The Gilded King by Josie Jaffrey

Author:Josie Jaffrey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampires, vampire, fantasy, zombies, young adult, zombie, dystopian, zombie apocalypse, young adult fantasy, vampire book
Publisher: Josie Jaffrey

Lucas didn’t take her blood that night, or the next day, or the day after that. It had been so long now that Julia was starting to wonder whether he had already made an arrangement with Marcella, despite the scandal. She knew it happened, that the Nobles sometimes took blood from those they were… romantically involved with, but a Candidate wouldn’t normally sully their good name with that sort of behaviour, particularly not this close to the Nomination.

Marcella didn’t seem like the type.

No, Lucas wasn’t getting his blood elsewhere. The only possible conclusion was that he was avoiding taking it from Julia.

She intended to force the issue tonight. He couldn’t carry on like this. She didn’t want him putting himself in danger just to spare her his proximity, not when she missed it so much her hands itched for him, even though she knew it was a bad idea.

It was full dark by the time she started her walk along the square, skirting its edges to avoid the feeling of vulnerability she felt crossing its centre with so many windows looking down on her. The shadows hid her around its rim.

But she wasn’t the only visitor to his building that night. At first she thought the cloaked figure was Marcella, coming to interrupt her evening with Lucas again, but it stopped at the main door, the door to the ground floor apartments. Rufus’s door.

Julia stopped, tucking herself into the cover of a nearby clump of wisteria. The last thing she wanted was hassle from Rufus, particularly now things were so difficult between her and Lucas. She wasn’t sure he’d protect her a second time.

‘Lorelei,’ Rufus said, greeting her on the doorstep.

‘Not here, idiot,’ she hissed, just loud enough for Julia to catch the words.

Rufus was silhouetted for a moment in the light of the doorway before he stepped aside to let Lorelei in, then he closed the door.

Claudia wasn’t in there, Julia knew. She’d just left her in the kitchen with Livia. There was no one there to overhear Rufus and Lorelei’s meeting.

She hurried quietly over the remaining distance to the building, her bare feet silent on the paving stones, then ducked into the alley where the staircase rose to Lucas’s room. She didn’t climb it, though. Instead, she followed the alley past it to where colour spilled through the cracks of Rufus’s wooden shutters at the back of the building, spotting the ground with yellow light. There were new weeds here, but few enough that Julia could crouch close beneath the window with her back to the wall.

A door slammed inside.

‘Be more careful,’ Lorelei said. ‘It’s bad enough I have to come to the front door without you shouting my name out for any passing bloody Server to hear.’

Julia hoped they couldn’t hear her racing heartbeat. She could, at the back of her throat and in her ears. Her breath was a hurricane in the silent darkness.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rufus said, but he just sounded irritated.

‘You will be if you ruin this for me.

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