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Both Annora and I looked up A young fisher a net full of eels along the sand

Annora slipped away froainst the s deep into theto rip her apart fros were eh the man’s artery I had no choice but to watch her drain him to death

When she’d finished, she dropped the corpse on the sand She looked up atthe blood away froave limmer of darkness in her eyes disturbed irl I’d fallen in love with In her place was a et better with tiot more used to her bloodlust I hoped that her old personality would return

So over the following days, I did my best to keep her inside the cave at all times I was afraid to even sleep in case she claily difficult Her cravings appeared greater thanto control theroup of huht, I knew that it was tirow desperate when, one night, a ship drew in just outside our cave

The ship of the saffron ed to find out our location

He told us he could take us somewhere where other va discovered Although I didn’t trust a word that came out of his snake-like mouth, we had no other option than to follow

He ended up taking us to the Elder’s castle--The Blood Keep I knee’d ates The castle frohthtmares became real

As it turned out, the Elders didn’t want Annora and I to re They wanted us out of the human realm entirely

They wanted us in Cruor The dark hell that was the realm of the Elders

I had to pause for a es fresh in lued ononto my every word, a look of horror mixed with fascination on her face

I’d told her far more than I had intended to already about myself

She frowned at me as soon as I had stopped "So you went to Cruor?"

I nodded

"What was it like?"

I didn’t want to give Rose nightive her details "Suffice it to say, Cruor made Annora much worse She never returned to her former self"