Page 21

DON’T YOU DARE

SEBASTIAN

“ D on’t ask,” Grace snaps as she opens the door.

I’ve barely knocked, and she’s already there, glowering at me from the doorway. She typically sulks in the background, pouting while Cora details the progress she’s made—or more often, hasn’t made.

Still, the last few sessions had been good. Grace moved a book from one shelf to another. She lifted a teacup and accidentally broke it against the ceiling. Today is different. Even if she hadn’t spoken, I would have known. It’s unsettling, the number of things I notice about her now.

I’ve been spending too much time with her.

I blame the season. It’s almost spring, and work has fallen to a lull.

I’ve already finished our budget, our military enrollment, and the schedule of building repairs, ordered by their greatest need.

Now, I’m bored with too much time on my hands and the urge to give every minute to her .

I can’t explain it. Grace is pure, bubbling sunshine, and I should hate it. Instead, I’m growing a never-ending list of her preferences, cataloging them like I might one day need them. Her favorite movies. Meals. Clothes .

Worse, I’ve memorized her insecurities too. Her demands. Her wants. Her endless fucking needs.

In the week since she got new clothes, she’s added multiple items to her list. A pair of shoes like the ones she saw Beatrice wearing (granted).

A mirror in her bedroom (denied—potential weapon).

Makeup and face wash from the human world (granted, though according to Grace, Amelia got all the wrong stuff).

Still, I’ve realized there is nothing Grace demands more of than herself.

Cora stands in the kitchen, leaned against the counter. She holds a mug of tea, watching me through the rising steam. Whatever she’s drinking today smells of mint and dirt. I raise my eyebrow in a silent question.

“That counts as asking,” Grace says. She presses closer, glaring at me. She’s tall for a woman, only an inch or two shorter than I am. “If you must know, Sebastian, today was terrible. I didn’t move a pillow or change the color of Cora’s mug or even freaking feel a single thing. I failed , okay?”

She’s breathing hard now, chest heaving as her face flushes with blood. I’ve been engorging myself for the past week, feeding twice daily until I feel sick with it. I’ve brought two new bloodletters from the neutral territory, keeping them on site for twice what I’d normally pay.

It doesn’t matter. It’s not enough, and I’m starting to doubt there ever will be enough.

Her scent fills my every breath, until all I can smell is delicate lavender and hot blood and Grace . Despite the fullness in my gut, I hold my breath in my throat.

Fuck.

“Can we go now?” she asks. Her blue eyes are wild, darkened with whatever makeup Amelia brought back from the human realm. She might think it was the wrong stuff, but hells, she looks stunning.

“No,” I say. My voice is steady, even as my thoughts spiral away from me. “We need to get past this, Grace. You should be farther than?—”

“I know,” she snaps. “Trust me, I know, Sebastian. I know. Unfortunately for you, I’m an incompetent idiot . I can’t do anything right. Not even a basic kid’s spell. So you can forget about me breaking the curse. I’m too stupid?—”

I capture her chin between my thumb and index finger. She startles, falling silent. I’m frozen too. I hadn’t planned to touch her, and now, I can feel the heat of her skin, her blood, beneath my fingers.

She’s so soft, so fragile. I could crush her bones with my bare hand, and it would be nauseatingly easy. It makes me want to push her away, out of sight, out of harm’s way.

It makes me want to pull her closer.

That choice feels easier. A tiny tug, and she steps into me. I tilt her chin, forcing her eyes to mine.

“You are not stupid,” I say. I glance at Cora, then back to Grace. Her eyes are blue, but not like flames. Like shallow water. “Who told you that?”

“I don’t need to be told,” Grace says. Her eyes remain firm on mine, but her mouth bobs as she searches for something to say.

Finally, she wets her lips, and I can’t help tracking the movement.

Her lower lip glistens as she speaks. “I know who I am, Sebastian, or at least who I used to be. I was fun. I was happy. I was kind. I liked who I was, but I also knew who I wasn’t.

I wasn’t smart. Or strong. Or interesting.

