Hellfire

Chapter Forty

I woke with a jolt, as if my body was suddenly alive again rather than waking from sleep. Air rushed into my lungs, blood roared in my ears, and my heart pumped as if it hadn't for hours. Life surged, throttling my body with numbness before it settled.

I lay in the depths of my new room next door to Sam's. The layout was similar, which I was thankful for, but it didn't feel like mine yet. I missed my window especially, but I didn't need one to know dusk had hit. I was awake. I only woke when the sun sunk.

I trawled through my memories of the previous night. I couldn't remember getting to bed or falling asleep, only talking to Doc as he checked over me, giving me advice to adjust to my heightened senses, tossing logs to gain control over my strength over several dead spoons. Then there was nothing. Despite being told again and again that dawn would render me unconscious, I'd still test my will against it, refusing to break. Yet it still won every time.

Worse, Lucius' touch lingered, as if he'd imprinted on me, cool whisps of his male touch slipping over my cheek, my hand, my lips. He'd taken me to bed, I knew. He did every time, leaving me a glass of his blood that permeated the air. It irritated me. The lying, traitorous bastard wasn't allowed to touch me after what he'd done to me.

I glared at the glass on the side, feeling betrayed by my body too by how my stomach heated at the sweet scent, Lucius' scent heavy in it, my tongue and teeth aching for his taste again. Hurriedly, I snatched it up, rushed into the bathroom and poured it down the sink.

A rustle of wings echoed behind me, and I felt his cold breathe against the nape of my neck.

'You need to drink it to survive, Susan.' Lucius murmured with soft amusement. 'Or would you rather it have it from me directly?'

A small gasp escaped my lips as his mind thickened within mine, flashes of his teeth against my skin, his male throat dusted in frost, his taut frame surrounding me.

But I whirled and flung the glass at the bat, startling it and breaking Lucius' connection, but not before I heard his meltingly low laugh. Fire flickered from me, the tiniest sliver, as I rubbed my face. Lucius didn't interact with me much since I woke and, when he did, it was awful - his voice more wicked than ever, his lazy thoughts lustful, coaxing and possessive. It made it fucking hard to not go to him and kiss him when he was whispering sensually in my mind how much he wanted me to. He didn't hide it like he used to.

I sunk to my knees, hugging my legs as I snapped my aching teeth. I wouldn't bite him. I wouldn't touch him. I rejected him, just as I rejected what he did to me. I'd rather be dead than parasite – my body shivering with repulsion I was one of those things now. That thing that took my family from me – slaughtered and ate my sisters, my aunts, my parents. Fear rumbled behind the anger, rupturing memories of that basement I'd hidden in, blood pouring down, the screams. I was that now. Not me.

He knew this. He knew I could never go through with it for personal reasons, not just because the laws would put the entire House on the line. Yet he did it anyway. He went against my wishes and did something so devastating without my consent.

I grew angry, using it to wrap myself up protectively, blot out the shiver of fear, and continue to shun Lucius and be furious with him. It was the only shield I had. But it wasn't the anger I was used to. I tried not to think about how my anger though was tamer, and how I wasn't gushing smoke and embers. I wasn't splitting apart, wanting to burn. Despite the crack in the lock, it was contained.

Lucius had done something.

All the more to be angry at him.

Before I left my room, I slipped earplugs into my ears. The noise was still too much for me. The house groaned and creaked, pipes rattling, doors opening and closing, music blaring and voices constantly scraping at my head. Doc assured it would die down overtime and it did feel less overwhelming than when I first woke up eight days ago, but I still found it too much. I was bored of nursing a headache every day.