Page 26 of Bloodgrove

Still, he followed her, and the moment the washroom door closed behind them, he spun around and wrapped his fingers around her throat. Elodie struck the wallpaper with her back, and Will pinned her there, his face twisted into a grotesque mask of red.

He did not know what enraged him more—the obvious hazing ritual or the fact that she had betrayed him. Every young man in the Capitol who hoped to join the high society had endured his share of such ordeals, each crueler and more humiliating than the last. Will had avoided most of them and borne the others in stoic silence, only to return home and break down in tears. What could be more degrading than arriving somewhere new, nervous and vulnerable, hoping to earn the acceptance of strangers, only to be rendered utterly helpless and mocked for it? That helplessness was probably what Will hated most—the expectation that, in the end, he must laugh along with them, at his own expense.

But he was no longer eighteen. He should have behaved like a gentleman and rebuked Elodie with stern words, but that didn’t feel enough.

Her eyes widened as the oil lamp flickered and the temperature in the room began to fall. “Will.” Her voice was rough beneath his hand.

He felt her pulse hammering under his fingers, almost as loudly as his own. Perhaps he had overestimated her. Perhaps she was no better than all the other noblewomen. The bitter realization cooled his anger, and slowly, he forced it back under control.

At last, he released her, shook his head, and turned away. He was not a man who hurt women. For a moment, he didn’t recognize himself.

The roar of waves subsided inside his heart, and the taste of salt dulled into that of stale pig’s blood. Mechanically, he washed his face. In the mirror, he saw that most of the blood had already dried. How long had he stood out there talking and laughing with those people?

He wondered where Mr. Arcos had been through all of it. By the time Will had wiped the blood from his eyes, the man had disappeared.

“Will…” Elodie’s hand was warm through the thin fabric of his shirt as she touched his back. This time, his body did not respond.

“Don’t,” he said quietly. He met her gaze in the mirror. “You will never defeat Mr. Arcos by surrendering to society’s expectations.”

With those words, he left the room, abandoning Elodie with her missing apology.

Chapter 14

Will had neither the strength nor the desire to return to the party. He regretted grabbing Elodie like that, regretted that the first time he had truly touched her had happened in anger. Even now, he could feel her throat beneath his fingers, the way he had pinned her against the wall. But why had she done it? None of that made her betrayal any easier to forgive.

Frustrated, Will wandered through the townhouse. In the excitement of their arrival and the drama that followed, he had barely noticed how romantic the house was. Despite the dark fabrics, somber paintings, and heavy rugs, colorfully painted lamps formed welcome islands of light in the gloom.

Will followed them now, away from the voices of the party and deeper into the house. Around the next corner, he found an open glass door leading onto a tiny balcony, barely large enough for two people—the perfect place to stop and smoke a cigarette.

Sure enough, someone had hidden a pack behind the statue of a gnome. Will had given up smoking after his first semester at the Academy, but he had not felt this transported back to those days in years. The thought of tobacco on his tongue and warm smoke in his lungs was so tempting, so comforting, that he took out a cigarette and lit it with the lighter lying beside it.

With a sigh, he inhaled the nicotine.

It tasted bitter, like the loneliness overtaking him. Life had forced Will to fight for himself time and time again, yet there were moments when solitude sharpened into something more painful. Moments when he did not merely have no one, but felt abandoned. Like the evening after the scandal, when he had gone to his usual café and found that his friends had deserted him, leaving the table empty. “Is anyone else joining you?" the server had asked, but he had remained alone.

“Do you have a spare for me?”

Of all people, Mr. Arcos stood in the doorway, a coat draped over his shoulders. A single strand of hair curled across his forehead. Will wanted to smooth it back into his eternally perfect hairstyle.

“Have you come to admire your friends’ artwork?” he asked hollowly, making no move to offer him one of the stolen cigarettes.

Mr. Arcos gave him a crooked smile. “Katelyn does not allow us to smoke inside. I did not expect to find you here, but alcohol does encourage all my vices.”

It was strange to think that young people in Bloodgrove lived, celebrated, and drank just as they did in the Capitol. That their lives were not all sacrificial rituals and chimeras. That people here even knew the meaning of the word vice. Somehow, the thought softened Will, and after a moment’s hesitation, he perched halfway on the stone balustrade and made room for Mr. Arcos.

The ambassador closed the glass doors behind him and reached for the pack of cigarettes. “Our hostess hates the smell,” he explained, which suited Will perfectly. He did not need more spectators.

Instead, he allowed himself to watch Mr. Arcos enjoy something. The rush of that first drag as the nicotine entered his blood, his eyelids closing as he tipped back his head and breathed out. Only pale marks remained on his face now, the cuts almost completely healed.

“The artwork suits you,” Arcos said at last, without opening his eyes.

Will laughed dryly. “An excellent joke. Everyone laughed.”

“You look like a berserker from the old tales.”

Will paused and studied him across the cramped balcony. It sounded almost like a compliment. “What was that thing?”

Arcos met his gaze, and his stern lips almost curved into a crooked smile. “Balto adores taxidermy. He skinned a vampire, stitched the hide back together, and filled it with reasonably fresh blood. The rest was simple enough—dress it and control the doll with a little blood magic…”