Versailles’ gaze slid from mine. I stiffened, when it fell on the poppy on my leathers. When Versailles’ long fingers reached out and caressed it, I jerked in my manacles, despite the agony in my shoulder, desperate to stop him desecrating Kathy’s memory. At the same time, it ignited my hunger for Kathy and her human world.

  To remember.

  “You do know where we are? Cherbourg? Have a bit of respect for the fallen soldiers,” I growled. “I know something of what the First World War was like because I was trapped between both sides. They were heroes and they understood sacrifice. We’re monsters and it doesn’t matter how pretty we are to look at, I understand that now.”

  Versailles’ gaze softened, as he stroked down my cheek with the back of his hand. “You’re merely lost. I know because when I was your age, I felt much the same. You think that I didn’t have doubts or rebel?” He rested his forehead against mine as if we were lovers. Next to him, Maverick crossed his arms and frowned. “A beauty such as you would be delectable to pluck. In the service of the Blood God, we are raised up to become more than monsters. Isn’t that what you’ve always been searching for? We become dark heroes. Do you not wish such salvation, pray?”

  Such temptation spoke to my Soul: sin and salvation together. Was it possible to be both a predator and a hero? Was this the redemption that I’d been searching for, where it was even possible to bring Kathy into a Blood Lifer family?

  Even though confusion howled through me, I knew whispered temptations when I heard them, no matter how pretty they were.

  “Here’s the thing…” When I smiled, Versailles drew back and nodded encouragingly. “Haven’t you ever reckoned that it’s funny how it’s a Blood God? See, if circles had a god, it wouldn’t have any sides, yeah?”

  Maverick hissed in a breath. “The boy doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s delirious from the pain. Look, I can convince him. He’s thinking about his human lover, and I know that if she’s welcomed into the Moon Cult as well, then he’ll come to heel.”

  Versailles pulled at his cuffs like his shoulders weren’t shaking with fury. “He acts the fool, but he’s a man of talents. Tell me this, little Plantagenet, what makes you believe that you can insult a god?” Versailles’ smile was so brief that in my agony-addled state, I might’ve imagined it. “Or me?”

  Versailles stretched, stifling a yawn. But he was a better actor than me because his eyes blazed as he turned sharply away, striding to the cabin’s door. Then he threw back with pretend casualness over his shoulder, “Maverick believes that you and your First Lifer would make perfect new lovers and a family... It appears that I never shall be enough for him.” Maverick didn’t look up to meet Versailles’ piercing gaze. “I’d intended for once to indulge him…but you appear determined to remain lost.” He waved his hand as if bored of the conversation, before diving out of the cabin as he called, “Exitus, play awhile.”

  Exitus’ face lit up like it was bloody Christmas. His twinkling eyes scrutinized me, as if deciding what body part to play with first…or amputate.

  I’d rejected Versailles, and in turn, he’d abandoned me into the hands of the cult’s torturer.

  15

  I shivered, hanging from manacles in the Moon Cult’s yacht, whilst terror spiraled through me at the specialist in death and pain who was preparing to play with me. With a dark magician’s flourish, Exitus whipped a cloth off a chest that danced with engraved Komodo dragons.

  Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the memory of when I’d been kidnapped by followers of the Blood God before. Maybe I hadn’t rated the Long-lived’s exalted attention back then as a newly elected Blood Lifer and nothing more than a sacrifice because I hadn’t seen the cult’s leader. Yet I couldn’t forget the knives: silver, sacrificial, and slashing…

  Scarlet, scarlet, scarlet.

  Whining: it was only when Maverick pressed close, stroking down my sides like I was a spooked stallion, that I realized that it was coming from me. I gritted my teeth against the sound, memory, and terror.

  Maverick’s breath was hot against my cheek, his chest was hard, and he smelled of suede and whiskey. When I concentrated on each touch, scent, and his closeness, it held back the nightmares. He grounded me in a way that felt like family.

