and I wonder if he knows I’m planning to find a way to kill him for good and escape.
I wonder what he sees with those demon eyes of his.
He lets me go, looking at me like I just burned him as his eyes scorch with what I think is annoyance. He spins around, his black cloak brushing against the snow.
“Make sure she rests today and joins the staff tomorrow. Nothing extreme!” Maddox barks out, walking away down the path to the giant building in front of me. Holy shit, this is a castle and a half. Looking like something straight out of a Disney movie, nine strong and solid square towers pierce the clouds in the sky. They are connected by reinforced, heavy walls made of gold stone and brown-framed windows. Around the castle is a wall pressed into the mountain, and between that and the castle are thick gardens and a maze on the one side. A massive gate is right in the centre of the castle, and it is circle-shaped with birds flying around the edges, hundreds of them until I can just make out wings. In the middle is a sword with wings behind it, and I know I’ve seen this before. It’s one of the marks on Merethe’s cheeks.
It must be a royal crest of some sort.
“Are you ready to go inside, madam?”
I turn and meet the gaze of the guy who spoke...a human just like me. I don’t know why I was expecting a vampire, but I was.
“When is anyone ready to walk into the home of the devil himself?”
The guy doesn’t answer me, instead choosing to stumble ahead, and I have no choice but to follow.
For now.
Chapter Ten
The human I’m left with stops the second we get through the door into what is the biggest entrance hall I’ve ever seen. Talk about over the top. Literal gold pillars line the walls, and in the middle of them are paintings of, well, vamps of course. Vampires biting people or fucking people. There are a whole lot of painted cocks in this room. I turn my gaze away and look up at the plain white ceiling with a massive glass chandelier in the centre. Rather than white crystals, this one has dozens of red crystals that are shaped like drops of blood, reflected in the shiny hardwood floors. There isn’t a bit of dust to be seen, so someone cleans this place up well.
Footsteps draw my attention as a man rushes down one of the two gold staircases, brushing a hand through his dusty red hair. He is a giant, well, at least in terms of his size. The human, which I’m assuming he is, has wavy but almost spiked-up red hair, and his hazel eyes almost seem to be the same colour as his hair from this distance, but as his huge steps eat up the space between us, I realise they are definitely more hazel. Like pools of honey. A light stubble of ginger hair graces his firm jawline.
He is model material. Maybe Irish or Scottish model material as he has that certain look about him. His long and thick thighs are held in old, worn jeans, and he wears a simple dark blue shirt over his wide chest. With Skechers trainers and an old watch on his wrist, he looks like a normal human.
In a place of monsters, lest I forget.
The guy stops in front of us, his eyes swiftly moving over me before turning to my companion. “What did he say about this one, Paul?”
“Only that she rests today and light housekeeping tomorrow,” Paul, apparently, replies. “I-I must tend the horses before they get cold.”
“Go,” the guy tells him, almost softly. Paul all but runs his skinny arse out of the room, the door shutting behind him.
“I’m Cross McGowan, twenty-four years old, and I can tell you’re scared—”
I cut him off. “I’m not scared any more than you are. I’m not going to pass out or be a silly girl about this place, that’s not who I am. Now, Cross, I want to know everything about vampires.”
Cross raises his eyebrows. “It might be good if I know your name, lass.”
“Riona Dark, and I’m twenty-two,” I say and offer him my hand. “I was studying at Aberdeen University, and I might not have a Scottish accent, thanks to my very British parents, but I think we come from similar places.”
“My family are nearer Inverness,” he replies, taking my hand. His feels warm, comforting