Hupotasso (Vampire Bachelor Games #2)

5

5

It’s as though the weather is picking up on my emotions as we drive through the black wrought iron gates down the long, forbidding, tree-lined driveway.

I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands and try to stop tapping my feet as my nerves kick in. The whole flight I’ve rehearsed in my head what I’m going to say to Falcon when I see him. It’s not going to be pretty, but by fuck he’d better listen, and listen good, because there’s no way I’m staying married to a man who threatens me on my wedding day.

‘Threatens me AT ALL is what I should be thinking. How the hell would I ever in my real world have accepted any threat from a man, wedding day or otherwise? Christ, what have The Games done to me?’

I look up as the car slows.

Our arrival at the castle is heralded with rain so heavy it comes down in horizontal sheets. My stomach is in knots as we stop and I peer up at the castle before me, blurred through the tinted windows and the downpour. The lights from each window indicate its scale and size are just as imposing as I’d remembered.

Despite the late hour and the rain, every staff member, in full black and white livery, is lined up under black umbrellas in the driveway, awaiting our arrival.

I walk along the rows of men and women as they bow and curtsey, and nod in reply to their greeting of, “Lady Dragonspur.”

It feels like something from a movie, a fairy tale, only prince charming is not among those waiting to greet me. He’s nowhere to be seen and most likely plotting my death.

Jag grips my elbow tightly as he walks me through the staff and up the wide limestone steps to the front door, an umbrella held over my head, his own bearing the brunt of the weather.

The flight had been short and I hadn’t been afforded the opportunity to change, so I’m still wearing the huge, puffy wedding dress from the vampire ceremony.

It trails behind me and down the stairs, getting heavier with each step I take as the rain soaks it. By the time I reach the front door I’m leaning forward like a pack horse, trying desperately to pull the soaked fabric trailing behind me. It feels like all the ghostly hands of The Game’s dead competitors are gripping my train and pulling me backwards.

If only they would.