Once both tubes sucked thick, hot blood, I backed up and balled my hands. “W-What else do I have to do?” My voice wavered a little, but I hadn’t passed out so I took that as a win.
His eyebrows rose in surprise.
He looked as if he wanted to ask why I’d suddenly become brave but the way he watched me said he knew. He correctly read my rage on his behalf and just nodded, accepting that there was something going on between us and neither of us had the guts to acknowledge it.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Just wait. The newer bags are already laced with anticoagulants. I used to have to inject it myself, but they’ve made it more efficient in recent years.”
“That’s...nice of them?”
He chuckled.
I blinked.
A new, savage kind of loyalty rose from nothing, tangling tight around my heart. Loyalty toward him.
The bags continued to fill with dark, thick, horribly warm blood. The more they swelled, the whiter he became until his lips went a horrifying shade of blue.
Finally, when I thought my heart would hammer its way through my ribs to run, something hissed, clicked, and the computer monitor flashed with a pop-up box.
“Unhook the ports,” he commanded, his tone quieter than usual.
My hands trembled all over again as I obeyed.
“Toss the tubes into the biohazard bin.” Leaning forward, Lucien gathered his shirt and slowly shrugged it on. The urge to help him became unbearable but I locked down every emotion and did as he requested. The red stained tubes vanished into the bin, and I cringed as my eyes fell on the two bags of his blood.
He smirked, his arrogance showing even now. “Click the ‘yes’ button and attach the label that the printer will spit out.”
Feeling sick, I obeyed.
Gathering the two labels that appeared a moment later, I held them up.
I already knew what he was about to say but I hoped he’d do it. “Here.” I tried to give them to him. “I don’t think I can—”
“Stick the labels onto each bag and place them in the fridge.”
“I really can’t—”
“Do it or die.” He pushed to his feet, wobbling a little.
Instinct made me reach for him. My arm snapped around his waist.
Whisper snorted.
Lucien stiffened.
God, Rook. Have you lost your damn mind?!
Neither of us spoke and I couldn’t move away. Sheer fear or something kept me glued to his side.
Finally, he cleared his throat and growled, “Hold me any longer and I’ll suspect you’re trying to get me into bed like the rest of them.”
The fact that he was the opposite to other men.
That sex to him was a threat instead of a pleasure.
That he’d never known a kind word or touch.
It hurt.
Shooting away, I used the flush of embarrassment and another swell of pity to numb myself to the fact that I touched bags of his blood. Locking everything down, I stuck labels on for the monsters who’d forced this man to harvest his own life-force, and managed not to vomit as I carried both horrendously warm and heavy bags to the fridge.
Wrenching open the door, I smacked them onto the moving shelving that would keep them from coagulating.
Under the harsh light, the red glow was obscene. Each bag labelled and shelved like wine vintages in a cellar.
I spun around and bent over.
Planting both hands on my knees, I panted, “Please don’t ever, ever ask me to do that again.”
He merely buttoned his coat with a shiver. “I’m cold and tired. I’m going to rest.” Not looking at me, he moved stiffly, as if he didn’t trust his legs to support him. At the door, he turned and said, “Let yourself out. Whisper will guide you.”
As he stepped over the threshold, my temper burned away my stress, no doubt leading me into a whole heap of trouble. “You know, you could thank me.”
He turned and held onto the doorframe. “For what?”
“Not throwing up on you for one.”
The faintest twitch pulled at his mouth, but it died quickly. He turned to go but I couldn’t stomach another day where this man used me, commanded me, and refused to know my name.
If he was going to make me care about him. If he was going to make me do things that would irrevocably change me and not for the better, the least he could do was know the name of the girl he was destroying.
“My name...” I straightened and squared my shoulders. “Is Rook Snowden.”
His gaze snapped to mine. “Did I ask for it?”
“No, you didn’t. But now you know it. So use it.”
His upper lip curled and for a moment, it looked like he’d follow through with his threat to kill me, but his eyes snapped closed, he swayed against the door, and without another word, he left.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“YOU CAN LEAVE AGAIN, YOU KNOW.” I narrowed my eyes as I slipped from the kitchen, my arms laden with cleaning products from under his sink. Cleaning products he’d ordered me to collect the moment Whisper had dragged me into his quarters after finding me sunning myself in the garden. “You don’t have to oversee my work. I won’t slack off, even though I’d love to.”
I’d really, really hoped Lucien wouldn’t summon me today.
I’d assumed he wouldn’t be feeling well after draining two bags of blood yesterday and would want to rest, alone. But that assumption had been dashed the moment a slinky, shiny panther appeared in my pavilion, twined around me in hello, and not so subtly pushed me toward the exit and the black stone palace on the horizon.
I’d tried to refuse.
I wished I knew how to say no to a giant predator who knew exactly what disobedient women tasted like. But in the end, I’d had no choice but to be herded toward Lucien’s home, spying a few assassins training in the trees along the way.
A couple of girls had daggers, and one even had a crescent-shaped blade that flashed through the air—practicing their killing swings.
The thought of any of them actually harming Lucien made that odd, unfathomable loyalty spring hot, followed by the horror that if they didn’t succeed in killing him then...they were the ones who would be dead.
“Are you wanting me to leave so you’re free to steal from me?” Lucien asked softly from where he sat on the huge window seat. “Or are you planning on setting traps around my home?” Leaning against the wall, his long legs speared in front of him, bare feet smooth and relaxed. The padded seat formed a half circle, the glass soaring to the ceiling and drenching him in buttery sunlight.
My fingers gripped the disinfectant bottles a little tighter as my heart skipped a beat.
Did he have to look so beautiful?
With the sun pouring over him, his hair turned molten black, every strand slick as wet ink. His face looked carved from pale stone, sharp shadows lingered under his eyes, and lips set in a perpetual curl of disdain. He looked like a man carved to be worshipped, not one who bled himself dry for bastards.
“No, of course not,” I snipped, arching my chin and forcing myself to be utterly unaffected by him.
“Then why do you care if I read while you clean?”
“I think you’d be better in bed.”
“Excuse me?” His face blackened. “Remind me again that you’re not trying to sleep with me when every word out of your mouth hints at seduction.”
“Seduction?” I gasped. “Yeah, okay. That’s exactly what I’m doing.” Rolling my eyes, I laughed, amazed that I could. That I felt relaxed enough to joke with him. “I’m incredibly talented in making men want me by pointing out that I don’t want them lurking over me or that they look under the weather.”
“Some might take such observations as a sign that you care.” He spoke those words—I saw his lips move—but the moment the sentence ended; he looked shocked and angry. As if he’d had no intention of saying such things.
