A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,33

have tasted. I can stop it, I can expand it, I can make the very cells cannibalize each other until nothing remains.” The shadows of his lips snake into his cheeks. “I can kill you right now, Wavorly. Without so much as sullying my hands.”

It hits me; my blood halts in circulation for a split second and my whole body aches. I desperately try to cry out, to scream for help that I know will never come. My better judgment finds me amidst the sensations.

Why try anyway? Why even care?

My body relaxes, and I grasp onto the bigger picture of this horrible reality. It would be better if he killed me. That way, I wouldn’t have to be the one thing I never wanted to be: a human in a vampire’s world. My mind, now nearly consumed by rage and apathy, almost doesn’t register that he called me Wavorly.

So, he remembers. I slide down to my knees, nausea wracking my bones.

“But don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t kill you.”

I will myself to look him in the eye, but I can’t move. He releases my cheek and pulls back. “After all, there is no point in killing those that wish for death. If death is not your weakness, then there is something else that you fear far more.”

The invisible hold on my body suddenly breaks, and I crumple to the floor. Power play. That’s all any of this is. Anger overshoots my judgment and I meet his eyes with insubordination. As I study their glimmering silver, my gut fills to intense disgust. The malice within his platinum irises intensifies. He mumbles something, but I can’t comprehend it.

Butterflies of warmth shoot from my neck down to my toes, proving that my blood is free of his fatal hold. My mind, far too lost in recovery from such pervasive manipulation, neglects the most basic of functions.

Listening.

“Did you not hear me?” he says. ”Stand up.”

My fingers curl in over the marble below me, my nails scratching and folding in on themselves. The sensation makes me wish I could dig them into his face. A burst of air makes itself present in my chest, yearning for release. But I bury it beneath promises of later. Now that I know he intends on letting me live, I have plenty of time to show him how I feel. I force my balance as I stand straight as an arrow, the most confident posture of my life on display for a narcissistic monster who would probably rather see me hunched over like an injured mutt. Not today.

Zein reaches for my jaw once more, insanely fast, and pulls it upward so that I am forced to look at him. He turns my face to the side, running his fingers through my hair while dropping his gaze along my neck. Then it clicks. I understand the emotion that oozes from those orbs. Blood lust. I saw it in the eyes of that vampire so many years ago, and in the eyes of all I have met thus far. I’ll never forget it. An innate fear drowns out all of my other emotions as my mind connects every dot. Right now, if Zein were to destroy his inhibitions and take my blood without a kortrastet needle, the toxic mixture from his fangs would convert me into the fallen.

But... he wouldn’t do that. There would be no point to any of this. Right?

His fingers catch in the knots of my red tresses.

“Frightened?” he asks, undoubtedly sensing my heightened reactions that have gone unchecked. “You should be. You made quite the fool of me.”

All I can reasonably think to do is manipulate my way out of this situation. It had always worked at Nightingale. The only difference is that the one willing to punish me right now isn’t some third-party babysitter... it is the one who owns me.

“I apologize,” I mutter, glancing between his fangs and his chest, keeping tabs on the former for my neck’s sake. “I didn’t know the severity of my actions.”

Zein nearly laughs, tilting his head to the side. He doesn’t believe one ounce of it.

Well, there goes that plan. The words are far from true, but the fact is I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I said those things to him. I thought I would be dead by now, another rotting corpse in the fallen pit getting split apart by fang and bone. The truth is I just wanted to go out with