Page 129 of Hateful Prince
Heart still racing, I straightened, looking around and up in each corner like she might still be lurking in the little powder room. Thankfully, she was not perched on the ceiling like a gigantic spider queen. Small mercies, I guess.
“So . . . that happened.”
I was going to have to go up to my room to take care of the bleeding. The last thing I needed was the attention of the vampires in attendance tonight.
Huffing a breath, I flicked open the lock and opened the door. The swarm of voices filled my ears as I stepped into the warm light of the empty hallway. Just as the doors closed behind me, the lights went out, leaving me in a sea of inky darkness.
“Oh, come on.”
Not sure if the power outage was due to the ghost’s return or something more innocuous like a winter storm, I took a second to get my bearings.
Big. Fucking. Mistake.
A rough, warm palm encircled my throat as a powerful arm wrapped tightly around my waist. Fear laced my blood first, followed by excitement and arousal.
Cas.
He’d noticed I was wearing the bracelet for him tonight. He’d come for me. Waited until I was alone to strike. He did love his elaborate plots. Cutting the lights was absolutely something he’d do, seeing as how he’d drugged me last time.
Excitement coursed through me for one potent second, weakening my knees and making my heart race. But then a little voice in the back of my head chimed up. Something was off. It took me another heartbeat to register what it was.
The scent of the sea was missing.
This wasn’t Cas.
I opened my mouth to scream, but a cloth gag filled it instead.
“I’ve got you now,” a deep, distorted voice growled in my ear.
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
DAHLIA
Adull throb between my eyes woke me from a dreamless sleep. I couldn’t remember going to bed, or much of anything after my ghost encounter in the powder room. Shit. Had she affected me so strongly I lost consciousness?
I blinked groggy eyes, the swimming shapes around me not making any sense. This wasn’t my room.
God, my head hurt.
Instinctively, I went to check my head, but I couldn’t move my arm. It was stuck.
No, not stuck. Bound.
I gave a jerk, my whole body moving in an attempt to break free. That’s when I realized it wasn’t just my arms that were bound. My legs were too.
Panic clawed up my throat as I tried again and failed, the cold air making me shiver.
The crunch of footsteps to my left had me turning my head in search of the source. I caught sight of a dark, shadowy figure. The bright flare of a match being struck illuminated him, but not enough for me to place the man.
He moved in a slow circle, and with each candle he lit, my surroundings came into sharper relief. The candles had been placed on headstones. I was in a graveyard—technically a kirkyard, since this was Scotland. Jesus.
The little flames guttered in the wind, but they didn’t go out. It was almost as if they were eager to bear witness to whatever the fuck this was.
Your murder, dummy. This is where the Ripper took you to murderate you.
When he’d lit the final candle, he stood with his back to me, but still I strained to search for some identifier on him. Slim build, tall but not excessively so, hair cut neatly. Nothing exceptional about him.