Page 44 of Castle of the Cursed
“Is that your last request?” He sounds different, like he’s slipped into a lower register. “You want my face to be the last thing you see?”
There’s something new in his expression tonight. A fiery blaze in his wintry eyes that must have been ignited when he drank my blood. Tasting me has changed him.
“Why?” I whisper.
“You reminded me of what I am.” There’s nothing luminous about his smile now. His mirthless mouth promises only death.
I don’t see when he reaches for the second blade.
“AAHHH!”
My scream stings against my sore throat. This time, the dagger lops off one of my curls and pins it to the board.
Sebastián already has a third blade in his hand, so I run.
I can’t see where I’m going very well, but I find a wooden device with a shelf underneath that’s big enough for me to squeeze inside. “I am astounded I let you live this long,” I hear him say as he searches for me.
My pulse echoes in my head, so I know he hears it. My heart is a homing beacon.
“Earth must be softening me,” he says, his voice moving in my direction. He’s going to find me, and I’ve trapped myself. I need a better hiding place. I used to be so much better at this game.
I crawl out and dart for cover again behind a rack of whips.
“I should have finished you off last night,” he says, and I can’t tell anymore if he’s talking to me or to himself. “I am even more certain now that killing you will break this spell.”
What makes him more certain now, I wonder? Did he see the black smoke, too? I flatten myself against a narrow bed that’s been bolted to a large, spinning wheel.
His silence is more terrifying than his words, so I taunt, “You couldn’t even kill a baby blue bear—”
The shadow beast appears in front of me, and I know at once he could have ended me at any point tonight, or the past five nights.
But Sebastián prefers to play with his food… Until the food plays back.
“You should not have said that.” He doesn’t seem angry or bloodthirsty. He looks hurt.
His eyes lock on my throat, and I raise my hands to cover it.
“Why didn’t you finish the job last night?” I ask him. “Why all the candles?”
“I wanted to make it special for you,” he says, but it’s clear this has nothing to do with me. It’s about his own pleasure.
I’m backed against the upright bed and have nowhere to go. I can’t sidestep Sebastián the way I did Felipe when we first met, nor can I outrun or outthink him. My fingers stay locked on my throat, like they can protect me from his fangs.
“If it is any consolation to you,” he says, his icy hands closing around both of mine, “it was always going to end this way.”
He pushes down on my arms, ever so slowly. “You had to know that once I had a taste”—I gasp as he tears open the turtleneck of my sweater, exposing my skin down to the tops of my breasts—“I would want more.”
There’s nothing I can do to protect myself. We both know he’s in complete control.
Goose bumps ripple across my body as his mouth hovers over mine, no breath blowing from his lips. There’s something so alluring about his starry gaze, his hypnotic voice, his fatal fangs that promise escape from pain and eternal sleep. All of these things must be part of his power because I almost want to feel his bite again.
Except… he isn’t striking.
And his daggers missed me. If the shadow beast wanted me dead, I’d be dead. This is something else… He’s manipulating me.
Sebastián is trying to seduce some kind of confession, which means he still overestimates me—but maybe I can use that to my advantage.
“Or this could all be part of a test,” I say, infusing my voice with as much confidence as I can, and the shadow beast’s brow wings up in surprise.
