Page 42 of Entombed By Blood

“Not helpful,” I growl, shoving through the nearest door and into the room.

Mine.

Thank god every bedroom in this overpriced prison has an en-suite.

I shove open the door to the bathroom, followed closely by Silas and the others. Somewhere on the journey, Draven has ripped her thigh wounds open again, deeper this time, and she’s dripping a trail of crimson along the floor.

That red quickly pools in the bottom of the black marble tub, and I watch as her complexion turns quickly from pale to ghostly. Her lips fade from pink to purple to blue, and still we can’t do anything.

She has to bleed out the poison. Even if I rip open my own wrist and feed her all of my blood, it won’t help.

No.

All of the silver has to leave her system. No matter how hard it is to watch.

The others flick between watching her and staring at me. Trusting me to make the call to stop this and start flushing her system with clean, powerful blood.

When the blood flow slows, I rip the wounds back open again with the knife at my belt and then, as an afterthought, add more at her neck and wrists.

Her own healing is our enemy here. It’s another three savage cuts until I judge it enough. Even then, I hesitate.

If we give her blood too early, she’ll just be worse than before, and we’ll have to do it all over again.

She won’t die from this, but she might never be the same if we mess it up. Frost is convinced that we need her mind to defeat Cain once and for all.

Just a few more seconds.

“Gideon?” Silas’s worry is written in the lines on his face.

“Not yet, but be ready.”

Draven brings his wrist to his mouth, ready to rip open his own vein again the second I say the word. Evelyn’s blood stopped flowing so freely a while ago, and now only drips escape from the cuts we’ve made.

“Now.”

Draven’s blood splatters me in his haste to get it to her. His gushing wrist paints her whole jaw red within seconds, but Evelyn doesn’t swallow.

She looks dead. Her skin is the grey of true death rather than the peachy silk it’s meant to be.

Shit.I waited too long.

But she’s still alive. The thrall bond is still intact.

The first time her throat moves, I worry that I’m hallucinating.

Then her fangs come out. Evelyn sinks her teeth into Draven so fast my eyes can’t track the movement. She drinks in huge, greedy pulls, and Draven lets out a whispered curse as he sinks to his knees beside her in the bath.

“Good girl,” he mutters.

His colour is draining rapidly, and it isn’t long until he swaps with Silas. Evelyn’s not happy at the loss of her meal, but she doesn’t have the strength to fight us. The whole thing is forgotten as Silas sits by the bath and offers her his throat. Only when we’re sure she’s feeding again does Draven sway, turn, and wordlessly sink his fangs into Vane.

Evie almost drains Silas to unconsciousness before we manage to wrestle her off him. Her strength is a good sign that she’s improving, but I still pull back my sleeve, bite my own wrist and hold it out in offering, anyway.

Her fangs slide into me with a heady shot of venom. I get hard instantly, my body reacting to the aphrodisiac with a painful rush of blood straight to my throbbing cock. It takes a lot of work to suppress the moan trying to rip free of my throat. She’s just been poisoned, but the venom doesn’t give a shit. I’m so aroused that only sheer will keeps me from grinding against the side of the tub like an out-of-control teenager.

Think of Cain,I instruct myself.Of ghouls. Anything.

When I feel the first signs of dizziness, I yank my wrist away. One of us has to stay strong enough to guard her, and she’ll heal by herself now that she’s fed so deeply from the three of us.