you could bear. Now, I need to get back to the club. That bitch Saskia will get suspicious if I stay away for too long. As far as your concerns go, give us a week to find our own answers before you go off again. Aweek. Promise me…”

* * *

Imust have drifted in and out of consciousness, because when I finally blinked my eyes open, a figure loomed near the end of my bed, emanating a chill that resonated in my bones.

“Don’t move,” he warned.

One flex of my limbs and I understood why. Pain flooded my system, drawing a gasp from my lips. “Jesus Christ.” I exhaled a shaky breath as the world gradually came into focus. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

“You’re still healing,” the speaker continued, his face a blobby blur. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. In your condition, you’re lucky to not have suffered a worse fate.”

Still healing?I turned, driven by an instinctive dread. And for good reason—more blinking brought an object lurking just beyond me into clearer focus. A long metal pole. Dangling from the very top was a bag of red fluid.

“A blood transfusion?” I deduced, horrified.

“Four pints lost,” Dublin declared, stepping closer. The waning daylight was just enough for me to make out his expression—surly eyes and stiffened lips.

Dread unfurled in my belly. I knew that look. He was in a brooding mood.

“Count your blessings that you’re even able to move.”

“Get. It…” I had to suck in air to form each word. My fingers twitched on command but lacked the strength to rip out the IV. “Out. Get it out of me—”

“Do you understand what I just said? You hemorrhaged. You’re weak.” He wasn’t using his clinical, doctorly voice anymore. “You’ve been out for nearly two days. There are corpses that portray more vitality than you.”

And if Ididn’t know any better, I might suspect the devil was…exhausted?

His face revealed nothing discernible. As stoic as ever, he stood near a wide bay window overlooking an unfamiliar view of the city. From the bed, I caught snippets of the landscape beyond him: skyscrapers, bright lights. It was an area far from the reclusive hillside domain of Gray Manor—that was for sure.

And far from his cathedral where my last, hazy memories centered upon.

Mainly one image that chilled me to the bone.

“I bled,” I whispered, hating how hoarse my voice sounded, “because you bit me.”

“I did,” he admitted, training his gaze on the view. “I shouldn’t have fed from you, but the venom merely exacerbated your underlying condition. It didn’t cause it—”

“Condition? Oh, don’t tell me.” I shifted to observe him fully. “You figured out my mysterious illness? What is it this time? Another blood disease?”

Despite my bravado, my voice broke. The world was spinning around me. Oddly enough,hewas the stubborn anchor, as unmoving and rigid as the day we’d met. One of his hands fiddled with something hanging from his throat—shining, small, silver…

No, it couldn’t be. I felt along my own neck, finding it bare—but too many thoughts battled for attention to care.

The man was an Indian Giver. So what?

So what if some of my last memories were of him scolding me as to the importance of that very necklace?

So what.

“Congratulations.” I forced my hands together in a pathetic imitation of applause though it took nearly all of my strength. One pathetic clap was all I could accomplish. “What will I have to sell to you this time in exchange for the cure?”

“Cure?” he wondered in a dangerously soft tone. His shoulders were so rigid that I bit my lip. Odd. He should have been gloating. Not tense, his head bowed in contemplation. “If you want to take that route, then I need to ask you something,” he warned.

“Why?” I tried to shrug off his caution. “Are you pretending to be my doctor again? I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I have a new doctor. Arealone, who isn’t inclined to drink blood in her spare time.”