Page 134 of Dark Flame

HARLOW

For the second time tonight,I wake in an unfamiliar place and on the ground. It’s like everyone’s read the sameHow To Be Badhandbook. Alec and the dungeon floor. My ex-parents and their cave. And now this.

“Wake up, Sinclair. I have blood for you.”

Blood?

Groaning, I take in the space. It’s a building, the stone walls crumbling and the ceiling barely still together, only maybe a human’s height above. It’s small, with evidence of a fireplace once present.

In the very far corner, a spider spins a web.

Wait. How is it possible to see that? I blink hard, scrunching my eyes together, this time begging my body to wake up entirely and get out of its dream state, but when I open them again, the spider is still spinning.

I sit up, my nose prickling with the sickly scent of this place. Like death and gore had a battle and lost. It smells like mold and garbage and anything that is sour and vomit-inducing.

How is it possible to be catching all this?

A cup is waved in front of my face, stealing my attention. Whatever’s in it is sweet—sweeter than a candy store—and my teeth ache. A heat blazes through me that sparks me into movement, quickly reaching for the cup, only to have it yanked away.

“Ah, ah, Miss Sinclair, we have some talking to do first. Can’t have you at full strength quite yet.”

That voice again…

I stare past the cup to the man holding it.

He’s dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a hoodie, contrasting the first and only time I’ve met him; when he was the only vampire to approach Alec at the party.

“Cedric?”

He flashes blinding white teeth, two fangs pointedly elongated. “You remember me.”

“What are you doing here? Where’s here? How did you find me? Where’s Alec?” What was I even doing? Flashes flicker through my mind like a movie reel. Arthur and Violet cuffing me to the cave. My magick melting the cuffs and beating them. Strangling them. The cave coming down on all our heads.

How am I alive?

“My, you ask a lot of questions.” Frowning, he crosses the room to rest the cup on the edge of the crumbling fireplace. He leans on the wall beside it and crosses his arms, regarding me like I’m an animal in a zoo. “Since we have some time before Alec finds us, I’ll answer them. I’m here because of you. This is my old house. It was once a cottage. I found you because I was on my way to you anyway. Alec may still be in Banff or he’s on his way. I can never predict his moves these days.”

My head thumps. There’s too much he’s said, too much to make sense of. “You were…on your way…” Recalling what Violet and Arthur said, I slide my feet toward me to stand, suddenly realizing he’s not being a friend to Alec by helping me out of the broken cave. “You were the vampire they were waiting on.”

“Very good, Miss Sinclair.” He tips his head.

“Are they alive?”

“That’s your next question?” He blinks, frowning. “No, they’re not.”

Good.While I don’t know what the hell’s happening, at least that part of the nightmare is over.

“You made a very grave mistake back there,” he remarks casually.

I move to stand, the ground and ceiling coming much too close for comfort and I stagger, catching myself on the closest wall. “What’s happening to me?” A wave of dizziness nearly knocks me to my feet again, reminding me of that time I had a fever as a teenager and thought I genuinely died and moved to the Otherworld.

“You’re transitioning. Not sure if Alec ever explained the process, but until you get blood, your body is stuck between human and vampire.”

Transitioning because of Alec’s blood.

I’m becoming a vampire.

In the cave, I gambled on the bit of blood I ingested.