room to a slightly open door where warm light from a fire glows through the gap. Despite looking welcome and warm, I still tense when I slip through the gap and come to a halt.
There, in a chair that could easily be a throne, is the Mad Prince. A woman is on his lap, her head bent at an odd angle, the prince’s teeth buried in her neck. I can’t see his face, his dark hair is like a blanket covering him, the tips of his hair brushing against the woman’s pale chest. Stuck in a trance, I freeze as I watch her chest heave as she breathes in and out. Slowly she starts to go still, and there is nothing I can do as Maddox kills her.
“Good morning!” Maddox proclaims, letting the black-haired woman fall from his lap onto the wooden floor, the thud of her body making me jump. Sickness fills my chest, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop the rising sick. Maddox stalks towards me the whole time, and I get the instinctive feeling to run. To run and never stop, even if I fall off this goddamn mountain.
“Why did you kill her?” I demand, dropping my hand from my mouth and holding it in a tight fist at my side. “You bastard! Why?!”
Maddox, the silent monster, simply wipes blood from the corner of his lips and tilts his head to the side. Almost looking confused.
“Was she a friend of yours?” he asks. I cautiously watch him, unsure of his next move.
“No, I did not know her, but that is hardly the point.”
“But, alas, it is,” he counters and steps closer. I hold his gaze, refusing to acknowledge how he smells or how close he is to me again. “She could have murdered dozens of children, and you would never have known. Why care for a stranger?”
“Did she kill anyone?” I ask, and before I’ve thought about it, I poke a finger into his chest. “How many children have you killed? How many are dead because of you?”
He roughly catches my hand, clamping it inside his much bigger hand. “Children are innocent, and I do not take the innocent lives. Every adult human is tainted just as much as the vampires are. Are you really so good, Riona Dark?”
I try pulling my hand away from him, but it seems impossible. His grip is so tight, but he doesn’t actually hurt me. He moves closer, breathing in a long breath. My voice is shaky at best as I reply. “Did you demand me here to test my morals?”
Whatever I said makes him let me go, and I stumble back. I keep walking back until my back hits the door, and I try to reach for the handle. I’m so done playing whatever game this lunatic wants to play. Maddox simply watches me, a cold appearance drifting over his features once again.
“My friends are all curious about you. Tonight, there will be a dinner and dance,” he claims, turning his back on me and walking back to his throne.
“I’m not going.”
As he steps over the woman’s dead body like she is nothing more than a stool, and sits at a lazy angle on the chair, his eyes find mine. I shiver with the malice I see there. “Your attendance isn’t optional. Now go, unless you wish to amuse me.”
“Fuck you,” I snap and swiftly leave the room, hearing his laugh follow me all the way back to my room.
And even there, in my room where I feel a slight bit safe, is another reminder of my monster in the form of a silk red dress.
The very colour of blood.
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m sure he picked this dress to annoy me,” I mutter to myself, even as my hands ache as I try and fail to do up the lace on the back of my gown for a third time at a weird angle. I spin sideways in the mirror, trying to get a good look at the lace bindings and working out that there is no way in hell I am going to be able to do this myself. I find my own eyes in the mirror, the pale blue colour a big contrast against the red of the dress. My blonde hair is wavier than usual, and being in a dress reminds me of my prom night at high school when I last wore something this fancy. It seems so long ago, but the happy memories