Page 5

GWYN

Margot

What’s your fucking plan?

The vibration of my phone draws my attention from the sunset.

Bjorn’s penthouse has a three-hundred and sixty degree view, but so far, my favorite is this one.

The west-facing windows stretch from the floor to the obnoxiously high ceiling, and I sit here every day from four p.m. onward, until I peel myself off the couch and crawl into bed.

Right now, there are tiny snowflakes falling from the sky, and I’m just high enough to see them.

I doubt they’ll stick when they hit the ground far below.

It’s only been a few days since Agnarr left, and I’d hidden myself away, trying to think of a method to draw the vampire back.

I have nothing to show for that time, although the center couch cushion might already have a permanent indent from my ass.

Margot

Do you even have a plan?

It’s weird to have my phone back after so long without it.

Sasha had overnighted it, and I’d made Margot bring it up to me the minute it arrived.

But after so many weeks without, I realize I didn’t miss it.

Especially when it’s only Hale and Margot texting me.

Hale is short in his texts, which means he’s with Sasha and she’s pissed the fuck off.

And as for Margot, if there’s one person who hates me just as much as Roman, it’s his best friend.

I shamelessly used her to get what I wanted.

She was kind to me, and I took advantage of it.

Once she drank my blood, I only had to Ascend for her to be whatever I needed her to be.

To Margot, I was a fledgling vampire, turned by her careless friend, and she’d been determined to befriend me.

With a hand around my waist as we walked down the street toward Last Drop, she had thought she was offering me friendship.

But really, she offered opportunity. With a simple command, a bit less thought-out than it ought to have been, I forced me and Roman onto a path that we won’t come back from.

The picture she’d taken of us, the message she’d eventually sent to his uncle?

Those actions caused a chain reaction of events that led us to where we are now.

There’s no fucking way she will ever forgive me.

And I don’t bother asking myself why I even want her to.

Margot

Roman wants to know if you intend on holding his brother hostage indefinitely?

I don’t respond for a moment. Roman hasn’t left her apartment a dozen floors below me since I holed up in this penthouse.

I’ve been hoping to find him on one of the many cameras Hale patched me into, but that only works if he leaves her place.

But he’s stayed locked behind that door.

He’s probably sitting next to her right now, glaring at her fingertips as she types.

I wish I could go back in time to the moments before I ever let Roman Sauveterre touch me, hold me, love me . I’ve even found myself wishing I never pursued revenge, and it makes me sick. It makes me hate myself more than I already do.

But due to my change in plans and unfortunate insight into a vampire’s humanity, I still need his cooperation, so I’ll continue to play the part.

Gwyn

If you think I’m just going to tell you, especially with that attitude, you’re delusional.

Margot had hit the nail on the head with her second text. I don’t have a plan anymore now that Agnarr is gone. I laugh to myself, thinking about how he’d Slumbered for hundreds of years, only to wake up and find a freak experiment as his only living relative.

To be fair, I’d run too.

I have no idea how to track down the terrifying, ancient vampire who sired me.

It’s a good thing I Ascended as a vampire, because it turns out I’m a lousy hunter.

But it’s not as if I’m a very good vampire either.

I killed half of my ill-gained coven—though I can’t say they didn’t deserve it—and now I have no idea what I’m doing.

I suppose Hale and Sasha probably have a plan, considering they’re going to be here any minute.

They’ve hidden Remy somewhere nearby, so I can let Roman see his brother whenever I decide to allow it.

Since my first instinct was to take him there immediately, I intend to do the opposite. I cannot be trusted when it comes to giving Roman what he wants. I can’t be trusted to make any wise decisions now that my feelings are involved.

Margot

You should let him see Remy.

Gwyn

And you should bring me Agnarr so I can kill him.

The bubble that indicates she’s typing pops up and disappears several times. I wonder how many different messages she drafts that include some variation of ‘fuck off.’ Yet somehow, what she sends is a thousand times worse.

Margot

I’d been gathering evidence to taunt him with, but I think this better serves as testimony of your crimes.

It’s a photo dump. I have forgotten the concept of self-control as I click on the first one.

