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“Don’ be snappin’ at me, ’cause I’m jus’ makin’ sure ye understand what yer doin’.” My eyes narrowed on him, but he ignored it, pressing on, “Ye stole a La Rosa heir, one who’s been killin’ our men left an’ right, disrespectin’ anyone an’ everyone—” He paused but wasn’t finished. “And na yer gettin’ us inta a war, tha’ we’ll no doubt win, don’t get me wrong, buh we’ll lose men fer no good reason. And fer what? ’Cause yer bored? Havin’ a mid-century crisis?”
I fought the urge to step up to him, knowing he was only doing his duty as my right-hand man, but his words sent fire through my veins nonetheless. “Ottavia is good ’nough reason.” He arched a brow and I followed up with, “When do I ever do anythin’ fer no good reason? There’s always a good one.”
“Ah, so yer tellin’ me every crusade, every war, every murder ye’ve done over the thousands of years ye’ve been terrorizing ’as been fer good reason?” My jaw ticked and he took that as an answer. “What ’bout tha’ stunt ye pulled in London? Or in Germany?”
“Ottavia is different,” I hissed through my teeth, my anger finally pulling forward to push my power at him. “She is na like tha others. Sheismine. An’ shewillgive in or die by me hand and me hand alone.”
He looked away, directing his gaze toward the wall, his teeth grinding and jaw flexing. “Understood.”
Withdrawing from him, I spun in the direction of Ottavia’s room.
She was mine.
And it was time she knew what that really meant.
Ottavia
Chapter Eighteen
“So you guys are, like,togethertogether?” I asked Sable, munching on a piece of popcorn. The salt and butter clung to my fingertips so I licked at them, lapping up the tasty remnants.
Sable nodded, the halo of her dark hair bouncing with the movement. She was sprawled out on my bed on her stomach, hugging a pillow to her chest as her socked feet kicked in the air behind her. We were dressed similarly in butter-soft dark leggings but whereas I wore a plain sweatshirt, Sable’s curvy figure sported an Irish-knit cable sweater that was much too large for her frame.
Now, knowing what I did, I had my suspicions that it belonged to Declan.
Nodding happily, Sable sent a smile my way as she hummed in agreement. “Mmhmm! Been together for—gosh, ages now, it feels like.” Her laugh tinkled like bells in the air.
“How?” I asked her, and I tripped on my next words for a second because I had so many questions.
How did you meet?
How do you stand being near him when our bodies fear them?
How do you handle the pheromones?
Eoin hadn’t drank from me in days. I didn’t have a great grasp of how long I’d been here other than that my concussion rarely bothered me and my head wound was almost healed, but I knew it had been… a good while since he last bit me. Which meant he’d been utilizing donors.
The thought created a pit in my gut, for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely.
Sable seemed to understand what I was asking without me having to elucidate. Her smile was soft as her gaze turned inward, and I could tell she was thinking about her lover. “He saved me,” she began. “I had been reckless as a teen. A total daredevil, if you can believe it. A group of people I hung out with—and I hesitate to call them friends—at the time dared me to sneak into the Wastes.
“And I did it, of course. I was desperate to fit in. Desperate to prove myself to anyone that would possibly accept me, so yeah, I did it.” Her smile turned bitter as she rolled over on the bed, gazing up at the lights with a shadowed expression. “When I started screaming as the first ghoul attacked me, my friends took off without a backward glance. I begged them to help me, but they just left me. I don’t even know how I survived long enough to be found, to be honest. When Declan came upon me, the ghouls were fighting over my unconscious body like dogs with a bone.
“Declan fought them off and dragged me outside the fence. He ended up feeding me his blood to save me because I was so injured.” Her tone was filled with soft awe and love, so much love.
My mind hiccupped over the factoid she just shared. “Hold on—you drank his blood? But you’re not a vampire?” Eyes skating down her frame, I looked for signs of the supernatural abilities that I might’ve missed, but even as she turned over to look at me, Sable moved with typical human grace. Not the effortless, smooth dexterity most vampires moved with.
“Oh girl, you don’t know a lot about vampires, do you? What are they even teaching you in that mansion if yours?” Her brow raised. “It takes multiple, mutual exchanges of blood to become a vampire. The blood in your body has to be systematically drained and replaced with vampiric blood. It’s not an easy process. Securing a bond with Declan was much easier.” Sable plucked the bite of popcorn from the bowl, munching on it, before gathering the wrappers of our much-needed snack session and tossing them into her duffel bag to throw away later.
“What bond?” I asked, confused. I swept crumbs off my quilt and onto the floor. I’d worry about crumbs on my feet later.
Incredulous, Sable paused in packing her bag to stare at me over the expanse of the bed. “You’re serious? You don’t know anything about the bond?” Her dark orbs eyed my neck. “Have you felt a pull toward Eoin recently? A need to be with him?”
Hesitantly, I nodded, fingering the marks on my throat.
“That’s the beginning of the bond,” Sable stated matter-of-factly. “It takes three bites to fully lock it into place, but with two, you’re likely already feeling its effects.”
Anger, sharp and bitter, rushed through me. “So he did this to me? He made me want him?”
