“But you must consummate the marriage for it to be valid,” Gabrio says.
I look at the fifty-foot-tall giant through the window. “Well, that’s not going to work.”
CHAPTER TWO
Five hours earlier.
“Lake? Are you all right?” Gabrio’s deep voice calls out next to me, but I can’t open my eyes just yet. Moments earlier, Alwar shoved me across the bridge to get me home. The wall is under attack. I’m still so weak that Alwar didn’t want the distraction of protecting me.
Why am I so weak, you ask? I was a “guest” of the Blood King, Benicio. He takes a lot out of you. In my case, he’s taken my blood, my strength, and a sizeable chunk of my sanity. I’m lucky to be alive.
“Lake, I know you are still settling from the journey,” Gabrio says, “but I need you to tell me where your grandmother kept her set of keys.”
Keys? I can’t make sense of his question. My head is pounding, and my body feels like the aftermath of a botched cremation. Now my cells are melding back together and cooling like hot glass. I hate traveling over those bridges. It fucking sucks, even if I’m happy to finally be home.
Several moments pass until I’m able to open my eyes. I’m surrounded by cold white tile and a plastic shower curtain. To my side is Master, my black-and-white polka-dotted Great Dane.
“Why am I in Grandma’s bathtub?” I mutter to Gabrio, who’s hovering over us. He’s dressed in one of Bard’s red flannel shirts and jeans. Bard used to live here at River Wall Manor but is no longer with us. I try not to think about it.
“Let me help you out.” Gabrio offers his large hand.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why am I in here?”
He points to the tiled wall to my side. “Bridge.”
“In the fucking shower?” I snap. “Where’s the window?” I don’t see a door, hole, or anything indicating there’s a bridge to Monsterland. Upstairs in the master bedroom, the bridge looks like a large, framed painting hung on the wall. Really, it’s a window into their world. Touch it, and you’re pulled through “the bridge,” as they call it, and you land in a room inside the wall.
For the record, we’re not talking about a quaint little brick wall you might find surrounding a picturesque country garden. This stone wall reaches so high it disappears into the blood-red sky of Monsterland and stretches in both directions as far as the eye can see. Inside the wall are endless chambers, stairways, and corridors like you might see in the pyramids of Egypt. I suspect the wall is really an entire city where the Wall Men and their people live, but there hasn’t been much time for Q and A since this nightmare began.
“That window is closed now,” Gabrio says, pointing to the shower tile. “You can’t see it if it’s locked.”
That would explain why Grandma Rain never mentioned it. She probably didn’t know it was there. The only bridge she ever spoke of is the one upstairs in the master bedroom, the room she told me never to enter.
Master hops out and starts shaking off his trip over the bridge.
“Lake, I need the keys,” Gabrio says. “Where are the keys? We must lock all the windows in case the wall is overrun.”
He holds out his hand again. I take it and slowly get to my feet. I’m still so weak I can hardly hold my own weight.
“Lake, are you there, my love?” says a deep, deep voice through the wall.
I freeze. Gabrio freezes. Even Master goes still.
Oh, God. Was that…?
“Lake, it is I, Benicio. I know you are there. I can smell you.”
I cover my mouth, my eyes wide as I look at Gabrio. What does this mean?
“Fuck,” Gabrio says. “The Blood King has taken the wall.”
“Oh shit.”
Gabrio pushes his index finger to his lips to silence me. “The window is locked,” he whispers, “but Benicio can still hear us. Come.” Gabrio scoops me into his arms.
My heart is pounding, but not from fear. The velvety sound of Benicio’s voice makes me long to return to his bed, to be bitten over and over again. Even now, seeing the grim evidence of my last night with him—bruises and scabs up and down my arms—my body still aches for the bliss of his addictive venom.
Gabrio carries me outside the neglected mansion that’s been in my family for two hundred years. It’s early morning, and the frigid winter air hits me like a hammer. I think it’s February now, a long way from springtime and warmer weather here in the forest of Mayburg, Pennsylvania, but I’m not actually sure what day it is. Time seemed to stand still while I was high as fuck, being drunk to death (and loving it) by a vampire.