It’s a little blurry, and I don’t know what I’m looking at until I zoom in.

The photo was taken through a window above Roman’s front door.

He’s carrying me up the stairs, body tossed over his shoulder, and I realize it’s right after I Ascended.

I’d been raging, the needs of my body at war with my mind.

I’d wanted to kill Margot for being too close to Roman.

I’d wanted to kill him for compromising my resolve with his care.

And yet, I’m smiling in the picture. I only see a hint of it beneath all my hair, hidden in the shadows as I pound on Roman’s back.

My throat dries out.

I swipe again. We’re drinking coffee on his balcony, the morning sun casting the image in an orange glow.

My hair is a mess and my cheeks are flushed because we’d spent the entire night bending to the Ascension’s will.

The uncontrollable need—to be fucked and filled and desired—had taken over, requiring a connection with Roman.

I don’t remember Margot being there, and a small possessive part of me, driven by that bond, seethes about her being so close to Roman when he was supposed to be all mine.

There’s the two of us at Last Drop, ordering our drinks at the bar. I’m grinning up at him, and he’s smirking about something.

There are a few more pictures like this, candid and blurry, culminating in the one she’d sent to Emile. The one where I’m sitting in Roman’s lap, and he looks up at me like I’m made of something precious and rare. The one taken only a few moments before I realized I was in love with him.

And that I hated him for it.

A sob tears up my throat, and I toss my phone onto the marble coffee table.

“Fuck you,” I whisper, unsure if I’m talking to myself or Margot. Each picture is a reminder that it was real. That it isn’t a pleasant dream I can coax back into my mind when I’m on the verge of sleep.

It’s a cruel reality that I’ve created, and it’s a calculated choice to remind me of it.

It takes every bit of effort to stand, and I adjust the drawstring of my sweatpants as they slide down my hips. They belong to Roman, accidentally retrieved by Margot when I commanded her to get my clothes, and I swim in them.

I haven’t taken them off, and I feel pathetic.

I’m hung up on a man who has every right to hate me.

The man who once loved me surely regrets it now, after everything I’ve done.

I’m ‘soaking in the sad,’ as Hale sometimes says, while soothing my mind with Roman’s scent.

Considering I’ve achieved my goal, taken vengeance on the coven and avenged my parents, it can’t possibly be my depression rearing its ugly head.

I refuse to entertain that notion, so I pour all of my energy into reminding myself how horrible Roman is.

I’m not about to risk everything for someone so broken.

My phone vibrates again and I swallow, bracing myself for whatever Margot might say. Her last text rattled me far more than any threat of violence ever could, and those pictures have done exactly what she wanted them to.

Hale

we’re here

I exhale a sigh of relief, glad it’s not another emotional assault. Just as I’m about to pad over to the keypad to buzz them up, my phone vibrates again, and Margot’s name appears at the top of my screen.

Margot

If you ever cared for him at all, you’d let him see his brother.

Against my better judgment, I navigate to the app Hale helped me log into an hour ago, and I click into Remy’s feed.

I zoom in, not allowing any details of the room they’ve warded him into to sneak into the image.

I don’t like watching Remy, usually asking Hale to oversee all of this, but I like to know I have access.

I take a screenshot of my sleeping prisoner, positively tortured as he snores in a bed with a book left open on his chest.

When I send the picture, Margot leaves me on read.

“You know, when we joked about it being a suicide mission, I worried maybe it wasn’t all that funny. The first few weeks, I was certain I’d never see you again. But then Hale pinged you at that skeezy vampire bar. And I got to thinking, had him pull some footage?—”

“Not now, man. We haven’t even hugged her yet,” Hale groans as he steps into the room, and I ignore the creeping vine of anxiety climbing up my esophagus. Did Sasha see me with Roman that night?

The night he’d bit me and sworn a blood vow to a facade. The night he simultaneously lost all power against me, but still held me in the palm of his hand.

The giant library I’ve brought us to is soothing.

Quiet. Calm. Old. Some of the books on the shelves look ancient, and I wonder for a brief moment if Bjorn read them all.

They’re in remarkable condition, the southwest corner of the penthouse and tinted windows being enough to protect them from too much sun damage.