He releases me, and my skin feels cold.
I don’t—can’t—respond. Tears burn in the back of my throat, and I worry if I tried to speak, my voice would break. Because as much as I wish it were, the feeling inside of my chest isn’t hatred. It’s sharper. Darker. Now that some time has passed and my emotions have calmed enough to listen to reason again, his logic makes sense. But no amount of understanding why he did it makes it any easier to trust him again. And I realize it’s not what happened with Connor that’s pulling at me. It’s the glamour. The violation of it all.
He digs in his eyebrows and lets out a slow breath. “It won’t ever happen again, Valerie,” he says, voice low. “You have my word.”
I hold his gaze for a moment, then turn back to the railing. My fingers rub at the spot Connor’s teeth had dug in, the skin mostly healed now, but still tender. The aftereffects of the venom have worn off, but their memory is just as sharp. How easily I’d given in to it. The moment it flooded my veins, there was no reasoning. I just wanted more.
Reid’s eyes follow the movement, and the lines in his forehead deepen. “He didn’t know what he was doing.”
My words come out barely louder than a whisper. “I know.”
“Just like when you first turned—he probably didn’t even see your face, Valerie. He couldn’t help it.”
I nod, too many times, too fast. Logically, I know exactly what he went through. The tunnel vision. The thirst. The instincts taking over everything.
But a quiet voice in the back of my mind still can’t help but whisper, He knew. He knew about what happened to Calla. He saw it. He knew how I felt about venom, how I’d never tried it, not even once.
Reid meets my eyes.
I swallow hard, realizing I was probably advertising all of my thoughts down the bond, and a flush of heat fills my cheeks. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know. But if you end up needing anything, I’m…here. I’ve seen a lot of rough final trials. But this…this was cruel, Valerie. You didn’t deserve this.”
I stare at him, the word cruel hurdling around in my chest. When he looks up, I can tell he means it. When I’d looked into the queen’s and my mother’s eyes in the throne room, there hadn’t been a hint of regret. No compassion. Nothing. Reid’s eyes are heavy. Not with pity, exactly. Just understanding.
His expression shifts, almost into a wince. “I didn’t get a chance to ask you before. How are you feeling?” There’s no mistaking his gaze drifting down to my stomach, then quickly away.
“I’m fine.” I curse my voice for shaking around the words and turn to the gardens. “Are they…?”
He sighs. “No one’s seen them since they dropped you off at my room. No sign of them in the region at all. We have a team looking for them, but…” He trails off. “We’re not going to let this go, Valerie. We will find them. I swear to you.”
But they’re still unaccounted for. Which means they could be anywhere. Doing anything. They could come back at any time and finish what they started with me…or worse.
Which is probably exactly what they want, for me to be afraid. Whatever they’re playing at, this is some kind of game to them. And the anticipation, the fear, it’s adding to whatever they’re actually after.
Reid’s words from yesterday echo in the back of my mind. I don’t know if they want revenge, if this was just for fun…if this was just the start.
I shiver. The music swells behind the door, and I glance over my shoulder, trying to shake off the heaviness that’s settled between us. “You don’t mind missing the party?”
He lets out a low laugh. “I am very okay missing the party. But we can go back if you change your mind.”
“It wasn’t as much fun as I’d imagined it would be,” I say, almost to myself.
“Things rarely are.” He clears his throat and looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t make any plans for tomorrow, okay?”
I blink, and it takes me a minute to process the change in subject. The very idea of making plans almost sounds like a foreign concept. Every minute of my days has been planned out for I can’t even remember how long. With initiation over, the semester has officially reached its end for juniors. The underclassmen still have a few weeks left, but for the next couple of months, I’m…free. All incoming seniors are required to participate in the summer program, so I do have one class, but that still leaves me with an unprecedented amount of free time compared to the last few months.
I raise my eyebrows. “Why?”
“I was thinking it would be a good idea for you and me to practice feeding.”
“Feeding,” I repeat.
He presses his lips together and nods, his expression suddenly serious. “Now that you’re spending the summer at the estate, you can’t very well go downstairs and grab some blood like the rest of us, or have a human sent to your rooms. We’ll try to get you blood bags when we can, but I think it’s best you learn how to feed properly, just in case.”
I stare at him. “You want me to learn to feed on humans.”
“Would you rather put yourself in a situation where you can’t get any bags and you’re so hungry you snap and don’t know how to stop?”
He has a point. I hate that he has a point. But the idea of drinking directly from someone makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.
“It doesn’t have to be as bad as you’re probably making it out to be in your head,” he says quietly. “Plenty of humans are willing, or you can glamour them, or use a spell to make them forget. You don’t take much, not enough to cause them any harm. But it’s something all vampires have to learn to do when they’re young. And I don’t think never teaching you is a good idea.”
I try to imagine it. Try to imagine taking a human and sinking my teeth into their neck. Someone like Madison.
Someone like Connor.
“We’ll try it tomorrow,” he decides. “They’ll have let Connor out by then, and he’ll need to learn too. We’ll go into the city.”
A small jolt goes through my body at Connor’s name. Despite everything I’ve seen—despite feeling his fangs in my own neck—in my mind, he’s still human.
I say nothing, even though I want to argue. Because the only thing worse than learning how to do this is the alternative. If I hurt someone, if I got to that point and didn’t know how to stop, I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive myself.
Chapter Four
The tears and the shock from the initiation ceremony are long gone now. The second the sun goes down and people at the estate start to rise, my feet take me where I need to go before I realize where I’m heading. My jaw aches from clenching it so tightly, and I force my hands to relax out of the fists I’ve been holding at my sides. I’m not looking for another argument. Just, for once, I want actual answers.
I end up at the gym at the back of the estate. The outside door faces the pool, and I hesitate a moment, steeling myself with a breath before yanking it open. It’s mostly empty since it’s first thing in the evening, so he isn’t hard to find.