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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Twenty-Five
What You Are
Alexia dreamed of him smiling at her, although she didn't know if it was night or day, and then she woke.
Scratching noises turned her head. She inhaled and convulsed under infuriated wounds. She breathed shallowly, aware of the throbbing in her knee, shoulder, side, and arm. But her head didn't ache like it had. Had he destroyed all sense? Had he damaged her so thoroughly that nothing remained? Was she dead already?
"Hello?" she whispered.
"Still here," Bellezza returned acerbically. "Isn't that refreshing."
A rattling, like several marbles, spilled across a wood floor.
Alexia tried to shift off her sore back, but failed, moaning.
Bellezza chuckled. "Does it hurt?"
"Yes."
The child laughed more. Alexia closed her eyes against the sound. Bellezza made a perfect match for him, equally beautiful, equally enigmatic, equally cruel.
The vicious girl passed the day doing whatever with her noisy toys. Alexia spent it listening and wishing for Sarah, or Father, or Rupert—anyone to rescue her.
The door whined open. Her head swung around as Lester's form blocked the light. He jangled a platter against the she-demon's cage and Bellezza's baleful eyes flashed in the daylight.
"You ready to eat, worm-hill?"
"You ready to die, dung-pile?"
He laughed and turned Alexia's direction. "And what about our little Sparrow? Are you hungry?"
She nodded. He let himself into her cell and fed her like yesterday. Bellezza watched through the bars with odium, chocolate-colored eyes never wavering. If not aware of the fierce intelligence behind that mask, Alexia would have believed her a porcelain doll, perfect, empty, terrifying.
"How you feelin' today?" Lester inquired. His tone was so much nicer than yesterday she almost choked on her food.
"I am all right," she lied.
"With an arm what looks like it's barely hangin' on, you say yer all right?" He glanced Bellezza's direction. "Sparrow here shows promise, don't she?"
The impossible little princess prickled.
"Well, I hope it," he nodded back at Bellezza, "ain't been too awful to cope with for one night."
"Why am I here, Lester?"
His empathetic dark eyes gave her hope of escape.
He hopped up, kicked Bellezza's food into her cell, and left them alone. Alexia noted how the girl's rice splattered up over her dress and the rage tensing her face before the door fell shut.
