Roseblood

by Emily Shore

I tried not to focus on his hands anchored on my corset. Instead, I tried to escape again. But slower…with more thought. First, I sensed the wind warring against my dress, an army of raindrops catapulting against my skin and hair. And Le Couvènte whirling past us. More Redwoods, more vineyards, past the Chateau. Difficult for me to keep track of all the landmarks in the darkness with no moon. The storm became my guide. I closed my eyes to sense the thunder rocking the Redwoods in the distance, the lightning raising the hairs on my arms, humming to my elementals. We approached the city’s border near the older sections. Buildings from its founding days. No longer in use.

  Lightning twinkled about a mile away. I mustered the electrical firestorm in my blood. Now or never. Slamming my hands down onto Skip’s, I unleashed the full force of electric charge into his flesh, stunning him. Just as I’d hoped, he dropped me. For three seconds, I free-fell right before shooting my wings out, flying toward the opposite direction, back the way we came. It wouldn’t take long for Skip to catch up; the beating of his wings like a rapid heart alerted me even before his growl did. As much as possible, I needed to keep flying, buy my family and the Guardians as much time as possible. So, while pounding my wings, I spun around, flying backward but heaving lightning-wrapped fireballs at Skip. Thanks to his dodging, most missed him. He treated them as annoyances, but one found its mark on his shoulder. It bought me a few moments of extra time.

  Not enough.

  The darkness betrayed me. My silver blood senses deteriorating betrayed me. All the effort was catching up to me. Too long without silver blood. I’d intended to feed from Skip at some point during the Masque. My human senses and reflexes weren’t quick enough. So, when the Redwoods gathered all around me, each one a taunting behemoth, it gave Skip his edge. I heard his wings. I spun around again, but I was too late, and he swept over me in one powerful arc, defying the lightning from my hands and filtering his persuasion back into me. He shut me down. No choice but to arch my back as my wings disappeared back into my skin. No choice but to fall back to the earth. No…back into his arms.

  “A worthy effort, your highness.” Skip drew me closer into his chest, maintaining a steady dose of persuasion into my flesh. That’s when I noticed the backs of his hands. The scars branded there from my lightning. I did that. And parts of his costume on his shoulder had burned off from my last fireball, sections of skin still singing with the stench of burnt flesh.

  “They will heal soon,” Skip reassured me, voice soothing as if speaking to a worried child. But I wasn’t worried. I felt awe and pride. Until regret governed me. It wasn’t enough. The Rose Killer still held me fast.

  Somehow, I had to believe I would get another chance. Until then, I needed to rest, bide my time. Somehow, I needed to get Skip off his guard. He’d planned out everything. Now, it was time to learn how and why.

  Once he returned to the ruins, Skip didn’t stop until he’d flown us directly into the old train depot. Already, images from one of my old dreams, my old nightmares echoed in my mind. Skip had orchestrated this months ago.

  He knew exactly where to go, which tunnels to dive into, plunging us into dusky blackness. Night cascaded all around me, stupefying my human senses all the more. Nothing left but to put my trust in the traitor who held me.

  One single shaft of light penetrated the dank outer tunnel. Once he rounded a corner to the right, it spilled into a docking area and an abandoned train stationed on the other side. He dropped me in the center of the room so I tumbled onto the wood before gawking in awe.

  Before me, I could see wooden boards of the tracks that had rotted and splintered to fragments. Dust particles clotted the air. Everything was still, ash gray, until Skip lit a few lanterns and various candles, serving the atmosphere with a sinister glow. With his ability, he persuaded the firelight to leap onto dozens of other wicks and even standing torches around the room. All along the far wall and some pillars were black and purple velvet tapestries. Stamped all over each one, were roses, decorative, competing with the smoky candle aroma. When I planted my hand on the wood, I winced at the pricking sensation. At least the thorn didn’t draw blood. It wasn’t the only rose on the floor. Scattered all around me were hundreds. As if they were part of some sick ritual Skip had in store. Especially since they were all red or purple to mirror our Masque costumes.

