Page 6 of Hitched to the Vampire King
Elias’s words cut through me. It felt like someone had driven a blade deep into my heart, then given it a little twist, just because. The way he’d spoken those words, so cold, so detached, I never would have imagined how deeply his hatred ran.
“Elias,” I whispered, at a loss for what to say. “He’s yourbrother.”
Elias’s gaze remained steady, unflinching. “My brother died the day he killed our mother. What’s left of him, this husk of a vampire, is not the brother I knew.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach. This wasn’t the Elias Gabriel had told me about, the brother he’d admired and trusted. This man was a stranger, cold and vengeful. He’d flown thousands of miles just to watch Gabriel die.
“He loves you,” I whispered.
Elias’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of something—hurt, or perhaps regret—crossing his face before he quickly masked it.
“Then he never should have done what he did.”
Adrian stepped back into the frame. “Oh, the drama of family. But enough wallowing and arguing. Let’s do what we came for and finish this. Once they’re dead, we’ll hand their bodies over to the Academy. They’ve promised to make it look like an accident.”
Horror swept through me, and I shook my head. “Don’t do this, Elias.”
He cast me a disgusted look, then turned away from Gabriel and gestured for Adrian to leave. Elias waited for Adrian to step through the door before he turned and stared at me, his expression open and calm. He pointedly stared at me before tapping one of his fangs and pointing at Gabriel. Then, without a single word, he turned and left.
My heart pounded as my focus bounced between Gabriel and the closed door. What had that been about? Clearly, Elias had been trying to tell me something that he hadn’t wanted Adrian to overhear.
I inched closer to the cage bars, my mind racing, Elias’s gestures playing over and over. Each action had seemed deliberate. But what did it mean? Did he want me to bite Gabriel? Suck out the holy water like someone would the poison of a snake? Except, even I knew that wasn’t an accurate way of purifying someone’s blood.
I froze, my eyes widening as the realization slowly sank in.
Blood.
Gabriel needed blood! How had I not made this connection before? Vampires healed everything through blood. It was so simple, yet so profound. For the first time in days, excitement thrummed beneath my skin.
I shot the door another glance, and listened as Elias instructed Adrian to meet him in another room, then ordered the guards to prepare for their departure. Their footsteps faded into the distance. For the first time since waking up here, we werealone, no one guarding us.
Holy shit.
If I was going to do this, it had to benow. Because every damn second mattered.
ChapterThree
I would doanything for Gabriel. But the one thing we hadn’t yet done was share blood. I knew that was a big thing for vampires, but I wasn’t a vampire. And so, I’d drawn a clear line in the sand in regards to that. No biting. And he’d respected my decision. He wantedme, not my blood. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. Especially during…steamiermoments. But then Adrian happened, and I hadn’t given it a single thought since then.
Until now.
It seemed I no longer had a choice. To save us, Gabriel needed to heal. And to do that, he needed my blood.
There was one slight problem though.
I couldn’t reach him.
Not to feed him, anyway.
I stretched my arm through the bars until I felt the cold metal up against my shoulder, but I barely grazed the tips of his fingers.
“Fuck,” I cursed.
I wriggled and repositioned my body, squeezing as much of myself through the bars as possible. I might have gained another millimeter, but that was it. If I could grab his hand, maybe I could drag him closer, but he was just out of reach.
With another curse, I pulled my arm back and stood. I shoved away from the bars and started pacing.
How the hell was I going to heal him then?
