Vow of Deception (Deception Trilogy #1) by Rina Kent

All sounds disappear and I think I’m imagining things, but the doorknob is jammed again, rattling harder this time.

I gasp, sitting up in bed and pulling the sheet to my chest. Adrian’s arms drop from around me and I shake his shoulder, tentative at first, but it becomes more urgent with every passing second. “Adrian…wake up…”

The doorknob is still twisting and turning with supersonic speed.

“Adrian!” I hiss, but he’s not moving.

The door bursts open, and I suck in a sharp breath at the view.

The ghost I saw from the window is standing in the doorway. Her plain white gown falls to below her knees. Her hair is tied back and her face is pale, but other than that, she’s a replica of me. Even her dark-circled eyes and hollow cheeks look like mine from when I was living on the streets.

“L-Lia…?” I whisper.

“So you know who I am, yet you still dare to steal my husband as if it were your God-given right.”

I shake my head frantically. “No…I didn’t…”

“Home-wrecking cunt.”

I shake my head again. “I didn’t want to…Adrian…” I extend a hand to wake him up, but I’m stopped by her harsh voice.

“Don’t touch him! Leave!”

“I can’t…” I’m crying now, my voice hoarse with how much I’m trying to form into words that I never wanted this. I never thought about taking her place or her name or her husband.

She lunges toward me and I cross my hands in front of my face to protect it. But she doesn’t reach me. Instead, a gurgling sound emerges in the silence.

I peek from between my fingers and gasp as a patch of blood explodes on Lia’s nightgown, something sharp protruding from her abdomen—a knife.

A large body stands behind her, the one who stabbed her, and I think it’s one of the guards, but his face is shadowed.

Lia’s neck lolls in an unnatural position, but her eyes remain on me, watching me, following me, creeping me out of my damn skin.

It’s like she wants to drag me with her to whatever place she’s going.

I slam a palm over my mouth to muffle a gasp, but a harsh metal thing hits my lips.

Confused, I stare down at my hand and find my fingers wrapped around a gun.

What the…?

“Pull the trigger,” the shadow behind Lia whispers. His voice is monotone, almost robotic. “You have one mission.”

“Pull the trigger on who?” No clue why that question escapes me, because it doesn’t matter. I won’t do it.

“I killed this bitch for you. Pull. The. Trigger.”

I shake my head violently, but then sinister laughter escapes the shadow. It’s long and grates on my nerves like fingernails scratching on the walls of my brain.

“Stop it,” I hiss.

“You already took a life. What’s one more?”

“No…”

“But can’t you see? It’s already done.”

“What?”

“Your gun.”

I stare at my hand and watch with horror as my gun aims and my finger presses the trigger.

Straight into Adrian’s chest.

He doesn’t even stir as a blotch of blood covers his shoulder and chest, then forms a pool around him, soaking the sheets.

“Nooo!” I shriek and my world goes black.





22





Adrian





Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

A gurgling sound echoes in the air as if someone is choking on their own blood.

Or vomit.

My eyes snap open. I’m immediately alert, my heart beating loudly as the scene materializes in front of me.

Lia is thrashing in her sleep, her feet kicking in the air, and her body is heavy like a rock being thrown to the bottom of an ocean.

Both of her hands are fisted so tightly that there’s a cut on her palm from her nails and droplets of blood color the white sheets in red.

But that’s not what woke me up. It was the sound.

The gurgling.

The choking on her own saliva.

Two lines of drool cascade down her chin and neck, a foam rapidly forming at her mouth.

“Lia!”

She doesn’t show any sign of hearing me and continues thrashing, squirming. Gurgling.

I shove two fingers into her mouth and open it wide in an attempt to help her breathe.

She doesn’t.

It’s like she’s blocking her own trachea with an imaginary gag.

“Lia! Wake up!” I place a hand under her head, carefully lifting her up. She drags the sheets in her fisted hand, her body still snapped rigid like a board.

Her head moves sideways, then rolls so far back, the position would’ve snapped her neck if she were on her own. I support her nape and keep probing her mouth open with my other hand.

Her lips are turning blue and her face is reddening. She’s not breathing, and hasn’t in at least a fucking minute.

“Lia!” I shake her, but that brings me no result.

She’s lost somewhere I can’t reach. Somewhere that she can keep herself hidden away from me under lock and key.

Nothing will bring her out.

Except maybe…

“Winter,” I call cautiously, to which she sucks in a deep breath, gasping and coughing as the air hits her lungs. I release her mouth so she can breathe properly.