  Shivering, I tromped out of the mass of roses and huddled up against the corner of the room and brought my knees to my chest. My dress pooled to the floor: a lake of sodden royal ruffles, deep and endless. Soaked from the flight and the battle, my long hair now fell in long waves down my back. Skip removed his cape, then his shirt, and persuaded the flesh on his hands and shoulders to return to its original state before he finished lighting the rest of the candles and torches. The candle light revealed water droplets like teary ribbons on Skip’s diamond sharp cheeks. It seemed as though my fireball had done some damage to his cape, which lay on the floor below him like an open wound. Drenched as mine, his long hair streamed down the front of his chest, darkened in the light to a dull gold. But he was no less beautiful. All this time, beautiful enough to seduce me. Powerful enough to tempt me. Generous enough to manipulate me.

  One glance to the tunnel and I knew it wasn’t an option. Skip kept himself between me and the exit, acting as a barrier. I didn’t have the strength for another battle. Not yet.

  After ripping a massive red velvet tapestry from one of the walls, Skip tossed it over his arm. Approached me. I recoiled when he tried to hand it to me.

  Skip rolled his eyes and glowered. “Come on, Rin. Don’t act like you're suddenly afraid of me. Take it. I don’t need you getting sick again.”

  In surrender, I reached out a shaky hand to accept the blanket. Then, I rose to a stand and wrapped it around myself.

  “Here…” He handed me something: a long white dress. How thoughtful. Skip had even planned my wardrobe. Taking one look at it, I shook my head. I wouldn’t play his sacrificial lamb.

  “What?” His eyes narrowed, eerie emeralds catching the candlelight glinting back at me.

  “If I didn’t yield when you attacked me as the Rose Killer, why on earth would I now?”

  “Your clothes are soaked. Put it on,” he ordered firmly. “I'll turn around to give you some privacy. I’d rather not force you into it myself, but I can persuade you,” he hinted, eye sporting a deadly gleam.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” I challenged him, curving my eyes to a deadly low beneath my lashes.

  Skip smirked, tilted his head to the side. One moment passed before the strings of my corset began to unravel.

  I screamed, “Stop!” And backed away. At least his persuasion froze, granting me what little freedom to make this non-choice. I took the dress and moved as far away from Skip as I possibly could. My fingers worked to untie the strings on my back. My mother had laced them tight. This should be easier, especially given his last action.

  “Here.” Skip noticed my difficulty. “Let me.”

  I flinched when he touched my back. Uncomfortable, my spine tightened as his fingers worked at the strings. Just another ploy, another trick. He could do this without touching me.

  “I’ll admit,” he murmured against the skin of my neck, “Your back is my favorite feature. That night in my studio. Hmm…” He tugged at the strings until he’d loosened the corset bodice. His fingers lingered in the spaces between the strings. One nail striking me like a naked branch in winter, pricking me. I shivered. “I finished the painting.” He gestured to one corner of the room where a sheet covered the framed object, and once his eyes narrowed, the sheet moved to his persuasion, unwrapping the canvas so I could view the finished project: curves enhanced, body painted bolder by fine wings.

  Fingers armed with frostbite, he traced the crease in my back until I stepped away, still gripping the bodice and giving him the signal to turn around. After eyeing me for one more moment, Skip faced the wall, back towards me. Allowing the bodice to drop to the floor, I peeled away my we
t skirts, and hurried into the white dress. With its plunging neckline and decadent lace straps dangling loose off my shoulders, I knew Skip had selected it so my enriched neck was wholly exposed. The dress pooled to my thighs while a transparent sheath detailed with lace formed an overlay past my feet. A spill of crystalized snowflakes. Reminiscent Christine’s Angel of Music dress.

  “Splendid for tonight,” Skip remarked, observant eyes trimming my outline.

  Tucking damp curls behind my ears, I finally met his eyes and posed the question preying on my lips. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

  He turned his lush green eyes on mine. “Trust me when I tell you, Rin, I have no interest in killing you.” He stepped toward me, but when I moved to evade him, Skip dropped his arms to the side and sighed.

  “My nightmares,” I murmured, shifting my brutal eyes to the roses for an explanation.