Coming here might have changed my life, but it hasn’t changed me. ”

I stare into her eyes, letting a brief silence fall over us. I’m grasping for something to say, for a way to give her confidence. To make her understand she’s more than she realizes. Far, far more.

But I’m not like Grace. I don’t know how to be fun or happy or kind. I only know violence and anger and pain, and none of those are particularly useful right now.

“Oh this place will change you,” Cora says. She’s still in the kitchen, her voice high and mocking. “Just wait…”

I don’t acknowledge the resident witch, and Grace doesn’t either. She’s staring at me as intensely as I am her. It’s only the reminder of our audience that makes me move. I release Grace’s chin and guide her into the hallway. Without telling Cora goodbye, I close the door between us.

Grace doesn’t speak as we walk through the manor. She keeps her arms tight at her sides, and if she’s bothered by my hand on her back, she doesn’t show it. Her eyes have shifted into the color of ice.

We’re several turns in the wrong direction before Grace glances at me.

“My cell is the other way. Where are we going?”

“The ballroom.”

She instantly stiffens beneath my touch, and my stomach tightens in response. It’s not that I regret the incident with the Nectoa, and yet, a part of me wants to erase it. For me. For her.

She’s quiet as we walk, and though I grasp for something to say, I am too. Before long, the heavy oak doors come into view. Grace stops, turning to face me.

“So that’s it then?” she asks. Her voice cracks. Her eyes water, making them bluer. Brighter. Prettier.

“I am not going to hurt you,” I say.

Grace flinches, and the uneasiness in my gut flares through my entire body. Her expression says everything she doesn’t voice out loud .

You’ve already hurt me.

Everything you do hurts me.

I hate you.

“I want to try something,” I tell her. “I think it might help. I’ll stay with you. I’ll tell you exactly what we’re doing, and if you want to stop, we will.”

She stares at me, until I feel those bottomless blue eyes threaten to swallow me whole.

“I want to stop,” she says. She’s trembling from her body to her voice. “God, Sebastian. I want to stop .”

I stare at her, waiting for my insides to settle. They don’t. It only feels like they’re growing, twisting out of control. I swallow, careful to keep my expression blank.

“We can’t,” I say. My voice is hoarse, unrecognizable. I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so…unsure. “If we don’t find a way?—”

“Then don’t lie,” she says, cutting me off.

I wish she’d yell, but her words are nothing more than a whisper.

Tears streak down her face. She wipes them away, almost aggressively, and smears makeup down her cheeks.

“If you’re going to force me, then do it.

But don’t you dare act like I have a choice. ”

I am being flayed alive. My nerves are being cut, rearranged, twisted into something I don’t recognize.

For the first time since we’ve arrived here, I lower my hand from Grace’s back. Something within me demands I touch her again, and it takes active concentration to defy it.

“Come,” I say finally.

Grace watches as I turn, not for the ballroom, but back in the way of her quarters. She remains frozen, only for a moment, before trailing after me. We don’t speak for the rest of our walk, and when she goes into her room, she shuts the door without looking at me.

The next morning, I lay alone on the stone table in the courtyard.

The sun is a gentle touch of heat against my bare chest, nowhere near warm enough to keep me from shivering.

My sweater and coat lie discarded in the grass, but I make no move to pull on either.

Instead, I lie against the cold stone, embracing its unpleasant chill.

It’s late winter or early spring, depending who you ask. Cora would say winter. Grace would undoubtedly say spring.

I close my eyes.

Over the years, I’ve tried to embrace this: the indescribable sensation of being both vampire and not.

Cora’s spell allows me to lie here in the sun without catching fire, but it changes me, too.

Right now, my skin feels as soft, as vulnerable as Grace’s always is.

It’s hard to imagine. Walking around with this paper-thin skin, breakable bones, demanding lungs.

How strange to need air all the time.

I open my eyes. From here, I can see a row of windows. Though I can’t see through them, thanks to the sun’s glare, I know I’m being watched. Within each sun-protected window, there is a room full of vampires. Hundreds of my followers, trapped and desperate to feel what I am now.

