Page 41 of The Vampire Debt

What am I doing?I take a step away. I will not check on him tonight.

I keep moving down the hall and enter my room, closing the door securely behind me. There is something strange about tonight… something different than every other night. I pace, nearly crawling out of my skin with anticipation.

But anticipation for what, I cannot say.

I busy myself, trying to read by the fire as I do every night after dinner, but I find I can’t focus on a single word on the page. After reading the same paragraph a dozen times over, I close the book and set it aside. I itch with the need to do something, but I can’t decide on what.

Every dress in my armoire has at least one hidden pocket sewn into it. I have practiced for hours with the dagger, and yet I can think of nothing else.

I pace the length of my room. Deftly, my hand reaches for the dagger and pulls it. Over and over. Yet it seems with every other step, my thoughts return to the vampire and to the disappointment I felt when he left dinner early… to the way he looked, sallow and unlike himself.

“No,” I chide aloud.I don’t care about him. I can’t.

Stopping in the middle of the room, I return the dagger to my pocket and stare down into the palms of my hands, as if they might literally hold the answer to the question I’ve yet to ask. The question I can barely think and will not speak.

I go to the bedside table and pick up my worn and tattered novel that is close to falling apart.

“Oh, Kitty… what should I do?” I whisper.

How can I want to return to her and yet refuse to do what I must here first?

Because I am afraid. I am afraid of failing because that would mean facing something that I’m not ready to face, something I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to face.

What is wrong with me that I am concerned for avampire,of all things, because he looks unwell?

Like a bolt of lightning, it strikes me why tonight is different than all our previous ones.

It is not worry for him that made me nervous—it was the realization that he is off,weak, tired, slow, something, and I would be a fool not to take advantage of it. I know killing him would be the best, but I wonder if I am brave enough to follow through anymore. But I will settle for drawing blood and winning my freedom.

If there ever was a time to try, it is now. Because I must return to my sister as soon as possible, to take care of her, to get back to Xander and start our lives, and to get away from the vampire before I fall for his illusion of humanity more than I already have.

I pat the dagger hidden at my side and then head out of my room and into the halls and up the stairs to Alaric’s personal study.

Chapter Eighteen

Alaric

Satiated.Not completely… but enough. I recline in my chair at my desk and gaze into the fire across from me. I have nearly forgotten how completely satisfying it is to give in to what I am. Though I frown. Were it not for Cherno, when I drank that willing girl’s blood after dinner, I came far too close to losing control.

I was careless and she could have died. I had overestimated my willpower, and the moment my fangs had pierced her skin, she was nearly lost. Rosalie would have had my head for my carelessness of a donor.

“You almost waited too long,” Cherno says from their perch on my shoulder.

“I know.”

“You put that girl and Clara’s life at risk.” There’s more than a touch of admonishment in their voice.

“No, I wouldn’t—”

Cherno flaps their wings, smacking me on the side of my head. “You would. You can only control your bloodlust for so long until it takes over on its own. Do not be a fool, Alaric.”

I clench my jaw and reach up, scooping them off my shoulder and looking into those big red eyes. “Stop that, you little demon.” I drop my head. “I don’t know… I haven’twantedto,” I admit. “I can’t even take a sip at dinner without Clara glaring at me.”

“Then bite her and take her blood.”

I shake my head.

They hop down from my hand and crawl over the desk. “What do you hope to gain from this bargain?”