Page 200 of Cruelly Bitten

It was fast, yet felt drawn out in slow motion.

Ismerelda’s understanding of the situation. Her mounting fear. Her stumbling backward into the cloaked figure.

The vampire slamming the butt of a pistol against myErosita’shead.

My fingers curled into fists at the sight, my fury burning even hotter. “Whoever that is came here with a very specific purpose,”I growled, fully aware that there was only one reason to even have a gun—to slow down fellow immortals.

The hooded culprit caught Ismerelda before she hit the ground, but the movements were not gentle. They were efficient and executed without care.

And all completed without once revealing the face beneath the hood.

My teeth gritted as the vampire ran out of view. The next movement caught by the camera was my arrival.

Cedric cut the feed and pulled up another from outside, his hands somehow rewinding the footage to show the cloaked culprit running—not phasing—down the path toward the car park.

Where the hooded woman disappeared from view again.

More video footage appeared, but there was no sign of the vampire or Ismerelda.

“She must have parked somewhere outside of the surveillance area,” Cedric said after several long minutes of searching. He rewound the feed to display her entry to the building and shook his head. “This is useless. She knew where all the cameras were and hid her face from them.”

“Not necessarily useless,” Khalid murmured. “It has to be someone familiar with the security setup or the building. Surely that narrows down the list.”

“It does,” Hazel replied. “I’ve already paged Deirdre. She’ll be here soon.”

How soon?I wanted to demand, but instead I focused on the screens, searching for any angle that might reveal the culprit’s face.

All the while, I remained connected to Ismerelda’s silent mind, waiting for her to wake.

I couldfeelher, which was the only reason I knew she was alive. But not hearing her was a debilitating experience. It felt asthough I’d been disconnected from part of my brain, missing a huge piece of my soul.

Living without a heart.

If there was any doubt in my mind that Ismerelda was my sole link to humanity, it was gone now. Because without her psyche balancing mine, I didn’t give two fucks about anyone or anything else.

The plan.

This place.

These people.

All that mattered was survival.And Ismerelda.

I hadn’t saved Keys because I liked him or cared about him. I’d saved him because he might have useful information. Just like I tolerated everyone else in this room because they might be helpful.

Maybe that made me cold. Ancient.Unfeeling. But without my link to Ismerelda, my focus shifted to survival mode. Eat. Fuck. Live. That was all that mattered to my inner beast—fulfilling his sensual and physical appetites.

Ismerelda, however, gave meheart. She made me see the world in a way I otherwise wouldn’t.

I’d woken from my sleep without any true goals in mind. The video logs from Lilith had convinced me to be a king, to finish what I’d started. Yet I hadn’t been all that passionate about the project.

Creating immortal blood bags would satiate my vampiric tastes. It made logical sense to see that through to the end.

But I hadn’t been married to the concept.

Leading was a natural inclination for one in my position, my ancient blood marking me as king. That didn’t mean I wanted to be a monarch; I simply was one.

Ismerelda had changed everything.