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Afraid that the day’s excitement would keep her up too late, Ruby closed her eyes expecting to fight for sleep Instead she drifted off alainst the bonds that restrained her, but she was too weak tointended to take away the last of her strength She was helpless, bound and prone on a cold stone floor She wanted to call for help, but even if she could e to make a proper sound, ould come? No one

She had no one to rescue her, no one to one The one person she had believed to be her friend had put her in this position Dezso had pretended to care for her, he had promised to show her the wonders of Roreat city, always pro tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow He had clothed her in fine chitons and fed her an abundance of food and given her gifts of jewels and other pretty things And now he had betrayed her; he had poisoned her and bound her hands and left her here Why?

The door to her stone cell opened, and Dezso walked inside He sh he had lied to her and ed her so that she could barely move

"What you are about to do is very i, pleasant voice "You will reater than any you have ever known"

"Please, let o," she whispered

Dezso shook his head "I cannot It is time Do you see the reat effort to do so, as her head felt heavy and her vision swah in the stone wall of her cell It was bright, and large, and it shimmered with power "I see"

Theto a demon to rise Callida tried to screa in his hand, and froan to rise No, this was not smoke it was simply blackness, a darkness so deep it looked bottorew and took shape before her very eyes The shape was not that of a lowing red eyes It was solid and yet was not, as if a great nothingness in the shape of a large cat floated on air

With ahorror Callida realized that Dezso offered her to the blackness, he gave her to this ain she tried to scream, but no sound came forth, not even when the dark cat hovered above her, blocking out all other sights, and its red eyes captured and held hers

She stopped trying to scream It was too late for that

Much too late And she was too terrified to ht her fate The demon--for yes, it was indeed a demon that Dezso had called forth to take her--placed its empty face close to hers And it inhaled

Ruby was jerked out of the dreaht in her throat Good heavens, she’d never had a night at the same time, she’d been terrified as if she’d been the one sprawled on cold stone, sacrificed to a darkin bed, Ruby rubbed a hand up and down her arm She still felt chills, as if her blood ran icy cold What had she eaten at the party to bring on such a nightlanced at the clock Not quite 2:00 am She had two more hours before her alarm went off but wasn’t sure that she could sleep after that vivid dream

Great What a way to start the week!

It was dark in her bedrooital clock and a decorative porcelain night-light on the other side of the rooh to draw her eyes to the object that sat on her bedside table, an object that should not be there The cat figurine, the one she had allowed the professor to borrow, stared at her

Rubyhard, wondering if this was still a dream

She’d seen Benedict walk away frootten here? She reached out slowly and touched the pale green cat

Strangely enough, it felt warhtination

The damn cat had not been on her bedside table--had not been in the house--when she’d gone to sleep It was here now, and that was fact, not the product of a bad drea off the last of her drea with the blanket that covered her andkept her warm Had Zane Benedict broken into her house and placed the statuette there? What other explanation was there? She threw her legs over the side of the bed Was this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?

No, this wasn’t funny, it was creepy as hell Studly or not, she did not wantinto her bedroorabbed her bathrobe and stuck -her feet into warreen cat and headed for the front door

She stopped in the hallway between her bedroo What was she thinking? Her first instinct was to run across the street and confront Benedict with the evidence, butfor her by his front door--or in the darkness so Holland Court slept There would be no one to see her, and no one to hear, if anything rong

Ruby fell into the wall for support, and when her knees eak she gave in and sank to the floor