  Finally, Maverick shot me an assessing glance, before pulling back as if we hadn’t just been…there was no way that I was going to call it snuggling. Instead, I tilted my chin, glaring at the torturer’s array of pliers, saws, and canes. What was it with blokes getting off on caning me? The knives were laid in front as neat as an autopsy lab. “Bit cliché, mate? What comes first? The dental torture or the cattle prod stuck up my—”

  “If only we had the time.” Exitus clicked his tongue behind his teeth, with the regretful sigh of a kid with measles, who’d been forced to miss his own birthday party. When he tapped at each metal monstrosity in turn, I tensed. “I’ve created true beauty from pain and true pain from beauty. You would’ve been a masterpiece.”

  “Bloody shame.”

  “Quite so.” Exitus leered; Prince Charming turned predator. “We are ordered to play, and unlike you, I know how to follow orders. Do you know the games that I love best?”

  Maverick’s large hands stilled on my ribs. He’d pushed up my t-shirt to rub soothingly at my clammy skin. “Play nice, boys,” he warned.

  I cocked my head. “Charades?”

  Maverick’s fingers clawed into my sides, which were dragged taut by the chains. I whimpered, as his nails dug between each rib.

  “Elegant games of irony.” Exitus’ smile had slipped; his left eye twitched.

  Blinding.

  I furrowed my brow, as if in thought. “So, not charades?”

  Maverick dug his nails into my ribs again, yet he also hid his chortle against my neck.

  “No, not this silly…charades,” Exitus burst out.

  Crash — with a slash of his arm, Exitus swept the tools of his trade flying like silver birds across the cabin.

  “Son of a bitch…” Maverick ducked.

  I couldn’t help a grin. It was wiped off, however, when Exitus bent to pick up something that looked like an ice-cream scoop, before marching towards me. For a moment, I didn’t think that Maverick was going to step aside. He hesitated, with his hand resting on my chest, and it was reassuring in a way that it shouldn’t have been. Then Exitus raised his eyebrow in warning, and Maverick reluctantly lifted his hands in defeat, before skulking to the side of the cabin. Suddenly, I felt cold, and the loss of Maverick’s touch was devastating. For the first time, since I’d been hauled out of the ocean and onto the deck at the feet of the Moon Cult, I felt truly alone.

  “Light into the dark,” Exitus spat. “That is irony, yes?”

  Blankly, I stared at Exitus, until he grasped my hair, yanking my head back. Then he held up the scoop…directly over my right eye.

  At last, I struggled, even though my shoulder and hip screamed with agony at each twist, and my hair was ripped at the root.

  Sight to a Blood Lifer is sacred because our senses are magnified. We hunt and love with them, exploring the world in multi-colored glory. If you steal the light, you steal our life.

  Christ in heaven, I could suffer anything but not to be lost in the dark.

  Tears gleamed in my eyes, but I sodding well let them, because it might be the last time that they ever could.

  Exitus slammed my head against the pole — clank, clank, clank.

  Dazed, I hung slack. The manacles cut my wrists, and blood ran sticky down my forearms. The scent of blood was intoxicating; I bet that it was driving Maverick wild.

  The scoop still hovered over my right eye.

  I wouldn’t allow Exitus to be the last thing that I ever saw. I wished that Kathy was here. How could I never see her smile again? Yet Maverick was with me, and he was the only other First or Blood Lifer who’d care that this was being done to me, so I watched Maverick for the last time, and he watched me back.

  Maverick’s hands looped in his belt, as casual as if he was master of his own range, and this was nothing but a bull’s branding, yet cold fury burned behind his dark gaze. His fingers trembled over his lasso. Then the scoop scratched my eyeball, and I screamed silently. Instantly, Maverick hurled the lasso around Exitus, pulling it taut. The scoop clattered to the floor, and Exitus was hauled to the slaughter. I hadn’t noticed the sacrificial knife hidden in Maverick’s jacket. Neither had Exitus, until he’d been knifed through the heart.

  Exitus’ left eye twitched again in confusion, whilst his hands scrabbled at his cardigan, which was stained in scarlet. Then he slumped at Maverick’s boots.

  Maverick never dropped his gaze from mine throughout the entire kill because it’d been an offering. And so fast that neither Exitus, nor I, had seen it coming.

  Something to remember.

