Eddie tugged on Lyssa’s hand and made her look at him. Before she could say anything, he leaned in and kissed her — with all his strength, every ounce of passion he could muster, throwing open his heart.
She leaned into him, her lips soft and hot as she grabbed the front of his sweatshirt. Desperate longing filled his chest — swelling, rising, until it was hard to breathe. He had never felt so lost in another person. He hadn’t thought it could happen to him — not so fast, with such intensity.
Alone, for so long. Alone, with friends. Alone, in a crowd. Alone, in his heart, because some pain couldn’t be shared, much less spoken out loud.
“Remember,” he murmured. “Whatever happens in there, you’re not alone.”
Lyssa loosened her fingers from his sweatshirt. “When you say things like that. .”
But she stopped, and a hard look flickered in her eyes as she looked at that door at the end of the hall. For a moment, Eddie lost himself in memories not his own, and saw knives pressed to her twelve-year-old throat. A chill raced over him.
He heard a low groan, thick and heavy with pain. Dread prickled, a sickening anticipation. The bloodstains on the floor caught his eye. Nikola’s feet had been red and sticky. Walking through that much blood. .
Lyssa took a deep breath and strode toward the door. Eddie followed.
A cold rush of power rolled over him just before they reached the end of the hall. Like water, a river, flowing against his skin. Lyssa glanced at him and pushed open the door.
Blood, everywhere. For a moment, it was all he could see. A small circular room, made of stone, and a floor that was crimson and wet, and reeking of death. He saw lumps in the blood-pool. It took several seconds for his mind to register them as bodies.
Horror wasn’t big enough for what he felt in that moment. Some primal, primitive force clawed through him, tearing at his heart, ripping his soul. He wanted to scream, but his voice wouldn’t work. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t move. Part of him died, looking at that room.
Something moved, on his right.
It was a leopard.
Again, shock filled him. The cat was huge, sitting on its haunches and grooming its massive, blood-soaked paw. Blood covered its entire coat, crimson streaks obscuring its spots. Its tongue made a low rasping sound — though it stopped, once, to stare at him with black eyes.
Lyssa stepped past him, her shoes making squelching sounds.
“How dare you,” she said to the leopard, in a deadly soft voice. “How dare you wear his skin.”
The leopard blinked, and its mouth opened in a panting grin.
Eddie heard another groan, turned — and his heart collapsed.
Jimmy’s mother was slumped against the wall. Head hanging, chest rising and falling. Unconscious, but alive. Seated in blood, though it didn’t seem as if any of it were hers. Hard to tell if that was the truth.
“You’ve grown,” said a rough voice, behind him. “I suppose I imagined you as a child, all these years.”
Eddie turned, and watched as that leopard shifted shape: fur disappearing into flesh, bones lengthening, human features becoming prominent in a feline face.
Lyssa stood beside him, very still, tense, as the leopard became a brown-haired woman: pale and slender, with small breasts and narrow hips, and deep scars across her torso that looked like claw marks.
She seemed very young, hardly eighteen — until he saw her eyes. The pits of her eyes were black as a winter lake, bottomless and cold with death. He was afraid to look too long into that gaze, as if it would consume him — starting with his heart — swallowing his dreams, down to the last drop.
He had managed to push away the crippling fear that Nikola and Betty had tried to infect him with, but Lyssa was right: the Cruor Venator was something else entirely.
Her presence felt like a vacuum, sucking away on the edges of his soul — nibbling and tearing, and tugging with sharp teeth all the bits of himself that mattered. He wanted to scratch his skin and twitch. His heart pounded. Cold waves of power rushed over him, tendrils breaking through his immunity.
It made him sick. Fear crept. He wanted to cringe.
Instead, Eddie forced his spine even straighter and met her gaze. This woman, he told himself, was nothing but another Matthew Swint — a monster hiding in a human shell — and he was not going to be a coward again.
He was not going to be cowed.
The Cruor Venator smiled faintly. “You have balls, young man.”
“Don’t look at him,” Lyssa whispered.
“If I were not too old to breed,” replied the witch, ignoring her, “you would tempt me. I like how you stare into my eyes, as though it is a challenge.”
An imaginary tongue raced across an imaginary wound in Eddie’s back, and he fought down the shudder that crawled up his spine into his throat.
Lyssa stepped in front of him. “You found me. I’m here. I got your messages.”
The Cruor Venator rolled her shoulders, dark eyes glittering. “You’re here, but you’re hardly ripe. Or perhaps you’re far more coldhearted than I gave you credit for being.”
Lyssa quivered. “Ripe.”
“You haven’t killed. I can see it in your eyes. You have not yet embraced your blood,” said the Cruor Venator, giving her a look filled with curiosity and disdain. “Your mother was never so stupid, but we were from a different age. Death was once a quiet thing, as accepted as water and air. To kill was to survive.”
“I survive,” she whispered.
“But you do not live. How many excuses do you need, little one? I show you the wounded body of someone you know. I kill your friend. I threaten the lives of others in your care. I practically give you Nikola and Betty, whom I know you could have killed with just a thought. Indeed, I thought you might have taken Betty’s life. . but alas, no.”
The Cruor Venator smiled. “I murdered your mother and your father. And yet, you still pretend. You refrain from death.” Her gaze ticked left, to Eddie. “Perhaps you are ashamed. Does he know what you are?”
Lyssa tensed. Eddie placed his hands on her shoulders, heat spreading from his palms as he summoned all his strength to make his voice sound steady, and calm.
“She is a Cruor Venator,” he said, too gently. “And she knows she has nothing to be ashamed of with me.”
Beneath his hands, Lyssa stilled.
Then, in a voice that trembled, said, “Why are you doing this, Georgene? Why bait me? Why try to force my hand?”
“Because we’re family,” she said, which didn’t surprise Eddie nearly as much as it should have. “And it has occurred to me, over the years, that it is a sad thing to be the last of one’s kind. I will make no pacts with a demon for immortality. And likewise, no fae would grant it to me. So when I die. .”
“You should have thought of that before you killed my mother,” said Lyssa.
“Your mother,” replied the woman, “had it coming. And if your father hadn’t stolen her from me before I was done—”
The Cruor Venator never finished that sentence. Fire roared off Lyssa, a blast so furious the blood began boiling beneath their feet. Flames engulfed the witch, whose skin crackled and peeled, her hair lifting up as hot air slammed her face.
But all she did was bare her teeth and smile.
“Not yet,” she said, her voice almost lost beneath the hiss of fire. “You’re no Cruor Venator to kill me. Not until you take a life of your own.”
The witch pointed behind them. Tina was still unconscious
“Kill her,” whispered the Cruor Venator, holding Lyssa’s gaze. “Take her blood, then neither of us will be alone. You will be a true Cruor Venator.”