Page 33 of Thirst
A smile stretched my cheeks despite the situation. My face ached a little from smiling so much since Finn arrived.
I went to the window and brushed aside the blackout curtains, noting the last rays of sunset fading behind the high stone wall that blocked most of my view. No time for even a catnap—the night was here, and all the blood-hungry monsters were stirring across the estate.
I sighed and faced Finn.I have less than two hours to get ready for some ball.
I have maybe two minutes before I should be mucking stalls,he answered. When my nose wrinkled, he added,Punishment.
Why?
The seneschal gets highly embarrassed when a servant almost burns to death in the sun.
I rolled my eyes.Carissa?
One and the same.
When I became queen, I would fire that old bat. I held up a finger and went to write a note to her, signedIlyana Krudelbach. Instructions to give Finn leniency for his sun exposure yesterday and for being late tonight. What was the point of pretending to be a noblewoman if I couldn’t use her name to help a friend?
Carissa would be suspicious, naturally, but she’d survived decades of service as Nemea’s mortal seneschal. She’d follow instructions. If she didn’t, she risked answering not only to a noble vampiress, but potentially to the next queen herself.
Give this to her. If she gives you trouble, let her know I will follow up,I signed before holding up the letter. The movements felt smooth, falling off my fingers as naturally as they had when we were kids. My hands finally remembered the way to talk to him.
He pointed at the letter.Is that lenience?
I nodded, and he just looked at me for a few moments, his lips set at an odd angle. He approached me with his arms out, offering a hug with a self-conscious grimace. When I accepted it, I expected a brief embrace, not for him to pull me in with full exuberance. I barely hesitated before hugging him back just as tightly.
How long had it been since I’d let another person hold me? Not since Zane was taken, I think. I missed this…the warmth of another, their heartbeat pressed so close to mine. And Finn’s heart was throbbing along. The half of me that was tainted with vampiric senses could smell how excitement made his blood all the richer.
As he stepped back, I caught myself memorizing the warmth where his hands had pressed against my ribs, the way his pulse had thundered against my chest. It wasn’t overwhelming, but just enough to leave a soft ache in its absence.
Zane’s embrace had always been gentle, reverent. Finn held me like I was strong enough to weather any storm, and it awakened a thrum of yearning in my blood. The thought sent a spike of guilt through my chest so sharp I had to press mypalm against my sternum. What kind of betrothed compared them at all?
Thank you. See you soon,he signed.
I gestured to the silver pitcher he’d brought in with him. It would be a flimsy excuse if he was caught leaving my quarters with it in his hands, but he could say he was returning it to the kitchen. He left the room with it and the note, plus a smile on his face.
Tongues would be wagging soon enough about Finn and me. The first trial would undoubtedly challenge each candidate and her Devotion. It seemed I wouldn’t be working alone after all. Finn had offered to join me with all the over-the-top energy of a great joke, but the punchline was absent, replaced by the fire in his eyes. He would help me dismantle the mansion brick by brick or die trying.
I had the feeling there was more to the spontaneous offer than a desire for revenge. The way he’d looked at me before our embrace, not like the childhood friend he'd always been, but like a man seeing a woman he thought he’d lost forever. My stomach twisted with something that wasn’t entirely unwelcome, and that terrified me more than any trial.
“Oh, Finn,” I said under my breath. “You and me against the world.” It was as if I’d never left.
Except I had, and I’d originally come here to save a man who wasn’t him. I traced the familiar shape of my engagement band through my clothes, blowing out a tired breath as I forced myself to move.
As I washed and prepared myself for the pre-trial ball, memories of Zane and Finn invaded the strategic thoughts I tried to muster. I pushed them aside.Focus.I looked up halfway into my ablutions to see Ilyana glaring back at me.A small gasp escaped my lips, though not as strong a startle as the last time.
“I wanted to do this by myself,” I told my false reflection as I applied cosmetics to hide the shadows in the hollows of my eyes. How foolish of me to think I could pull off my revenge alone when I was already accepting Ilyana’s unwilling assistance. I clung to Aetherius’s wisdom. “But if wemusttoil together, we’ll create something for the benefit of all.”
A smoldering ruin of the House of the Sanguine. The blood of all my old tormentors staining the marble underfoot. And my grandmother’s unholy rose garden cleansed to ashes. I would work hard to create that future.
But first, I needed to wrestle myself into Ilyana’s finest ball gown. I wasn’t about to look like a hypocrite now and call for assistance. I managed the layers of burgundy fabric and chiffon with irritation as they tangled around my legs.
Felicity had quickly honed in on the laces at the back of my dress yesterday. This gown didn’t have to be tied all the way up my spine, stopping instead at mid-back to compliment the off-the-shoulder cuff sleeves. I secured it to my body with some twisting and a few graceless stumbles.
I braided part of my hair and pinned it up in a bun. It wouldn’t be the exaggerated curls and exotic updos of the other Born, but it would do. I wasn’t here to peacock for anyone’s entertainment. If anything, I planned to slip from the ball as quickly as possible so I could rest before the horrors of the first trial.
“You know what they’re saying about the first trial. Half of us will soon be gone,”Felicity had said.
A smaller, quieter voice at the back of my head suggested that it would be a good strategic choice to observe my opponents. Rupture poison and slayer fighting techniques wouldn’t save mein a direct, five-versus-one fight. Even the surprise of my nullification magic would only go so far.
