Page 34 of The Reveal (Bloodlore #1)

I don’t know how I manage not to be sick right there on the floor.

The vampire woman stands there, her legs spread wide, one taloned hand on my brother’s head as if he’s in need of guidance.

She wants me to look at him like this, I know it. Kneeling down, lapping at her, looking a lot like he’s licking her pussy. And maybe he does that, too. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. When I lift my gaze to the vampire’s, she stares at me.

“When you’ve seen enough,” she tells me, spite and malice all over her face and loud in her voice, “he wants to see you again. If I were you, I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”

And added to the long list of reasons I hate myself is this: I don’t simply walk away.

I bolt.

I leave my brother in the thrall of that bitch, and I sprint down that hallway of damp despair.

I don’t look into the cells as I go, but the things that I see anyway from the corner of my eye will stay with me for a long, long time.

I make it to the stairs and start to climb, making a kind of wheezing noise that might suggest I’ve been struck down with some kind of dungeon-inspired pneumonia, but it’s not that. It’s the only sobs I’ll allow myself.

I run up those cold stone steps, making my legs move faster than they want to go, and I hurtle myself through that barricaded door and throw myself through that revolting curtain that is definitely skin—

Then I slam straight into another cold wall.

But this time, it’s Ariel.

And for one long, wild, impossible moment, I feel a sense of relief so intense and so profound that I almost want to call it joy .

I would, maybe, if he were ... anyone else.

He sets me back on my heels but keeps hold of me, gripping me just above my elbows.

It’s all too chaotic. His touch is setting off the same explosions despite the terror and anguish and horror inside me.

It shifts so suddenly and without warning to that shocking punch of lust and need that it makes me feel sick again.

“I’m going to throw up,” I warn him.

His face is stern. Sure. “I would not do that if I were you.”

So . . . I don’t.

I pull in a breath. That sick feeling inside me stretches wide, then—slowly—starts to subside.

I tell myself to pull away from him.

I don’t.

“What do you want with my brother?” I ask him.

“I thought you needed him to pay you or something. But apparently he’s still happily addicted to vampire blood.

” I shove that awful image of him on his knees from my head.

Or I try. Then I dare ask the next question.

“Are you turning him into one? Is that the point of all of this?”

His head tilts slightly to one side as if I said something that actually hit him like some kind of blow. I should be happy about that.

Too bad that right now I very much doubt I’ll ever feel happy again.

Ariel sighs, but it strikes me as too studied.

As if he’s holding back his actual reaction.

“Contrary to popular opinion, becoming a vampire isn’t like catching a virus.

It isn’t like werewolves and their bitten minions.

” He makes his opinion of that clear without lowering himself to a full roll of his eyes.

“Becoming a vampire requires an invitation. The mortal in question must ask. The vampire in question must also ask, because vampires cannot be made without the permission of the king.”

“That’s very hands-on, isn’t it? I thought the whole point was the maiming and the turning and the undead armies.”

“You are thinking of fictional television shows made by humans.” Again, that almost eye roll.

“All new vampires become my problem, forever. So, no, your brother will not become a vampire because he’s drinking blood from Marbella, because he does not want to.

He is compelled to. He’ll become high. But vampire blood does not have the same effect on the human body that your nasty street drugs do. You should thank us.”

“I don’t want to thank you . Are you insane ?”

That this is not how a person should speak to a vampire king only occurs to me when his silver eyes darken, and his grip on me tenses. Just enough.

“The more he drinks, the healthier he gets.” Ariel’s voice is cold.

“Though I don’t suppose it’s truly healthy.

After all, if he doesn’t get his top-up twice a day, well.

” He shakes his head, and I decide that now is a good time to remember how powerful he is and how powerful I .

.. am not. “I’m told the pain is agonizing.

Like knives flaying every square inch of his skin. ”

All I can see is Augie’s panicked, anguished face and I want to die, but that would be easy.

“And what is it that you think I can do about this situation?” I grit out.

I don’t care that he’s gripping me the way he is. I don’t even look around to see if anyone’s watching this interchange. I shove myself forward a little, like I’m tough. Like he couldn’t snap me in half like a twig if he felt like it.

If he could be bothered .

“How exactly do you want me to pay?” I demand, since making demands is clearly not what I should be doing.

“You’re going to fuck the price out of me?

