Page 17 of Crimson Shifter
Cassandra’s eyes fell to where I stood dutifully at her side.
“I’m fine,” I said down the connection between us.
“You’re starving,” she fired back, stroking those delicate fingers along the nape of my neck.
Gods help me, I leaned into that touch andpurred.
I fuckingpurred.
“Such a good kitten,”she cooed down the bond.
I gave her a warning growl.
“Ah-hem,” her mother cleared her throat, and Cassandra ripped her eyes from mine, snapping her attention back to her mother quickly.
That was fear I felt shivering down our connection. An old fear, rooted deep and drenched in pain.
Fuck, what more had they done to her as a youngling?
“This one,” her mother demanded, tipping her head toward the painting we stood in front of. The colors were muted beiges,grays, blacks, with pops of red scattered along a bunched group of humans, all bending beneath a horned figure.
Cassandra’s sigh was likely only audible to me. “Francisco Goya,” she answered. “Eighteen-twenties.”
“The name?” her mother hissed the question, like she was pissed Cassandra had answered correctly.
“Witches’ Sabbath,” Cassandra said, her voice monotone.
Where was that sharp tongue I couldn’t stop dreaming about? The one that loved to cut me any chance she got or, quite the opposite, distract me by sliding into my mouth and making me want to claim her in all the ways I shouldn’t.
“Hmm,” her mother said, not an ounce of pride on her features as she moved on to the next.
And the next.
And the next, until I was more than ready to eat her just to get her to shut up.
“Gods,” Cassandra groaned after we’d made it back to her quarters an hour before dawn. “That was dreadful.”
“Dreadful?” I said, shifting back into my vampire form. “Try torturous.” I rolled my shoulders, situating myself back into this skin as I grabbed my sweats and slid them over my lower half. I didn’t bother with a shirt as I turned around to face her.
“Oh, I assure you, her torture is much worse.”
I furrowed my brow, noting the light way she said the words didn’t reach her brown eyes. “Enlighten me?”
Cassandra shrugged, waltzing over to her wardrobe and grabbing a pair of her favorite yoga pants. She must have training on her mind.
“My family had this estate custom-built centuries ago,” she said as she went into the bathroom and shut the door to change. “They spared no expense. As you can tell, it’s quite the paradise.” She came back out of the bathroom, her long, lithe body looking absolutely stunning in jewel tones of green and gold.
“But?” I urged as I followed her to where we’d been training every night.
“There are no less than four closets painted with Night Thistle-laced paint in this estate,” she said. My blood ran cold. “Complete with iron chains and other uniquely dreadful artifices designed for nothing but harming our kind.”
“You’re telling me they would threaten to put you?—”
“Not threaten,” she said, squaring off before me. Her fighting stance had improved immensely since we’d begun training. “I spent half my life in one of those closets, whenever I back-talked. Which, after spending so much time with me…”
“Fuck,” I hissed, my mind whirling with the picture she’d painted. Her as a young opinionated vampire, being punished simply for speaking her mind. My fangs punched out, every instinct in my body roaring to tear her mother’s throat out with my bare hands.
Her father was already dead.