Page 19 of Blood Oath
“It’s not your fault they were insecure.”
She laughs, but I'm keeping a mental list in my head. One I intend to write down and use to drive my so-called matches away. It will be far easier to break up the quintet if I can get them to hate me.
“It won't work, May.”
I glance at Kenzie, waiting for her meaning. She smiles knowingly, looking both amused and sympathetic.
“I know what you're up to, but trying to make your quintet dislike you isn’t going to work. You're too endearing.”
Endearing? Me? I almost laugh out loud. She's too nice to everyone, but especially to me.
“You are the only person who's ever thought that about me,” I inform her.
Kenzie shrugs. “You’re a master of hiding your emotions, and you say as little as possible, but actions speak louder than words. I know the real you. It won't take long for your guys to see the real you, too, no matter how you try to hide it.”
She's underestimating my acting skills. After all, no one here has questioned my backstory.
Changing the topic, I decide to come clean to her. “I ran into Luka earlier. One of my so-called matches snapped a fang out of his mouth.”
She gawks at me. “No wonder poor Luka disappeared for so long today. Damn, your matches don't mess around.” Then she wiggles her eyebrows again. “Sounds like they're protective.”
“More like self-deluded. It won't last. Luka’s fang is in my drawer if you want to parade it around in front of him.”
She shuffles uncomfortably. “I don’t want that. I know he was an ass to me, but as strange as it sounds…I don't hate him. I don't really know how I feel about him, but I don't want to hurt him. Maybe he and I can be friends, eventually.”
Like I said, she's too nice to everyone.
Before I can say that she’s far too forgiving of him, a sharp, sudden bloom of pain in my chest takes my breath away, making my vision blur. I grip one of the posts of my bed tightly, but otherwise, I carefully control any other outward sign of pain.
Gods, it hurts worse than usual.
“I need to work on a potion for class tomorrow before it gets too late,” I lie quickly, trying to keep my voice even. “I'll catch up with you later.”
“All right. But I want to hear all about your attempts to repel your quintet. Pretty sure this’ll be super entertaining to watch,” Kenzie teases before saying goodnight and leaving the room.
The moment the door shuts behind her, I crumble to my knees, clutching at my chest. Now that I'm not fighting it, the pain lances outward from my torso—almost like the center of my body is being sucked through the eye of a needle.
I know from experience that unless I speed along the process, I could be in for hours of agony before the message comes through. So, instead of waiting, I stumble to my closet, pulling out one of my many hidden vials of dark liquid.
Uncorking it, I down the disgusting mixture quickly, gagging on the taste. A familiar burn floods my system before everything fades to black as I slump to the floor. Then, I feel nothing but cold.
Telum.
That word reverberates through my mind along with a flurry of images, all one after the other. Twisted trees decorated with hanging bones. Shadows sliding over corpses. A sky cycling through day and night, fourteen times, while snow falls.
But the last images are the ones that burn into my mind.
Lillian being tortured. Her in a room with blood and gore, surrounded by dark smiles, screaming as she’s slowly pulled to pieces. The screams of the others.
Telum…
The last echo dies out as a sudden, severe shock jolts me awake. I gasp and claw at my chest, trying to force the pain away. I'm lying on the ground in my room, head pounding while the cold gradually fades from my limbs. The vial I drank from is shattered on the ground beside me.
With a grimace, I try to pull myself up, but my body feels like it's made of wet cement. So, instead, I lay back down and scowl at the ceiling, thinking.
The winter solstice is fourteen days and nights away. That’s what that image means. I have until the solstice to finish the first task.
And I certainly can’t do that with four idiots breathing down my neck all the time.