Take it out in ass? Great. Sounds awesome.

” I’m obviously high on bravado, so I keep going.

“Tell me, exactly how long do I have to be your sex slave to get my brother the hell out of here?”

“It’s not sex that will pay off his debt.” Ariel lowers his face to mine, and I have the uncanny suspicion that he’s actually ... pissed. Genuinely mad, like I’ve managed to get under his skin somehow, and I really should worry about that.

What I shouldn’t do is take it like a victory. But then, I’ve never been as wise as I ought to be.

“Sex is just the cherry on top. And make no mistake. You’re going to beg me for that, too.”

“Over my dead body,” I say.

Foolishly.

His hand shifts from my bicep so fast it’s a blur, and I only realize it even happens when he grips my throat.

Then lifts me, just slightly.

This should terrify me. I know it should. But that’s not what I feel.

I feel it like light and heat, blazing a path through my body to pool in my pussy. I feel want and need all over me.

And most of all, I feel a kick of temper, like fire.

“Do you really think that can’t be arranged?” he asks me in a low, furious voice, that beautiful face so close to mine. “What autonomy you have now exists because you are not my subject, Winter. You should think about what that means before you tempt me to change it.”

“I think it means I can tell you to go fuck yourself,” I bite out at him.

His hand around my throat tightens. I laugh, not because I think this is funny, but because, somehow, it’s all part and parcel of the same rushing mess inside me. Bravado, I guess.

Or maybe I just don’t have it in me to give a shit anymore. About anything. Maybe this is nihilism.

Maybe I’ve finally reached the point where I just can’t care what happens any longer.

“It’s not that I don’t want to fuck you, Winter,” Ariel seethes at me, and all I can see in his eyes is a storm. “Because despite myself, I do. And I will. But what I want as payment for your brother’s bullshit?”

I’m breathing too fast. He knows it as well as I do.

Ariel lets go of my throat and slides his hand up against my temple. A cool press against my flushed skin and it makes me tremble. I’m sure he can feel that too.

“I want your visions, little seer,” he growls at me.

“I want to know what’s coming and when. And I’m the only one who’s going to ask you straight out.

You should be significantly more respectful.

” I stare up at him blankly, my pulse going haywire.

He laughs, that stark and hollow sound. “All the others playing their little games, hiding in plain sight. The difference between them and me is that I want you walking into what comes next with your eyes wide open. I want you knowing exactly what you’re signing up for. ”

“ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about prophecy,” he belts out at me, and I can’t imagine that the knives against skin he mentioned can cut any deeper than the blades of his words.

“I’m talking about the fact that you, Winter, are the new oracle.

Everyone knows it. The cards have chosen.

What I don’t understand is why you’re bothering to pretend otherwise.

It is as clear to everyone as the mark I left on you myself. ”

I feel cold. I don’t know how I could have felt that sense of relief just moments before, or why I can stand here so calmly while this man—not a man, a predator, and I need to remember that—keeps that hand on me as if he’s being gentle when we both know how easily he could kill me.

I’m not sure why he hasn’t.

Surely, there are other avenues toward whatever prophecies he wants without getting this involved with one fractured little family here in a rural valley in Oregon.

I feel colder. At the same time, that same shivery heat is making its way through me with a certain inevitability. I think of my brother, kneeling before that terrible vampire bitch. I think about the susceptibility to addiction that clearly runs in our bloodstream.

I wish I could believe that I was being compelled too.

“I hate you,” I tell the vampire king, and I say it starkly. Without drama. Without heat. A simple statement of fact.

Ariel only smiles. That cruel mouth of his succumbs to a curve, and he shifts that hand from the side of my head to my throat again, but only for an instant. He keeps moving, tracing a path down my neck, and then stays there a moment, fiddling with Augie’s medallion.

I should slap his hand away.

I don’t do that. I tell myself I’m only imagining the burst of sudden heat I feel, just for a moment, but it’s gone again too quickly to mention.

“I know it doesn’t matter,” I tell him, holding his gaze, though it makes every part of me ache. “But I do. I truly hate you. I think it’s important that you know that.”

I wouldn’t describe that smile of his as sad, exactly. But it’s no expression of joy, especially when it deepens.

“Little seer,” he says, and even his voice sounds bittersweet, “that won’t help you either.”