Page 36 of Bloodgrove

As previously reported, rumors concerning the Red Hand’s declining health have grown more persistent, but this season promises to be an exciting one! Mr. Arcos opened the contest with his impressive chimera attack on the Senate. As a longtime servant of the king, he is considered the frontrunner. Lady Ashton and Duke Godwin have thus been eliminated, leaving only Duke Wilkinson, Sir Lake, Duke Bohun, and Duchess Woelf. A surprising new contender is Duchess Ormonde, who has returned to society following her father’s fall...

Will could not quite summon Elodie’s outrage over having such questionable glory stolen from her. It had still been a brutal double murder, after all, one the daily paper dismissed as an “elimination.” At the same time, it was fascinating to watch her fight her way up through society.

TWO ELDERS BEHEADED!

Duchess Elodie brings order to the harbor district. After Mr. Arcos drew attention last week with his successful vampire hunt—witnesses claim they saw him entirely unarmed (as previously reported)—the head of House Ormonde answered by killing two vampire pack leaders.

Will had wondered about that. The day before, Elodie had not returned to the townhouse until after breakfast, wearing a shockingly short dress that ended at her calves, armed with pistols and a sword, and leaving a trail of blood behind her.

“WE MUST ALL MAKE SACRIFICES TO WIN!”

Mr. Arcos contributes three more chimeras to the city’s defenses and, in a stirring speech before the Senate, reminds every citizen of their duty to ensure the city’s continued survival. He also advocated for stricter laws protecting captured vampires.

Will tried to learn more, but the proposed legislation was confined to a tiny secondary article. Even so, he could not help smiling at a quotation from Mr. Arcos’s speech: “We use them [vampires] like cattle—worse than cattle—and for that reason, they deserve at least the same protections as our farm animals.”

Perhaps the ambassador had listened to Will more closely than he had thought.

The next day, Mr. Arcos was seen dining with a noblewoman, and Will’s hope that the quotation had been more than coincidence evaporated.

MARRIAGE INSTEAD OF THE RED HAND?

While rumors circulate of Duchess Ormonde’s secret engagement, she was seen with Mr. Arcos leaving Duchess Delean’s birthday celebration in the midst of a heated argument. Earlier that evening, Ormonde reportedly read the ambassador’s secret love letters aloud as midnight entertainment.

Gradually, Will understood that the entire city was following the contest breathlessly, waiting for Elodie and Mr. Arcos to tear each other apart. Four other candidates still sought the position of Red Hand, but they faded beside those two supernovas.

“I am receiving Duchess Wilkinson at the end of the week. I hope you can attend.” Elodie strolled into the dining room.

“Must I?” Will peeked skeptically over the top of the newspaper, but immediately folded it shut. Elodie’s dress hung in tatters, her wrists and throat bore the marks of restraints, and her hair was disheveled, leaves tangled in the curls.

“What happened?” He leaped to his feet. His first instinct was to search her for bite marks, but nothing about her suggested a vampire attack. There was nowhere near enough blood, he told himself. At his next thought, concern turned to icy shock. She was still wearing the elegant red-embroidered dress in which she had left the house the night before. These were the marks of another human.

Before he knew it, he was beside her, taking her hand. Fine scratches covered her skin, just deep enough to bleed. But her wrists were worse. Were there still thorns embedded?

“What happened?” he growled.

“Eric.”

“That bastard!” He truly did not know the man. He had seen Mr. Arcos’s capacity for cruelty, but he had never imagined him physically hurting someone—that their conflict went beyond vicious words. Even so, Will felt relieved to know it had not been a group of strange men. He trusted his judgment of Mr. Arcos that far, at least.

Carefully, he took her other hand as well and tried to assess the extent of her injuries.

He felt Elodie’s amused gaze before he looked up. “What?”

“It is touching to see how concerned you are.”

“How could he do this to you? Should Hedgefort send for a doctor?”

“That will not be necessary.”

At his skeptical raised eyebrow, she obediently allowed him to guide her to a chair at the table and sat beside him. As a child, he had learned the essentials of treating cuts; his father’s wounds, infected with salt and fish blood, had always healed slowly. In the Capitol, he had cared for friends after they were beaten because of the lives they led. What little tolerance the city offered was not distributed equally.

“You don’t have to do everything alone,” he said.

“Who do I have besides myself?”

He left that unanswered. With one hand, he held hers; with the other, he unwound the last vine from her skin and picked the thorns from the wounds. She cursed very un-lady-like but allowed him to continue. He washed the cuts with water from the carafe and patted them dry with a white napkin.

“Use this.” Elodie drew a small brown bottle of iodine from the voluminous folds of her dress.