Fear and the lust for blood, and it crawled over her like swarming insects. Her empathic gift was overrun by it.
How often in her life had she been accused of being cold and austere? Too many to count. It was not because she wished to be such—it was simply because there was no other way for her to survive. But tuning out all her own emotions, all that dwelled within her heart, she could ignore that of those around them.
It was the only way to keep from drowning in the tide. Always around her, like the very air itself, thrummed the emotions of humanity. Every ounce of lust, of joy, of love. Every speck of agony, of grief, of hatred and loss. It was always around her.
She pushed it all away to keep herself sane. To keep herself whole. To keep from sinking to the bottom of that sea and becoming consumed by it all.
But now a storm had come to her shores. A terrible nor’easter that battered at her windows. She could not fight nature. And nature had come with the singular intent of tearing her shutters free and forcing her into the waves.
Death.
Pain.
Fear.
Suffering.
Agony.
She could feel in her heart what it was like to watch a loved one be torn to pieces. She knew it because someone nearby was experiencing it in that very moment. When she shut her eyes, teeth were sinking into her flesh. Sharp, dagger-like things crunching through bone like she was made of nothing more than twigs.
Maxine twitched as she felt claws tear out her throat. She put her hands to her own throat to ensure that it had not truly happened. But she could almost—almost—feel the wet blood pour through her fingers as cackling, broken-faced monsters devoured her alive.
Limbs were being torn from bodies with wet-sounding pops. Heads were taken from shoulders. Eyes from their sockets. Again and again, more and more, agony flooded into her. Her city was dying, and she was on a sinking raft in a sea of blood.
She was struggling to keep her breathing even, but it felt too quick and shallow.
She loved the creature who caused this. Or she thought she had.
Now all she knew was a primal panic that triggered something in her deep and intrinsic to her species—run, survive, escape. But there was nowhere she could go. She was trapped. Both by the Vampire King who had unleashed his wrath, and by the chain that bound her wrists and kept her tethered. A prisoner to the three people responsible for dragging her into this mess in the first place.
The vampire hunters.
They were ignoring her, arguing and shouting at each other. Alfonzo was pacing around the room. Bella was sitting with her head in her hands, and Eddie looked as though he was attempting to pull out his own hair. Their anxiety did nothing to ease her own overwhelmed emotions.
She wanted to sink to the ground and weep. She wanted to cower and hide. But she was trembling. Her legs itched with the need to run from the wolf in the shadows. But where could she go? Where could she hide, even if she could free herself from her chains and escape the three hunters?
I am naïve. I am a fool. I thought I could see the whole of him. I thought I understood what he was. Now, how many will come to pay the price for my idiocy? I let him in. I let him get close. Looking down at her bare hands, they were shaking like the rest of her.
“This is your fault!” Eddie was still shouting at Alfonzo. “You should’ve given him Maxine. Even if he was lying, it was worth the chance that he wasn’t. You didn’t tell me he could take out the sun!”
“Because I didn’t know he could. But we’ve prepared for this. This is the war we were expecting to fight. Nothing has changed.”
“No. No, we aren’t prepared to fight a war. I, for one, never got told we were facing down a man who could destroy an entire city with his mind. You never sent me that little note. And besides that, you know what else has changed? We could have stopped it, Al. We had a chance. And you fucked it up!” Eddie was frantic in his anger, his voice higher pitched than usual.
Maxine sank to the ground, sliding her back down the wainscoting. Her dress and the chain pooled around her feet. It was not the only chain