Thrall of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 4) by Bella Klaus (elon musk reading list .txt) 📕

“Are you feeling better?” I asked.

“Much,” she replied with a sob. “I cannot thank you enough.”

The fabric of my shirt itched, making me shift on my feet. I wasn’t used to Aurora’s gratitude, and I didn’t know where to look.

I cleared my throat, trying to picture how I might act if she was a client who had come to the crystal shop for a treatment. “There’s enough Dharma salt in those poultices to remove the black magic. I’ve added a few other ingredients that will speed things along.”

Aurora squeezed her eyes shut and sobbed, making my heart lurch.

“I’m sorry, too,” I murmured. “It was wrong of Father Jude and Kresnik to dish out such a brutal punishment.”

“One more of these, and it will be my death,” she said.

My stomach tightened. Hades had said this earlier, but hearing it from Aurora made it blisteringly real. Shallow breaths whistled in and out of my lungs, and I edged toward the woman, hoping the Dharma salt might prove her assumption wrong. I was about to say something comforting when she spoke again.

“I have no regrets about sending you to Arianna,” she whispered.

“Oh.” Disappointment made my stomach plummet to the floor. I dropped my gaze and winced. I pulled back my shoulders and inhaled a deep breath. It wasn’t like I was treating her injuries to earn her love.

“Arianna brought you up with love and compassion. I would have moulded you into a tool for Our Lord.”

My tight muscles loosened enough for me to exhale. “Is that why you sent me away?”

“The phoenix gets its power from pain,” she rasped from the table. “If you had grown up here, the warriors would have treated you as special. In Logris, you were guaranteed a life as a Neutral who would amount to nothing.”

I ran a trembling hand through my hair. “So all the things I suffered—”

“We can’t take any credit for Ellora Vandamir. That girl persecuted you of her own volition, but we spread enough petty rumors about you to ensure a steady stream of misery.”

The acid in my stomach simmered, heating my blood to a boil. All that crap I’d endured at the academy was because of them? Guys like Karsten from Gourmande would ask me if I’d let some vampire or another feed from the vein or if I was already practicing for carrying someone’s baby. Aunt Arianna had said it was just immature idiocy and they would eventually grow out of it, but the truth was beyond imagination.

“Why?”

I stepped back from the treatment table, shaking my head from side to side. This was beyond cruel, beyond pathetic. Some of those rumors had started when I was twelve. I turned back to the table and cut a strip of gauze long enough to drape over the aloe-vera mix.

“Your magic is like a pressure cooker. The more heat applied, the more explosive the outcome,” she said, her eyes trying to meet mine. “You were supposed to have a life like Coral’s and we failed to account for Arianna’s overwhelming influence.”

Blood roared through my ears. I took the gauze to the sink and soaked it in water before wringing it out and returning to the table. These events were in the past. Aurora was suffering more than she deserved for all the hurt she’d caused Coral, me, and whoever else she and her masters had tormented in Logris.

I clenched my teeth and smoothed the damp gauze over the bowl, making sure the aloe vera didn’t evaporate. “Life wasn’t all that bad. Valentine—”

“We thought he would use and abuse you for your blood,” she rasped. “But he made your phoenix slumber. At that rate, it might have taken a century before you gained enough power to resurrect Lord Kresnik, and we grew impatient.”

“So when Valentine and I hatched the plan to move me to London, you erased my memory before the ball?” I asked.

“Kresnik’s shadow infiltrated your mind,” she replied.

I bowed my head. This wasn’t news. I’d already worked out that Kresnik had been responsible for both my memory loss and my curse. Until now, I didn’t know why he would go so far to make my life miserable. Well, now I knew.

While some farmers fed their poultry a diet of corn to make them nice and fat before slaughter, Kresnik and his allies had fed me a diet of misery. Tears stung the backs of my eyes. I wasn’t sure why because there had been no betrayal. Aurora, Kresnik, and Father Jude had been my enemies from birth.

“I have a plan to free you.” Aurora tried to push herself off the bed but flopped down with a groan. “If it works, you will leave here with your powers restored. But you mustn’t discuss it with anyone, not even—”

The door opened, making my heart jump into the back of my throat. I spun around to find Valentine standing in the doorway.

His violet eyes narrowed, and his features tightened with the promise of a harsh punishment. “I told you to stay in your room.”

Chapter Fourteen

My breath caught, and I stepped back, clutching my hands to my chest. Valentine had been in a generous mood last night—perhaps because the fellatio had put him in a better mood—but seeing me out of my room had wiped away all my goodwill, and I was back to being the blood cow who couldn’t obey orders.

Annoyance tightened my skin. Since when did my life come to being bossed around by a vampire who thought I was his chew toy? The wretched fiend fed off prisoners all day and didn’t need an ounce of my blood.

As he stalked toward me with reddening eyes and fangs that lengthened with each approaching step, the truth of my situation made my heart stutter. My fiancé had killed himself with my fire in his veins and had now transformed into a preternatural under the control of Kresnik.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Valentine had