The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [104]
The room was devoid of even gray — black paint covered every spot that might have been colored, and flaked off the handle of the hairbrush Kristin was using.
Nikolas’s house had been just as colorless, but that had been neat, artistic somehow — this was just sick.
“Kristin, I need to talk to you.” The girl didn’t look up, but continued brushing her hair. “Kristin?” Still there was no reaction from the girl. “I need to talk to you about Nikolas.”
The brush paused.
“Kristin …” The girl returned to brushing her hair, and Sarah sighed.
Sarah knelt, moving the marks on her arms into Kristin’s line of sight, and finally the girl looked at her.
“He sent you?” she asked, and the hope in her eyes was strong.
There was pain in Sarah’s voice as she answered, “No. But I need to talk to you about him.”
“I … I don’t know much. It was only one party —”
“Just tell me what happened there.”
“I don’t —” She looked at her brother and shivered as her eyes fell on his washed-out blue shirt; he took it off, throwing it from the room.
“Better, Kristin?”
She nodded slowly and Robert left to get a different shirt.
“This girl Heather invited me to the party. She said the people were cool, and the music was awesome, and the guy she was going with was completely hot … which was strange, cause Heather is so cold, not really caring about anything …”
Sarah choked back her revulsion. The Heather whom Kristin was talking about was probably the one Sarah had seen at Nikolas’s bash, asking Kaleo to bite her. What kind of human invited other, defenseless humans into that kind of place?
Kristin had trailed off. “Tell me about the party” Sarah prompted, and Kristin nodded.
“The house … there was so much color in it, like walking into a kaleidoscope … one room was all red … it scared me …”
“Was Nikolas there?”
“The people … it was strange, the groups. Some of them were like me. They didn’t seem to know what was going on, really, and the house unnerved them a bit. Others were like Heather. They had connections. And others, so detached, so …” She shook her head, unable to find the description she was looking for.
“And then there was him, Nikolas …
“He was so beautiful, completely in contrast with everything else … his skin was so pale, and he was wearing all black … beautiful. He asked me my name and I told him it was Christine … he didn’t like that. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell.”
Christine … did she remind Nikolas of the Christine who had hurt his brother? Had some slight nuance of expression been so important that the girl now refused to respond to her real name?
“But he asked me to dance, and I thought I might just die, because he was so hand some and … unearthly. I’d say like an angel but he wasn’t at all, he was like … I don’t know … seductive, just by existing.”
Kristin sighed, then continued. “After the dance he held me in his arms a minute longer, and I remember … I remember his lips on my throat and I just relaxed, because it felt so good …” She gestured to the marks on her arms. “I don’t remember when he made these … they didn’t hurt …” She paused.
“And then?” Sarah said, and the girl blinked.
“No, I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“You started telling us, Kristin — you have to finish,” Sarah said, meeting her eyes. She wasn’t as good as the vampires at influencing human minds, but Kristin’s defenses were weak.
Kristin nodded. “He … he didn’t really take much blood. I remember not wanting him to stop when he pulled away, because it felt so good …”
Robert made a sickened sound, but Kristin didn’t notice as she went on. “And he said … he said, ‘I want to make you mine.’ And I said yes and yes was all I could say for a moment, but then I said no.” She shook her head, trying to clear it. “And he … he looked so surprised, and he just asked why … and I … I said, Because I need to go home,’ and he asked why again, and I said, ‘Because my brother will be sad if I don’t go home, and he’ll be lonely’”
She put her head into her hands and started to cry. And he … he pushed me away and said,