  Had Maverick chosen me over his Blood God, or merely hadn’t been able to witness my torture? Either way, I’d never be able to repay my debt to Maverick because my eyes were still in their sockets: my sight hadn’t been stolen. I let out a desperate sob of relief.

  “How utterly thrilling: a tale of love, tragedy, and death. My favorite,” Versailles’ soft voice cooed from the doorway.

  Startled, I glanced up, whilst Maverick wiped the blood from the blade on his jeans, before sheathing it in his jacket again. Then he kicked the corpse away from him, like a kid hiding his ciggies from dad to avoid a hiding.

  It never bleeding works.

  Versailles strolled into the carnage: a butterfly in a slaughterhouse.

  And in the bastard’s arms…?

  I stilled — the whole sodding world stilled — at Joelle’s smile.

  “Observe, man’s greatest weakness.” Versailles’ lizard gaze flickered to Maverick. “Love.”

  Maverick flinched.

  I wet my lips. “Don’t you reckon the baby’s too young to join the party?”

  Versailles placed a gentle kiss on Joelle’s forehead, before he pinned me with his intense scrutiny. “She’s my perfect Moon Girl.”

  Then he held Joelle above his head, drawing her into the silver waters of the moon.

  No buggering way: my Moon Girl — Kathy — meant freedom. Not this perversion….not death.

  “Bollocks,” I snarled.

  Versailles blinked and then blinked again.

  Maverick snorted with what sounded suspiciously like laughter.

  Versailles swung to Maverick, whilst pink colored his high cheeks. He cradled Joelle, murmuring words with a dangerous softness that stiffened Maverick, “Surely you do not find this amusing? Maybe first you’ll explain why there’s a dead fellow amongst us?”

  Versailles toed at Exitus’ crumpled body.

  Maverick clenched his jaw but forced himself to shrug. “I told him to play nice. He should have listened.”

  Now it was my turn to snort, until Versailles flicked his gaze to mine, before lowering his lips to Joelle’s throat, as if to kiss and…

  “Please, no…” I begged.

  Versailles’ fangs shot out. They scraped Joelle’s skin, and her tiny face screwed up as she mewled, lullaby-cradled in the arms of a killer.

  I wrenched against my shackles, and my shoulder popped from its socket. For a moment, everything faded out to white. Then Versailles’ tongue swept down Joelle’s neck, whilst his cold gaze never left mine.

  This was my punishment: my fault. If I’d joined Versailles’ cult or had allowed my sight to be taken…would Joelle have been allowed to live? Would there be one less horror to remember?

  I booted the pillar — bang, bang, bang — jarring my hip and howling my impotent fury to the moon, which watched in silence as its girl was…

  Suddenly, strong arms wound around me, whilst hard thighs wedged against mine. Someone was whispering soothing words to me.

  I came back then to the cabin on the French ocean and the night of the Blood God’s sacrifice. To Maverick holding me tightly to stop me from ripping myself to bloody pieces in my chains and guiding me away from the edge of darkness. Yet Versailles’ fangs were still at the throat of a kid who I’d promised to save. I wished that I could look away, but the least that I could do was have the balls to watch.

  “Steady, Little Stallion,” Maverick muttered, as I shook.

  Then Versailles’ fangs slid back, and he looked over Joelle’s head at me. “Perhaps I’m acting in unreasonable haste. Perhaps there’s a sacrifice here far more fitting for our Blood God?”

  Maverick’s eyes widened. His hold on me tightened. “Now hold on a damn minute. I told you—”

  “Silence!” Versailles’ hiss sliced through Maverick’s protest. The diamonds on his buttons sparkled in the moon’s light. “Do not think, little Plantagenet, that the Blood God has forgotten the taste of you.” I cringed. Versailles had known all along that I’d escaped from his followers a century before. Is that why I’d been special enough that he’d considered indulging Maverick in his love for Kathy and me? “The dark is forever.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I belong to no one and that includes your god.”

  “I know you believe that, silly child.” Versailles’ slide towards me was that of a predator wrapped in silk. Maverick’s fingers stroked my sides compulsively. “Yet it honors the Blood God when the sacrifice is willing.”

