Alexia's nightmares become reality: a dead baron, red-eyed wraiths, and forbidden love with a man hunted by these creatures. After an attack close to home, Alexia realizes she cannot keep one foot in her old life and one in this new world. To protec...
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Six
Blood Red
A body dangled from the rafters, several inches above the dirt floor.
Alexia's scream froze in her throat.
Soft honeydew tresses spilled over thin shoulders, the child's eyes heavily-lashed and downturned. Her cheeks were blotched, wide, and white, contrasting with vibrant crimson lips. Scarlet skirts hung about the girl, like the bleeding petals of a rose, still as death.
Alexia swallowed. A child. The beautiful girl couldn't be more than thirteen. Irons looped her wrists, cutting wicked lines in the little one's skin.
It wasn't right. Disgust bubbled through her chest. She covered her mouth and hurried down the steps, anxious to rescue the body, or at least lay it to rest.
The girl's eyes flashed up. The brown of a freshly dug grave.
Alexia tumbled back. She thunked into the stairs and landed on her rump. Hard. She sucked in a breath. The little face watched her, expressionless, innocent, beautiful. Alexia's stomach twisted. No one should be that perfect—not even in death.
The child's blood-red lips curled back over canines. "Have you come to rescue me?"
Malice echoed through the girl's tone like the scraping of fingernails across Alexia's brain. She gripped the wood beneath her.
The dangling girl bowed her head, glaring from beneath her brows.
Alexia held herself perfectly still. "Who—what are you?"
The ghost jerked her irons free from the beam with a jingle, and landed on the ground with catlike grace. Sawdust drifted down from the rafters like snowflakes.
Alexia pushed up onto shaking legs. "A-are you the girl who hung herself?"
Chains dangled at the child's sides as she crouched, coiled to pounce. "Run."
"No." Alexia trembled from head to toe. "If I am going to have a fate worse than death, I will take it right here."
The girl's eyebrows shot up. She straightened, her muscles loosening, head cocking. "You are not afraid of me?"
Alexia swallowed. She squared her shoulders. "Should I be?"
Bright red lips pulled back in a snarl. "Yes."
Dread flooded through her, but she lifted her chin to defy it.
The child neared. Perfectly manicured fingers grazed one of Alexia's curls. The girl's head tilted, and her eyes bored into Alexia. "It has been ages since I met another of our kind."
Alexia fell back, taking her hair with her. "W-what?"
