Page 56 of Vipers and Vendettas

‘I’m not joking,’ she says. ‘I ran, but there was more than one of them. The maze hid me. It got me out, and afterward, I heard them screaming. I think it killed them.’

She looks like she’s going to be ill again, and I look around for another bin, but she takes a drink of her tea instead.

‘You’re serious.’

She nods. ‘But I know it’s impossible. The border conjures on your estate are well-known. How could they have got in here?’

‘They couldn—’ I pause because that’s a lie.

It happened only a few months ago; Alex’s clan’s female was stolen from the maze under my watch. This has Robertson’s fingerprints all over it. But what would our turncoat fae butler want with our human on-call girl?

My eyes fall on her and narrow.

‘Stay out of the maze,’ I say. ‘I mean it, Julia. Even if you find yourself out of the fold again, don’t go to the maze for help.’

She nods, rubbing her neck again.

‘What’s wrong,’ I ask, gesturing at her.

‘Just strained it while was outside, I think.’

I stand up and walk to her. She tenses.

‘Don’t,’ she says.

I ignore her, but I make sure I don’t touch her skin as I massage her with my fingers in the spot she’s been kneading over the past few minutes.

She lets out a low groan. ‘That hurts.’

‘It will do. It’s a knot. Let me loosen it off for you.’

I work on the knot for a minute, trying to ignore the noises she’s making that sound more like I’m working on another part of her anatomy entirely.

Then, my fingertip accidentally brushes the back of her neck, and we both freeze. I grit my teeth as a jolt of pure lust rolls through me. I haven’t fed in days, and it’s almost impossible not to give in.

But somehow, I do.

I step back.

‘Take the key from the desk,’ I grind out. ‘And go back to the fold.’

With wide eyes, she peels herself out of the chair and leaps across the desk, grabbing the key and running back to her room. When she’s gone, I sink into the chair, clenching my fists and going over the reasons why I shouldn’t follow her.

Those reasons are becoming less important by the very second, it seems, but there is something I need to do. I need to verify her story. I unlock one of the French doors and venture out into the cold, getting furious with Jules anew when I feel how bitter it is out here. Does she have no self-preservation? And what about the babe she carries?

No, she takes too many risks. There are going to have to be some very strict rules for her if I ever let her out of that fold. I walk out to the entrance of the maze, or at least where the entrance usually is. Instead, the path ends abruptly, and I’m met with the thick thorns of a gorse hedge.

‘Very theatrical,’ I mutter. ‘Are you going to let me through to see what you’ve done this time?’

I practically hear the maze scoff at me, but the hedge retreats, forming a small opening that I have to duck my head to enter through.

I smell familiar blood before I see anything, and, in case I’m being watched by a third party somehow, I sigh loudly as if this is no more than an annoyance to me.

The reality is quite the opposite. Someone attacked us tonight. Whether they wanted Jules or she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time remains to be seen.

‘Light, if you please,’ I mutter.

Bright blue orbs illuminate the path in front of me, where I find several decapitated vampires.