Anathema (Causal Enchantment #1)(26)

Change? Does she mean back into my dress?

Amelie shrugged.

They both looked back down at me again.

Amelie’s hand grazed my throat. “It’s so bizarre—all this blood and it could be mud, for all I care,” she murmured, adding, “thank God.”

What blood?

“It’s the pendant. It must be masking it,” Caden said.

Rachel crouched down to inspect my throat. “It doesn’t want her to become one of us.” Those eyes stared at me, in deep thought. “How did they figure it out?”

“A scrape on her shoulder,” Caden was quick to answer.

Her eyes slid to my shoulder. She frowned. “Where? I don’t see it. How could they see it?” she asked slowly.

“I’m as shocked as you.” The lie rolled off Caden’s tongue as effortlessly as if it were the truth.

I averted my eyes guiltily. As much as I disliked Rachel, I hated lying. More importantly, I was terrible at it.

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you believe us now?”

Believe … What am I supposed to believe again? I couldn’t remember.

“I wonder what her blood tastes like,” she murmured, eyeing me curiously.

“Leave her alone. She needs rest,” Fiona growled, magically producing a cool, wet cloth. She began gently patting my neck.

As if her words had given a signal, I drifted off to sleep.

I stared vacantly at the plaster swirls on the ceiling above my bed in Viggo and Mortimer’s room, my body cold and stiff. Why do I feel so weak? Am I getting sick? No. I’d had plenty of colds and flu bugs. This didn’t feel like any of those.

Max whined, resting his head on my chest, giving my neck a few gentle licks. “Hey boy,” I whispered, struggling to lift my hand to scratch his head.

The clock indicated noon. I’d slept in. Again. I forced my body to sit up, fighting the overpowering urge to curl back up under the covers. I couldn’t do that. Sofie needed me. Moaning loudly, I dragged the cozy duvet off my body and gave my eyes a good rub with the heels of my hands to help focus.

Huh … The last thing I remembered was lying down in that gorgeous green satin gown. When did I put on these old sweats?

7. Crazy?

I staggered to the bathroom in a daze, my eyes barely cracked. Shrugging off the mysterious sweats without giving them another thought, I stepped into the shower stall. I intentionally turned the faucet to cold and let frigid water stream down my body until it was borderline torturous, hoping that would wake me up. It helped, marginally.

Fumbling with the tap, I leaned my forehead against the tile, reveling in warmth, waiting to come alive.

My shoulder began to sting. Peering down at a sizeable scrape on my shoulder, I cringed. Where did I get that? I wondered, wracking my brain.

The cave.

Caden.

The attack.

It hit me like a speeding train—a wave of recognition as everything from the night suddenly pulsed into my head at once, the flood of memories overwhelming.

I pushed on the glass door and stumbled out of the shower, dropping to the cold tile floor before faintness could drive me down.

But, that had been a dream.

The attack.

My hand trembled as it reached for my throat. I sensed the wounds as soon as my fingertips grazed the area. Working up the courage to stand and face the mirror, I immediately spotted two distinct round marks across my jugular.

Bite marks.

I stared at my reflection as if expecting it to talk back to me, to provide some rational explanation, something other than the obvious.

That I had lost my mind.

There has to be a reasonable explanation. My brain churned frantically, searching for a thread of logic to grasp. Maybe I changed before going to bed last night and I just don’t remember. I did bump my head on the bedpost, after all. I could have amnesia. That I had incorporated these old sweats into my dream was coincidence. Though I didn’t know where the clothes came from. Leonardo wouldn’t have bought these for me. One of the maids must have accidently left her laundry in my room.

What about the scrape on my shoulder, how could I explain that? I must have banged my shoulder on something in the middle of the night. Maybe I was on my way to the bathroom. That could do it. And the bite marks on my neck? Max must have bit me. He has fangs. I knew that dog was odd. But why would he bite me? Why would anyone bite me?

A vampire would bite me …

A tornado of explanations whirled around inside my head, none of them plausible, all of them creating more questions than answers.

A trick. Maybe this is a prank. A game. Vampires. Vampires and games. Sofie’s screams from the other day rang in my memory: “Do you think this is another one of your games?” she had said to Viggo.

My eyes widened suddenly as I put two and two together. Could they be drugging me and dropping me off across the street, in Central Park? Caden, Amelie, and the others could be hired actors. That would explain their movie star looks and their perfect nails and their well–groomed hair. Viggo and Mortimer had more than enough money to pull it off. And they had been so interested in hearing about my “dream” yesterday morning.

Even considering this as a possibility bordered on insane but I was growing more fond of the idea by the second.

Yes. It made sense. It explained why I was in and out of consciousness so much. Not normally a fainter, I was unconscious all the time lately. Being drugged could do that, couldn’t it?