“What was it that the spirit wanted?” Ambrose’s words slid over her like cold rain.
“I don’t know,” she snapped. She hated him right now for ripping the ring off her with no warning, and she had a strange feeling the mage inside hated him, too.
Her body wouldn’t stop shaking.
This was why people shouldn’t mess around with the dark arts. Her birth parents were obviously raving lunatics.
The vampire inched closer, running his thumb over her cheek, and she shuddered. His beauty was cold and empty.
She couldn’t wait to get out of there. She wanted Josiah and Tammi more than ever.
“Never mind, little sparrow,” Ambrose said. “Delicate little thing. You will stay in Aurora’s room for the night. She can sleep elsewhere. She will be perfectly hospitable. Tomorrow, the three of you will leave.” He shot a glance at Caine. “I trust you’ll take good care of her. Don’t let her out of your sight, or she’ll betray us to the Brotherhood. She still believes in them. Begin teaching her as soon as you can. Once she’s trained, she’ll be quite useful to me.”
Chapter 9
Trained. According to Ambrose, she was a delicate little thing who required training and obedience. Rosalind wasn’t stupid enough to argue with the Vampire Lord in his own kingdom, but there was no way in hell anyone was going to train her.
She followed Aurora down a dimly-lit hall. Stone vaults arched high above like a gray skeleton, intricately carved with moonflowers and stars. Candles flickered in jeweled sconces along the walls, casting dancing shadows over the marble floor. Gods, she really wanted to go back to her little dorm room. This place was creepy as hell, and she needed to run through this whole disaster of a night with Tammi.
Her mind reeled. Tonight, her world had been blown apart.
Whatever it took, she would rip this witch’s soul from her body. She’d felt the thing’s mind, its sickness—a demented spirit, one full of dark, twisted impulses. She wasn’t going to give up her own body without a fight.
Aurora’s heels clacked over the stone floor, and Rosalind glanced at her. The vampire wore a tiny red dress that hugged her body, and long silver earrings. She was gorgeous. While she didn’t look like she wanted to tear into Rosalind’s neck, appearances could be deceptive.
“All the other vampires tried to kill me, but you didn’t.”
“How perceptive of you.” Aurora had a British accent, just like Ambrose.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I have better self-control, and you were with Caine. I’m quite fond of him.” Her eyes met Rosalind’s. “I hope you don’t try to slay him with your witch-hunting bollocks. You won’t be able to kill him, but if you get a stake in him, I’ll have to drain your blood.”
Fantastic. Aurora already hates me.
“Of course not. He’s human. I only kill monsters.” She sucked in a breath. Best not to mention the monster-killing thing again. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Aurora halted before an oak door, pushing it open into an expansive bedroom. Moonlight shone through tall, stained-glass windows into an untidy room littered with papers, mounds of clothing, old cassette tapes, and eyeless dolls. A desk stood below the window, its surface covered with flasks of blood and bottles of amber liquid.
Aurora plucked a white dress off the floor, tossing it to Rosalind. “You can change out of your wet clothes. A white dress should be pure enough for you.”
Aurora definitely hated her.
As the vampire lit candles around the room, Rosalind changed into the tight white gown. The thin fabric was practically sheer and not great for fighting, but at least she was no longer freezing. She draped her sodden clothes over a chair to dry.
Rosalind swallowed hard, glancing around the room. Oil-painted portraits hung all over the walls, but the subjects’ eyes were scratched out. Interspersed among the paintings, someone had scrawled notes in the frantic, irregular scrawl of a serial killer. She caught a glimpse of a few words, BlOoD and RaGe among them. Instead of a bed, a coffin lined with red silk lay in the center of the room.
The room looked like a playground for the criminally insane. Holy shit. This is who I’ve thrown in with.
Aurora turned to stare at her. “What do you think of my room?”
Rosalind took a deep, steadying breath, her foot crunching on a cassette tape. “The paintings are… interesting.”
For the first time, she saw Aurora’s face brighten into a smile. “Do you like them?”
“Are the crossed-out eyes a vampire thing?”
“What? No. I made those when I was human. I was an art student at Goldsmiths before I died.”
That was a slight relief. “Ah. And the handwritten notes, too?”
“I’ve been dead nearly thirty years, but I like to think of my art as avant-garde, you know?” Aurora looked her up and down. “Just be careful what you touch in my room, Hunter.”