  “Yes, I’m proud that I managed to pull those off. No simple feat with your family trying to track your every move. Worse when the Council arranged for their own Guardians. But I spent long years practicing, developing my abilities. My second power. I am a mind-weaver,” he related, proud, bending to select a rose from the floor, tapping it against his palm before crushing it. “I can enter anyone's mind and spin their dreams into any tapestry I desire.” He spilled a waterfall of rose petals to the floor. “I simply used persuasion to lure your captors to believe your scent was absent.”

  Captors. My family. The Council.

  Arrogance sketched his voice, his steps moving ever closer as I sought more answers.

  “Why take me to the murders?”

  “Only one murder was my original intention. The first. Two birds with one stone. I would take my revenge against the Council and the Queen for failing my father. I would take my revenge against the man who led him to his death. You were merely my pawn. Until your wings released that morning in the vineyard,” he explained, tugging at the edges of one rose petal. Plucking it. “Possibly a defensive mechanism.”

  “Why the human? Why the animal blood farm?”

  Skip shrugged, glanced toward his art. “Symbolic choice more than anything.”

  I practically snarled at him. “I can read your thoughts, remember? You want to destroy the No Human Blood Act. That’s why you began with a human. It’s why you left her like trash outside the animal blood farm.”

  Skip centered his eyes on me and chuckled. “Expertly assessed, Rin. Yes, for too long, Le Couvènte clings to an ancient custom drawn up by Founders too fatigued by war to consider what the world is already accepting.”

  “And you’d turn the whole world into a human blood playground,” I stated through gritted teeth.

  Skip’s brows dipped low, eyes feverish as he expressed, “I’d prefer to begin with you.” He inhaled the rose.

  I turned aside, hugging myself. I wasn’t done with questions. “And the night of the fire? Why didn’t you finish it?” I lashed out at him, suddenly twisting to snatch the rose from his hand.

  Skip stole my wrist, twisting it around so he could thumb my pulse with his other hand stroking my bare arm. I struggled, but his hands were manacles, his words becoming my prison. “The Chateau. That night, you proved to me you were no mere pawn. Your audacity! Your passion! You had too much capability. Unfortunately, it was tainted by your innocence and impulsivity. So, I put it to the test on the training field.” He breathed in my scent. I couldn’t move. Not even when his cool lips found the skin of my wrist, and his fangs skidded across the skin of my pulse. “And you rose to the opportunity. I believe that was the night I truly fell in love with you.”

  I grimaced. “This. Is. Not. Love.”

  “Reina Caraway…you stunned me.”

  Skip brandished an ominous smile. The way he just moved on with his story, discounting my words ignited my silver veins, but I clenched them around the rose stem. Now, I was drawing blood.

  “The night you nearly burned down half of Le Couvènte, I knew I couldn’t destroy such potential. And when you asked me to train you! Oh, the opportunity to mold you, to design you into my plans.” His hands, frost-coated foam, drifted up my bare arm before he centered them on each side of my throat. “You have untapped abilities stored in this magnificent body, steeped in your passionate blood. It was even you who opened the door in the catacombs.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “Persuade it? No. I persuaded it closed. I even considered draining you, leaving you there as a specific message. Didn’t count on Raoul who shadowed your steps from the beginning. But you conquered my testing. Such powers burrowed inside of you would’ve been so impressive. Shattering all other Queens…all that potential.”

  I landed on two of his words, fixated on them. “What do you mean ‘would’ve been’?”

  His mouth was still closed when he chuckled, a deep laugh resonating from his throat. “Rin, really…I know about your other transformation. Your wolf side. Do you honestly believe I could allow the prophecy to turn the girl I love into such an abomination? Even if it’s only a part of you?”

  I closed my eyes as Skip’s fingers crawled around the back of my beck, restraining me. I let him monologue, let him touch me because I was stalling. I would do everything I could to delay the inevitable. For a fraction of hope for Heath, Brian, and Raoul, anyone to track me.

  “You’ve blossomed. Not the immature child with her head in the stars I’d always seen at school. Trust me, I did my best to resist you. Emotionally at least.”

  He tugged me closer till his chest brushed the edges of mine, his quickened heartbeat overlapping my slower one. I leaned away as best I could, curling my upper lip.