  Versailles clutched Joelle to his shoulder with one hand, and in his other, he grasped a silver knife. The handle curved into the forked tongue of a Komodo dragon. “Surely you perceive that the Blood God demands either your worship or your sacrifice?”

  I refused to meet Versailles’ eye. My own pulse deafened me. I’d rejected him, so now he offered me the world’s cruelest ultimatum.

  Versailles’ voice hardened. “Plunge the knife into your heart.” I closed my eyes against his vicious order, which whispered to me even now like a seducer’s kiss. “Then you’ll be a dark martyr.”

  I forced myself to raise my eyebrow. “It’s never going to happen, wanker.”

  I tensed for the clout, but instead Versailles stroked Joelle’s ash-blonde tufts, as I had done, like he was trying to copy my pompadour. “Then it will not be as fitting, but you could kill this one in your place. An innocent virgin is almost as pleasing to the Blood God. I do believe you to be neither innocent nor a virgin, non?”

  “You’re a Blood Lifer, boy.” Maverick gripped me by the chin, forcing me to meet his serious gaze. Yet his hand shook, and there was a desperation now in his eyes, which it shocked me to realize was for me. It shocked me even more that I wished I could replace with it that ghost smile of his instead. “Act like one.”

  I’d swum in the waters of Blood Life for over a century: I’d never slaughtered a kid yet, and I wouldn’t start now to save my own life or as the cost of entry into a world of gods and their worshipers.

  Did they think that made me less than a Blood Lifer…?

  When I nutted Maverick, his nose smashed with a crunch.

  Maverick hollered, staggering back and clutching his face. Crimson dribbled between his fingers.

  “I’m not innocent or a virgin but I’m all Blood Lifer.” I glanced between the two Blood Lifers who wanted me to join their family — cult — but pay for it through death. I wet my dry lips. I’d faced my second death before, but it’d been as my choice. It was so much harder to face it, when I was tied in chains. “I’ll play the sacrificial damsel, but only if you give back Joelle to her mum.”

  Maverick smeared his nose on his shoulder. “Wrong choice.”

  Maverick was staring at me like a toy that’d blown up in his face.

  “You have my word.” Versailles nodded with kingly grandeur. “Here, take the child.” He grimaced as he shoved Joelle at Maverick.

  “Your word? Yeah? Like I’m daft enough to trust that,” I scoffed.

  “Then you have my word.” Maverick held Joelle as he had me: close and secure. Joelle’s struggling instantly settled, as she snuggled against his chest.

  She was safe like I was with Maverick, despite how dangerous I knew that he was. And why did it hurt to think that?

  I nodded.

  Versailles’ eyes narrowed in annoyance, before he shoved Maverick out into the corridor. “You trust him and not me, when he’s not even the one who the Blood God favors…?” Then he slapped the back of Maverick’s head. “You’re lucky that I shall pardon your follies, Maverick, but devotion to the gods demands sacrifice. When you drink tonight—”

  “I’m not fixing on drinking,” Maverick growled.

  Versailles’ face became still; his gaze shuttered. Yet he only murmured, “If that’s what your heart tells you.”

  Was I the only one who heard that as a threat?

  When Maverick swept away with Joelle, I let out a breath of relief, and yet now I was alone with Versailles and for the first time, I couldn’t talk or fight my way out of death with fangs and fists because I had to submit.

  That was the deal: I was to be the willing sacrifice, wielding the knife myself.

  It was harder, now that Versailles no longer held Joelle in his arms, to miss the glint of silver in his hands as he glided towards me.

  Rip — shocked, I glanced down at the fluttering strips of my t-shirt, which had been sliced in two.

  Sodding hell, how easily would that knife carve through me?

  “You are a corruption.” Tear — Versailles took the two pieces of t-shirt apart like they were rags. I shivered, exposed. He trailed his fingers down my bare chest. “You poison Blood Lifers with your humanity and love.” I jolted, as Versailles’ tongue laved across my nipple. “Your sacrifice will feed the Blood God.” He sucked hard. “It will redeem you and absolve Maverick.”

  Then he bit around my nipple with his fangs, and I wailed. Versailles drew back, kissing the redness, before he lapped up the beaded blood.

 

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