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Sebastian
THE ODDS OF ME ACTUALLY finding my father dead or alive seemed incredibly slim, but I knew I had to start looking. The only problem was that I didn’t even know where to begin. It made only one question come to mind.
If I were Charles Stark, where would I be?
I supposed that the best place to start would be with his best friend, Ernesto Cordero. He’d once belonged to the Delrusso, but he had left after having a major falling out with Vincenzo, Lorenzo Delrusso’s late father. The last time I’d heard anything about him, he was living on a small private island on the outskirts of the island the Craven Coven lived on.
I would need to take my ship to get to where he was. I decided I would leave first thing that evening, sometime after the sun went down. The last thing I wanted to do was deal with the heat of the ship if I didn’t need to.
I thought about taking Lila with me, but I decided against it. Even though I hated the idea of being away from her for so long, I knew she was safer at the Shore of Tranquility than she would have been with me.
We would both be safer if we were away from each other. There would be no need to fight the urges, no reason to maintain my self-control, if we were far apart.
As I began to head for the Slave Chambers, I debated the idea of bringing one or more of my other slaves along from the journey, but I decided against it. I would have a drink right now and that would hold me over for a few days. I would also pack some blood vials to hold me over until I got back home.
When I stepped into the living room of my Slave Chambers, all of the girls were sitting on the sofas. They glanced up at me, and the looks on their faces told me they were waiting expectantly for answers.
A silence lingered in the air for a few moments. I tried to find the right words to say. What would I have said if Lila had actually died?
If she died, I would have been speechless. I wouldn’t have been able to form words. Just the thought of her dying made me feel sick.
Natalie was the one to finally cut through the silence. “Julia’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Julia is dead,” I lied. I felt bad about lying to my slaves—to Lila’s friends—especially when I knew how close they all got with one another. But was it technically a lie when Lila’s real name wasn’t even Julia in the first place?
I saw a tear trickle down her cheek, just as Hannah broke out into sobs. “I don’t understand. Why did this have to happen? We’ve lost not just one but two girls this week.”
“Well, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but it was her own fault,” Lexi said without even a hint of sympathy in her tone. “It’s not like we didn’t warn her. And she saw what happened to Marjorie the first time she went in those woods. Obviously going into the woods was just asking to get herself killed. She was probably the dumbest slave who’s ever lived in this palace.”
I glanced over at Lexi sharply. “Take that back,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Why? It’s true,” Lexi insisted. “She was dumb to think she was invincible.”
Anger raced through me. The logical part of me knew that everything Lexi was saying was right. Running into those woods was, by far, the dumbest thing Lila had done since arriving in Deadwood. But hearing someone call Lila dumb infuriated me.
I was so defensive over this girl who I had only just met, yet who I had fallen so deeply in love with...
“She is not dumb,” I said firmly before realizing my mistake. “I mean... wasn’t... dumb. She wasn’t dumb.”
“Say what you want, but I stand by my opinion. If she was smart, she would have known better than go into those woods. She would still be alive. I’m sorry, but Julia was dumb,” Lexi said softly. “We’re probably better off without her stupidity around here.”
Without even thinking about what I was doing, I reached out and grabbed her neck. Lifting her into the air, I pulled her closer to me—so close that we were nose to nose. “You will never, ever speak such negative words about that girl again in my presence. Do you understand me?”
There was a look of terror in Lexi’s hazel eyes as she nodded. “Y-yes, Prince Sebastian,” she whispered.
I glared into her eyes for a moment longer before setting her back down on the ground. “Go to your room. Get out of my sight.”
Shooting a half-confused, half-tearful look in my direction, Lexi ran to her room and slammed the door shut behind her.
I turned to the other girls. “Today has been incredibly stressful. Who wants to be my drink tonight?”
The girls all stared back at me in silence. I was sure that seeing the way I’d acted with Lexi made them all nervous.
“No one volunteers?” I asked out loud. “Very well, then. I choose Hannah.”
With a nod, she rose to her feet and followed after me.
I hadn’t even closed the door to my drinking room yet when I allowed my fangs to come out.
As I sunk them into her neck and her blood hit against my tongue, I tried to ignore the lack of satisfaction that washed over me.
Of all my slaves, Hannah’s blood had never been my favorite, by any means. The only reason I’d chosen her as my slave at all was because I’d known that Kade had set his eyes on her after Emerson had decided he didn’t want her to be his slave, after all. But her blood had never really done it for me. It wasn’t my definition of good; it was only adequate, at best.
I thought about taking her back to the Slave Chambers and grabbing one of the other girls to drink from, but I knew Hannah’s blood wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that I couldn’t get Lila off my mind. What I wanted, more than anything, was to drink from her—even if it was just one sip, just enough to know how her blood tasted.
The thing was, it didn’t matter how much I wanted to drink from Lila, because I couldn’t. I couldn’t allow myself to go there—not any time soon, at least.
I was partly afraid for myself, afraid for her. I was afraid that her blood would be so delicious, so satisfying—too satisfying. I feared that if I tasted her blood, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from drinking more.
I was afraid I would kill the girl I loved.
But I was afraid of more than just that. I didn’t know just how powerful her blood was or what the consequences of drinking from her would be. I was afraid that the effects of drinking from her could be devastating for everyone.
If merely falling in love with Lila had already sparked what may have been the world’s first vampire war, what would happen if I allowed myself to give into temptation?