I only had to live four years without sunlight.

Some from my inner circle went six, eight, or more.

And all those fuckers locked in their rooms haven’t felt it since the witches cursed us.

Cora cast spells over the windows, protecting us from the sun’s rays while allowing a bit of light.

But still, many of my followers have lived their entire vampiric existences in darkness.

Grace doesn’t understand .

If she did, I have to believe she’d be less difficult. She wouldn’t be crying, pouting, complaining. She’d be fighting right alongside me to break this damned curse, once and for all.

I look away from the windows, choosing instead to glare at the sun. This violent light steals everything from my kind, and she’s my only shot at stealing it back. Our power. Our invincibility. Our freedom.

Hundreds, thousands of vampires’ fates, all held in the palms of one woman. One stubborn half-human, half-witch who can’t be bothered to figure out her own magic.

“Master.”

I jolt upright. The air catches in my throat, and I choke out a cough until I can breathe again. Oskar stands in the courtyard, leaned against my statue. I have no idea how long he’s been standing there, watching me.

“Hells,” I say. I press a palm to my chest, feeling the erratic beats of my pathetic, mortal heart.

“Apologies,” Oskar says. His lips twitch though, in a way that suggests he isn’t sorry at all.

“Did she go?” I ask. I study the stone building’s architecture rather than meeting the watchful gaze of my oldest friend.

“Reluctantly, but yes,” he says.

I’d tasked him with leaving Grace at Cora’s this morning. I should have done it myself, and yet…I’d asked Oskar. I’d come here instead to lay out like a drying cloth.

“A bit cold for sunbathing, isn’t it?” he asks.

I don’t respond. I pull my sweater over my head, following it with my coat. It’s the one Grace borrowed when I took her to buy clothes from Nicasi. It smells of her, and only her. In the sun, I can’t scent her blood.

I brush past Oskar and head for the manor doors. Just when I think he’s letting me off the hook, he clears his throat. And though I know better, I slow my steps. When I turn, he’s already looking at me expectantly.

I give him nothing, leveling him with my flattest expression.

“Would you like to tell me?” he asks.

“No,” I say, but I don’t move. I watch him for several long seconds, waiting for him to press. When he doesn’t, I swallow my pride like a vial of poison. “The Pruce witch isn’t making progress.”

“I know her name,” Oskar says. His flat grey eyes spark with amusement. “As do you.”

“She should have made progress by now,” I say between my teeth. For whatever reason, my tongue feels thick in my mouth. It’s difficult to speak, to explain the unpleasant sensation that’s lingered since yesterday’s interaction with Grace.

“Yes,” he says. He tilts his head, studying me.

“She’ll make the progress,” I say. I sound defensive, even though it’s the truth. “She just…it’s taking longer than expected.”

“What’s plaguing you, Master?” Oskar asks. He steps closer, and I hate the look on his face. Almost paternal, as if he’s going to comfort me.

“Nothing,” I snap. “It’s only a matter of time before she figures this out. And if she doesn’t…”

My words trail. I’m not sure what I plan to say.

I’ll threaten her.

I’ll kill her.

I’ll break the curse with her decaying blood.

I don’t say anything at all. I turn on my heel, making it several steps before Oskar speaks again.

“If I may, sir,” he says. His voice is firm, yet cautious. “ Perhaps Grace’s problem is not with her magic, but with her fear.”

I look back, even though I don’t want to. I’d much rather storm to my quarters to shower this sunlight off my skin.

“She doesn’t trust us, and she’s smart not to,” he says. “She doesn’t know what will become of her once she breaks the curse. I wouldn’t be eager to help either, if I suspected I’d be killed in the end.”

Oskar’s words hang in the air, prickling against my skin worse than the sun’s heat.

“Perhaps if she trusted you, she would be more willing to help,” he says. He bows his head as he speaks, as if he knows he’s treading treacherous waters. “It is only a thought, Master.”

“A good thought,” I admit, even if the words sound painful. “I will consider it.”

I turn to leave again, and this time, he doesn’t stop me.