  “The thrill of the hunt and my revenge were my sole focus. But I underestimated you. In training. In the catacombs. With Wallace. In the battle. Even that night in the studio. You have never once cowered before me. For a human, you carry yourself like a Queen in a world of demons with no shame or terror. You inspired me to concoct new methods to unleash your abilities such as the catacombs, arranging for Charlotte’s death so Wallace’s pack would refute your blood claim. That was the most brutal shock when I followed you and observed you in wolf that night. Immediately, I stopped invading your dreams. Anything to delay your evolution.”

  As soon as he paused, I didn't hesitate to raise my fist to strike him, but Skip caught it and swung my body around so my back was pinned against his chest. “Don't struggle. It's so pointless, but I enjoy how much your anger is heating your blood,” he murmured against my collarbone.

  I didn't stop struggling even if his arms were persuasion-soaked iron bars. I poured as much toxicity into my voice, it could poison a cobra. “You sick asshole!” I snarled. “You invaded my dreams, my mind, my privacy! You made me doubt my faith in the Council, in the Guardians, in Raoul, but worse than that, you made me doubt myself. That morning with Charlotte―”

  “Please, Rin…you honestly believed you could commit such an atrocity and have the ability to string her up a tree? You flatter yourself.”

  I tried to wrench my hands free, but Skip paralyzed me. Instead, I swung my head forward to prevent his mouth from accessing my neck and so I could look him in the eye and ask, “Why the roses?”

  Skip loosened his grip a little and smirked as one hand drifted upward, across my chest and to the base of my throat to cage it. “A private joke. A calling card, yes, but also reminder of my true intentions. Your blood.” He drew one line across my throat to say, “Your scent to me…”

  Reflecting on his words, I stared at my hands, at the veins in my arms housing my quickening blood. “I have roseblood?”

  “More intoxicating than you could possibly imagine.”

  I arched my neck back, revolted by the feeling of his hands on my throat. And yet, I could feel his pulse thrumming against my jugular. My instincts yearned for his blood, the power it would bring me. My body craved for his just like that night outside my house.

  “Slow down, Rin,” he murmured, lips kissing up the line
of my neck. “We will taste each other tonight. I am looking forward to it.”

  “You did this!” I seethed, writhing against him. “You made me love you!”

  “Oh, please.” Skip wove an arm around my waist, smoothing it along the spaces between my cleavage up to rest on the flesh above my heart. “No lies between us now. Secrets are gone. We are alone.” He let me go, the abruptness causing me to fall onto my side. Hard. I grunted, clutching my side as he strayed toward the painting of me. “Only you and me and the blood of my victims.” He unveiled more canvases positioned around the room under dark sheets. He’d painted them all…in blood. All of me. Sick ritual indeed.

  Ignoring my bruised side, I got to my feet faster than a lightning bolt and lunged for Skip just as he leaned over to touch the painting. Sensing me, Skip twisted at the last second. I had just enough time to push on his chest, screaming out my grief, my rage, my pain, “She was your QUEEN! She was my friend!”

  Skip caught my arms. Beneath his, mine shook. No stronger than wilted roses before a winter storm. Skip overthrew me within a second. On the floor, I sobbed tears of wrath even as I tumbled to my knees, dropping, remembering Caroline’s corpse ― soap white skin and absence of her foresighted grin.

  Before me, Skip stood and placed his fist beneath my chin, lifted it as he'd done in the past. “She was never my queen. But trust me in this…” He gazed down at me, thumbing my chin, soft. “Your growing relationship with her was not in my plans. I never intended to hurt you in that way.”

  In that way…I lowered my head, but Skip seized me by the shoulders. “And after tonight, no one will ever hurt you. After tonight, you’ll come to forgive me. You’ll have no choice,” he simpered, proud grin hinting at more plans.

  My eyes turned to amethysts dipped in fire. “What could you possibly do to me, Skip? You said you weren't going to kill―”

  And when his fangs crept beneath the dangerous smile he wielded, I understood. He was going to turn me. To prevent the prophecy, to prevent my evolution. I would become full vampire. And Skip would become my blood-maker. Bonded to me forever. He would erase the wolf…and my humanity. I retreated from his hands, knotting my brows, protesting, “No! You can't take the Change away from me. I've waited too long for this!” But when I turned around, he was already there.