Chapter 5

The Embrace. The finest way a vampire count could sire a successor. Once completed, the newborn vampire would share a portion of the sire's power and a bond of utter intimacy with the one who turned them.

He was already that eager for her to belong to him?

I couldn't find words for what I felt.

I had once believed that privilege of the Embrace of a vampire count was mine alone.

Cyrus looked at me with grave earnestness. "Isolde, you received my very first Embrace. You know that is different. You have a noble standing. You have remarkable gifts.

"Elena isn't like you. She has nothing..."

He tightened his grip on my hand. "Elena isn't as self-reliant as you, but she is a strong girl in her own way. Spend a little time with her. You'll come to like her...

"Try. Start by not pushing her away so hard. All right?"

"No," I said.

I drew my hand from his and asked, in earnest, "I don't want Elena here. Can you send her away?"

Cyrus regarded me coolly, no feeling in his red eyes. "You're jealous."

"I'm begging you," I said quietly. "Cyrus, I have been with you for one hundred years.

"A hundred years... and not one of the promises you made me has come true. Every kindness you've shown me has been tangled up with what you wanted. And now?

"Now you let yourself be charmed by some human girl, and you hurt me without a second thought. Or have you forgotten? The Night of the Blood Moon was meant to be my coming-of-age."

"I never meant to hurt you." Cyrus's brow knit tighter. "Isolde, you're too emotional today. I admit that I've neglected you lately... That's my fault."

I drew a long breath. "Then I will ask you one more time. Can Elena leave Thornhold Castle? Once she's gone, send her wherever you like."

Cyrus pressed his lips together and said nothing.

The silence in the air was unbearable.

I curved the corner of my mouth. "I understand. Now, please leave."

But Cyrus seemed to be holding on to his own anger.

He rose to his feet, looking down at me, his voice gone hard. "Do you know what your worst problem is?"

Not a flicker of warmth remained in his red eyes. He didn't wait for me to answer before pouring it all out. "You're always like this. Always willful, never satisfied.

"When I first picked you up off the streets, you were exactly the same unlikable, which is why you were beaten down so badly. And then I spoiled you into this arrogant, overbearing thing..."

I froze.

So this was how he saw me?

When he had saved me, he had said it was my strength that drew him in.

He had told me, gravely, that from then on, with him, I would never have to be so careful again.

With him to shelter me from every storm, I could do whatever I wanted.

He had asked me to be the rose he raised with his own hands.

Because of those words, I had willingly stepped into his greenhouse, pulled out my thorns, put on a red gown, all to become the flower that would please him.

And now?

All those years of being hurt: abandoned by my foster parents, bullied by the children in the orphanage, nearly drowned in filthy water by street vagrants, in Cyrus's mouth, were reduced to a single line: "You weren't likable."

I understood, with perfect clarity, that Cyrus was using my past to hurt me.

He had dug it all up with his own hands and turned it into a weapon against me.

I had thought he was the one person who would never do that.

I had been wrong.

Something that had once stood firm inside me cracked, with a small, quiet snap.

That familiar face of Cyrus's suddenly looked like a stranger's.

His lips kept moving, still pressing me. "Isolde, when are you going to learn to tolerant?"

I looked at him, expecting tears that didn't come.

"Cyrus." My voice was soft, soft enough to hold no feeling at all. "Every word you said today I have remembered. I will never forget."

Perhaps sensing the shift in me, Cyrus softened his expression and lowered his voice. "I'm not blaming you. The truth is, I..."

Before he could finish, there was a faint sound at the door.

"Who's there? Come out." Cyrus snapped.

The door opened.

Elena stood outside in a white dress, looking lost, trembling so badly she might collapse at any moment.

Her face was pale, her voice shaking as she apologized. "I'm sorry. I was passing by, and I overheard your conversation by accident."

Cyrus's expression changed. "You heard?"

"Yes..." Elena nodded, bit her lip, then spoke as if steeling herself. "Miss Isolde, I'm sorry. It's my presence that has come between you and Cyrus. Cyrus, please send me away."

She swayed where she stood, caught herself against the doorframe, and as she turned away I thought I heard a stifled sob.

"Elena. Don't go. Let me explain." Cyrus rushed over and seized her wrist. She pulled free, and he hurried after her down the corridor.

I waited until the sound of their tangled footsteps had faded, then quietly got up, shut the door tight, and lay back on the bed, staring up at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Even the lamp had been shaped into a delicate rose. Around the blossom, bats with wings half-spread flared as if about to take flight.

Exquisite to the point of being absurd.