A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,50

help but think tonight is going to be worse than the last. Much worse.

Was it something I did? What did I do between then and now?

My face lights on fire, anxiety pumps through my too-small veins as each step brings me closer to the unknown. The servants, dwellers, and scribes all adorn jewels of sweat that drench their foreheads. Most of them stand in tense positions. If one has a scroll, it’s held tightly to his chest; if one is dusting the furniture, both hands clutch the gilded handle defensively. Everyone is looking up the stairwell, toward Zein’s room. I swallow down my writhing heart.

When we reach the doors of his quarters, Ceti stops me in my tracks. She places a single hand on my shoulder and squeezes with consolation as a voice permeates the hall from the closed chamber. Narref’s voice.

“—from your clumsiness yesterday, how can you possibly think this will end well?”

“Would you rather I die?” Zein’s raspy and spent voice reaches my ears. I cover my mouth at the stark difference. He sounds… awful.

“...That’s not for me to decide,” Narref coldly replies.

“Yes. And given this is an urgent matter of life and death, the superior officer has the final say. If they are where your loyalties lie, tell them. But you will send her in.”

After a pause, Narref responds. “If they find out it was Abethian poison, the council will know what you did, what you’re doing...”

Madam Ceti lets go of my shoulder and I look up at her.

I open my mouth only for the door ahead to do the same.

Narref glances at Ceti before honing in on me. He gives me a once over—an ominous warning filled with both sympathy and concern.

I suddenly feel like a cow lining up for slaughter, as if I’m about to be thrown into a cage full of starving fallen beasts—a carcass in a den of wolves. But before I can dwell on the gruesomeness of that image, Narref extends his hand.

“Come on now, let’s go.”

I almost lose my balance as panic envelops my vision and nerves. It’s all I can do to stand perfectly still and pretend that none of it is happening. There’s no way this is happening.

Ceti pats me on the shoulder and finally says to me, “You will be fine. Go bravely.”

I’m sure she sees my hands shaking, trying to hold fast to my chest for some sort of leverage. She and Narref are patient enough to allow me this moment before urging me toward the huge double doors. My eyes find Narref’s and I beg. Beg him for answers to which I don’t even know the questions. He shifts his gaze toward the dark room, ignoring every bit of my silent plea.

“Go,” he mutters, guiding me in; offering me to the darkness and closing out every last ounce of light.

I cross my arms along my waist as courage takes its sweet time returning to me. While the image of the hopeless, slaughtered cow ravishes my thoughts, his voice interrupts.

“Wavorly, come here.” Zein demands through the inky black void. My eyes shoot open as blue-flowered lanterns alight from the ceiling, illuminating the room with cascading hues of sapphire and plum.

When I see him, my body clams up, and I can’t tell if it’s from shock, fear, or even... worry. The indestructible vampire, Lord Anton Zein, leans weakly upon one of the four gold-crafted bed posts at the corner of the room, gasping for breath while his desperate silver eyes seek out mine. Worse still, are the revolting, weaving, and sickly mauve lines that trail the length of his face, chest, and hands. I assume his whole body has been afflicted, but the rest of him is covered by tanned soldier leathers. Despite his broken state, his demeanor is scarier this time, and every instinct orders me to run.

But I can’t.

Zein grimaces and rubs his temples with restraint, slamming his other fist against a gold post and breaking it—sending the top half rattling across the floor. I’m frozen; petrified by the night and day difference of his character. He snarls with exasperation, letting out anger—maybe it’s pain—before he shifts.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he explains with surprising tenderness, studying me with far less hostility. “However, I need your blood. So... come.”

I am close to thinking twice when he sits—more like falls—onto the edge of the bed; the burgundy satin linens sinking into the mattress along with him. He leans over, his arms folding down between his legs,