“Venom?”

“Yes, Ara.” He dropped his arm then rubbed his brow. “You have venom. You didn’t know?”

“No.” I touched my tooth with a salty-tasting, bloodied thumb.

“Hm. Well, it’s a shame you didn’t accidently bite my brother—and kill him.”

“I—” I bit my tongue and blanketed my thoughts.

The vampire studied me intensely. Iron bars stood between us, but I could feel him inside my head, prodding around. I imagined the rug, covering my memories and protecting them from him. I needed to figure this out. The fact that David didn’t die when I bit him—does that mean I’m not what he thinks I am, or that my venom doesn’t really kill?

On the other hand, if I’m not Lilithian, then what am I?

“You’re tired. You need to sleep.” Jason stood back. “I will return within the hour, then submit you to the council.”

“Jason. Please?” I reached for him through the bars.

“Don’t beg, Ara,” he said, backing away, “it’s very unattractive.”

“Jason?” I called again as he disappeared up the dark staircase. His long, stretched shadow faded from the wall under the spread of darkness, the loud bang of a closing door echoing through the empty space. “Jase?” I cried in a soft whisper, dropping my hand from the bars.

The emptiness surrounded me then, giving rise to all the thoughts and fears I wanted to keep at bay; David, his capture. Mike. Emily. And the scary things that may be lurking beside me in these dark, ancient cells.

How did it come to this—how was I so stupid to trust Jason?

I looked down at my wedding dress, absolutely covered in blood. I had counted on that happening after the wedding, but not from this.

The thin beam of light over the bed gave refuge as I sat under it and studied my arm.

He drained me—to weaken me? That much blood, a whole tub, and I’m still alive.

How can I be a pure blood? How can that be, when no one knew? Not David, not Dad, no one.

All this time. All this time I was immortal—after everything David and I lost because of it; after all the tears, the worry, I was like him all along.

And I bit him. I could’ve killed him.

I shook my head, watching the memory of that night in my mind as if it were happening in front of me.

Now I can kind of understand why he beat himself up so much when he accidently bit me—how it feels to think you could’ve killed someone you love, just because you bit them. But, if the Lilithians have him, maybe he’d be better off if I had killed him.

Eric’s cheeky smile and his soft, overly confident voice came to mind: “The most painful lockdown a vampire can suffer.” And beneath that, Emily’s words the day we spoke in my bedroom made my heart stop: “Just enough venom to lock his limbs down, sensation remaining, then cut him in places guys don’t want to be cut.”

I folded over and covered my mouth, shutting my eyes tight. Oh, David. What are they doing to him—what are they making him feel while I sit here with no more pain than a terrible urge to go to the bathroom, and a stubborn determination not to use that bucket in the corner?

I rubbed my arms and looked down at my dirt-covered toes. And what about the rest of that story—about the queen, how the vampires killed her. I don’t even know what happened to her, only that it was brutal, and David went pale when I asked him once.

If only we’d known. If only we’d run, if only David hadn’t hopped out of the car.

We can’t go back. Our wedding is ruined, our life is ruined—if not, completely gone. I’ll never see my dad again, or Vicki, or Mike.

What’s worse is, Mike and Emily will think we’re in Paris—they won’t know what happened. David will die. I will die, and they’ll never know. They’ll just think we gave up on them—fled by ourselves—they’ll never know the truth.

It will be as if we never existed.

Time passed. I’m not sure how long. More than an hour. Everything was so quiet—an empty kind of silence; not like a quiet night at home, with distant traffic or the wind or the song of a cricket, but dead quiet—like being buried in the ground. I fell asleep, I don’t know how many times. My throat was so dry and my stomach so tight with hunger it felt like days had passed, and all I had to keep me sane were the yellow memories of Jason and I on the grass in my dream, mixed with the grey reality of the future I’d never get to have with my David.

From time to time, a quiet quiver of rage heated my blood, making my teeth pulse and mouth water, and I knew the feeling so well, knew it wasn’t just frustration laced with fear—it was blood hunger. I lifted my wrist to my lips and parted my teeth, my tongue trembling on the edge of my skin. Bite. If I’m a vampire, I should be able to bite my own arm—should be able to drink my own blood.

But the need subsided again, falling away like water on a window, leaving me exhausted enough to lay on the filthy bed. I tucked my knees to my stomach and pulled my gown over my toes, holding onto them to make myself smaller.

Beyond the safety of my cage, strange sounds lingered in the halls—like wind or deep groaning. It was so far away I only heard it intermittently, but each time, my skin crawled, as though the walls were glass and weak, and whatever creature might be lingering down the depths of these medieval cells might come to find me—alone, waiting to die. I suddenly wished Emily never made me watch that horror movie at our first sleepover—so, so long ago.

“Jason?” I looked to the bed beside me and tried to imagine him there. “Tell me why?”

The walls disappeared and greenish gold light flooded everything around me. Thin blades of grass rose up around Jason’s brow, tickling his lashes, making him blink a few extra times. He held my hand, stroking my face with the other.

“How can you have hated me all along, Jase, been plotting to turn me in? It doesn’t make sense.”

And before he answered, the day vanished, leaving the murky dark of the cell more severe than before. But the memory of his smile stayed, how he stole the petals of a flower I was holding and whispered love-me-nots with each one. Surely, at some point in all his pretending, he must have felt something for me. My only chance is to appeal to that side of him—convince him to help me.

A loud, echoing crack shot through the silence, and I lifted my head. Voices. Two of them. Men, talking loudly, joking and bellowing with laughter. I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.