Page 103 of Blood Oath
So my darling must be somewhere else.
Wherever she is, wherever she may ever go, I’ll always find her. I thought I was well and truly obsessed before, but seeing her guard down, hearing her moan softly and cry out in pleasure, watching her eyes soften as she studied me in that bed…
I need to carve her into whatever remains of my broken, blackened soul.
Where is she?
Just as dawn starts to color the world outside, I drift through the faculty hall, internally stewing that Frost lumped me in with the rest of them when he told Maven about their asinine little wager. Now she thinks we only worked so hard to get close to her just to win prizes when in actuality, nothing the members of my quintet could offer would ever remotely interest me. I ignored their wager from the beginning and thought nothing of it until Frost hurt her with it.
Gods above, I really might kill that convoluted ice elemental.
A door clicks, and I freeze in place, shocked when a dark figure shaped like Maven exits one of the rooms. I launch toward her in Limbo, eager to get a glimpse of the hooded figure’s face, but then I pause, frowning at its aura.
A pungent mass of swirling muck, like all colors blended together.
Not my keeper.
But the door is left slightly ajar to the office they just left, and I drift closer to peek inside curiously.
Horror and denial flood me so fast that Limbo shakes around me. Before I realize what I’ve done, I’m tearing into the mortal world, incognizant of everything else in the room rising from the hold of gravity and swirling in a topsy-turvy mess as I drop to my knees beside?—
Maven.
Unmoving. Cold. Staring up with unseeing eyes at the ceiling.
With a dagger through her heart.
A raw cry rips from my throat, and I pull her against me, panic streaking through my system when I see the blood soaking her chest, her hand, her stomach—gods above, it’s everywhere.
She’s dead.
She’s dead.
How am I supposed to exist now? I’m going to destroy the entire godsdamned world for taking her away from me. I’m going to watch them all rip each other apart so their blood drowns out my tears. I’ll curse the gods and follow her into the Beyond to be with her if I have to.
No, no, no, no, no?—
My eyes snag on her hand, floating limply like everything else in this room. Limbo is still seeping into the world here, distorting everything in a confusing haze, but when I see the bite marks—fucking bite marks—on her hand, the breath catches in my throat.
They’re mending.
The room calms as my confusion overshadows my grief, and finally, we’re both solidly in the moral world as I gawk at Maven’s hand. Soon, there’s no hint of injury left behind. Unable to stop myself, I gently lift the edge of her ripped, baggy black shirt. My eyes widen in shock.
This was a fatal wound. There is enough blood that I’m sure of that. Yet now there is nothing but blood-streaked, perfect olive-toned skin surrounding her belly button.
My fingers shake as I shift the shirt further up until my attention zeroes in on the wound that’s attempting to close around the strange dagger embedded there, right where her pale scar bisects her beautiful chest. Not daring to breathe, I grip the dagger’s hilt and slide it out, tossing it aside and remaining wholly fixated on the hole that quickly closes up.
She’s dead. Yet she’s…healing.
Maven’s chest rises slightly with a shallow, ragged inhale. That inhale sounds pained, but I barely restrain the relieved sob that tries to break free from my chest.
Alive.
Somehow.
It makes no sense, but she’s alive, and that’s all I can think about.
Voices and footsteps sound in the hallway. I gently set my beautiful, confusing obsession down to shut and lock the door. When I return, she’s still breathing. All I want is to smooth the hair from her face and kiss every inch of her as she warms back up, but I refrain. If she wakes and feels me touching her, it might set off that sickening terror she has of skin contact.
