Page 14 of The Vampire Debt

“I don’t have a defect,” I snap. My hands ball into fists.

“Then why were you, a grown woman, still living at home?” he asks again, slowly as if I’m a complete idiot and he’s worried the words he’s using are too big for me to comprehend.

My situation is highly unusual. I know it is. I also know that he is only trying to be hurtful, but I bristle at his words anyway even as my heart squeezes painfully in my chest.

Xander and I had always talked about getting married, he just needed to wait for his brothers to marry first so he could choose someone on his own, rather than someone his parents picked for him.

Xander… I’ll never see him again and we were to meet tonight. Now I don’t even know if he’ll ever find out what happened to me.

I bite down hard on my bottom lip as disappointment settles like a rock in my gut.

But I can’t tell the vampire that, it would only lead to his continued mocking, so I settle for another part of the truth instead. “I stayed for Kathrine, she’s always been sickly. Someone had to take care of her after Mother was killed.”

He regards me for a long moment and I’m thankful when he only shrugs and does not bring up the point that it should have been our father taking care of her. It was thanks to him and his endless gambling debts that I am now the ward—or rather, the future meal—of a vampire.

That is the last we say to each other. I don’t know where he goes, but my gloomy thoughts spiral down into further darkness.

I might as well be invisible for all the attention he pays to me, and I am grateful for it. The hours pass slowly. My backside hurts and I grow restless, shifting uncomfortably from sitting in the same spot for hours at a time.

The carriage comes to a sudden stop. I jolt upright and peer out the window. We are still surrounded by trees, and the soft sound of rushing of water filters in through the carriage.

Eyeing the vampire across from me, I wonder if this is when I become a meal and have my body tossed carelessly to the side of the road.

Mr. Devereaux looks annoyed but doesn’t make a move toward me.

I slide across my seat to glance out the window. We stopped just before a low bridge. A family is crossing. The mother hurries to guide her children off and away. Two smaller ones lag behind.

One slips and falls to his hands and knees, rolling around in front of his sister and tripping her.

My heart plummets as I watch the child try to regain her balance only to fall over the edge.

I don’t think, my body reacts on its own. I shove open the door and leap out of the carriage into a run, sliding down the side of the riverbank and wade into the water.

Unholy demon shit, it’sfreezing!

It’s not particularly deep, but the current is moving too fast for someone so small. I dive in, swimming as hard as I can toward the girl, bobbing up and down. Her head going under for longer and longer each time.

Then she sinks beneath the surface and doesn’t come back up.

I dip underwater and spot her, caught by an old fallen tree. I reach her in seconds and wrap my arm around her waist and pull her above water.

She coughs and sputters, wildly flailing in my arms.

“I have you,” I say, dragging us both to shore.

Her mother is running toward us, the rest of her kids following in her wake.

“Oh, Hanna!” she cries, scooping the girl up. “Thank you, young man.”

Young…man?I open my mouth to correct her, but she’s already hurrying away.

Chapter Seven

Alaric

I could have endedher life at any time in the last few hours, yet, I hadn’t. Doing so didn’t feel like a just enough punishment. She deserves worse than to go quietly and in the comfort of this carriage.

Sitting in a confined space with a murderess is a whole new hell. I can feel my fangs start to descend at the thought of draining her tonight.