Sixteen
I couldn’t stay away for long, and though I kicked myself the entire drive to the church-turned-mansion near the Sound, there was a thrill growing in my stomach that I could not ignore. I was walking directly into the monster’s den.
Flora convinced me to bring her. Maybe it was a mistake to tell her that I was thinking of returning—and I didn’t want to know if she made good on her promise from the other evening—but she arrived at my family’s house with her usual chipper smile, and a promise to Mother, whose unbelieving and unapproving brow rose ever higher, to return me by midnight.
I was surprised Mother let me go at all. Though, surely, if Lucas had been in the room and not out on an errand, I’d no doubt be prohibited from leaving the house again after that “stunt” I pulled at lunch .
Flora’s driver dropped us at the top of the drive, past all the parked roadsters gleaming in the moonlight, right before the path to the house. Her driver was ever discreet, and even if he wasn’t, her parents seemed not to worry about their daughter in the way that my mother did.
She gripped my hand and grinned, pulling me from the car. “It’s time!”
“For what?” I asked, feeling my short heels sink slightly into the grass.
She gave me an assured look. “To figure all this out.”
Apprehension still boiled within me, warning bells chiming loud in my ears. You shouldn’t be here .
As we passed the gates, starting up the grand steps to the massive front door, the hair raised on the back of my neck, a phantom finger tracing its way down my spine. Everything told me to turn around—did I really want to see the bloodletting again? I surely did not want Flora to see it, didn’t want to have to explain it to her. As though I could, or even knew what was truly happening. But maybe I worried for nothing, because she had come on her own a few days prior, and who knew what she’d seen.
She left Dixon behind again tonight. As she readied me in my room, setting my curls and applying my rouge, she avoided all my questions about him, her only tell the twitching of her right eye.
Though, as we ascended the steps, his absence left an exposed feeling at my back. He was always a sort of layer of protection, even if he wasn’t mine. There had been instances over the months where he’d told of handsy men, men who insisted I come with them at the end of the night. He knew when I wasn’t keen. Knew that any decent man would step in to protect a woman harassed.
On either side of the path leading to the house were small gardens, providing seclusion amidst its tall ferns and vines. The electric lights, though strung above the path, didn’t reach into the foliage, and as we walked, I saw the flash of a leg here and there, hands gripping beaded skirts, the sharp gasp of woman, heady giggles, masculine moans. Once through the gates, the revelers couldn’t help themselves. There was an electrifying lust in the air: lust of life, of each other, or becoming someone else.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I had second-guessed myself countless times on the ride over, but as we approached the dark wooden doors, those bells in my ears rang ever louder.
Flora stopped and took my hands. “Yes. Absolutely.” Her brows pinched in determination. “What good would it do to avoid him?”
I sighed, because she was right. I had promised I would return, as ill-advised as it may have been, and here I was. To figure all this out.
It was eating at me, day and night, knowing he was here, alive , and not near me. Even if I didn’t understand.
Following her into that devilish foyer for the second time, Flora never let go of my hand, winding us through the crowd. She ignored the servers and their champagne, though I longed for a glass to prepare me for the evening. She tugged on my fingers, whipping her head side to side, asking others, “Do you know of Thornton? Does anyone know where he is? ”
A man in a gray suit, maybe twenty years our elder, burst forth a laugh at the question. “The question of the hour!” And he lifted his glass in cheers and turned back to his group.
Their yelling had garnered some attention, but the best answers Flora got were shrugs before people turned away from us.
The decorations this evening were silver, tinsel hanging from the chandelier, the electric lights flickering like stars. The massive ballroom held hundreds of people, all who gave us odd looks as Flora asked for Thornton’s whereabouts. Why did we care? Why did we think that we of all people would be given an audience? Why not just enjoy the party, whomever the host?
It was the usual attitude—to enjoy the liquor and leave before the sun came up.
“We’ll never find him,” I said, just loud enough for her to hear.
“Of course we will,” she said. “He just needs to know you’re here.”
A server flitted by and I could not resist grabbing a flute of that golden ichor. I downed it quickly, savoring the slight burn on my tongue, down my throat, the wine perhaps laced with something headier.
Yet Flora looked determined as ever and led me toward the grand stairs.
“Are you sure we should go up there?” I tugged on her hand. Though I knew, if I wanted to find him, going to that room on the top floor would likely be the quickest way.
She gave me a look. “I’ll turn this house upside down looking for him,” she said plainly.
Pushing through the throng, we paused at the second landing. The crowd of the ballroom was below us, but there were plenty of people on the second floor, leaning precariously against the banisters, wandering down side hallways. A woman leant so far over the railing I thought she’d fall, but a man clutched at her dress, keeping her steady while she waved down at someone below, laughter streaming from both of them. Flora pulled me past the couple, toward the large hallway that branched off into smaller corridors, much like a tree.
The house was a maze. Surely partygoers had gotten lost before. I nearly did, when running away from what I’d seen the other night, taking a wrong turn a couple of times in my panic. One could probably extend their stay past the one night, find a spot and hide for weeks before they’re found.
Just how many rooms did this house have?
And how many were reserved for the bloodletting?
It became increasingly more difficult to push through the crowd when there was an eruption of noise coming from downstairs. The crowd rushed to the banister to see the commotion, the heralding of jazz horns and loud bass, and suddenly dancers were out, and men broke from the crowd to mingle with the entertainers, as though the scantily clad ladies were there just for them.
And maybe they were. Here, anything was possible.
Flora only looked for a second before shoving her shoulder through a group, with me in tow.
“ Where are you going ?” a deep voice demanded, and we both stopped in our tracks when a male figure blocked our way, popping out of the crowd.
Dixon .
His jacket had been discarded somewhere, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His mahogany hair was combed, only one strand falling before his eyes, which darkened when they landed on us. He looked at Flora, then at me, his brows pulled so low I nearly expected a growl from him. He was often displeased with us, in his protective way, but the anger that radiated from him made the air staticky in a way I’d not felt before.
“Out of our way.” Flora made to step past him, but his arm shot out, caging around her waist.
She glared at him, annoyed. “Why are you even here?”
“Because,” he ground out, “I know better than to let you off on your own.”
She pushed away from him and crossed her arms. “So you can go out when you want, but I need supervision?”
“It’s not the same.” He shook his head, stepping in her way again. “This house is not safe.”
She scoffed. “Look around! It seems plenty safe to me!” The only threat, really, was the bad decisions one would make in such a lawless place. At least, to her knowledge.
He wouldn’t budge. “All it takes is one moment,” he said, stepping closer and staring her down. “Slipping into the wrong room and you’re done for.”
“What are you talking about?”
So he knew. And the look he gave me, the warning in those dark eyes, told me he knew I knew. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“We’re trying to find Thornton,” she said, back straight, hands on her hips.
“You won’t find him. ”
“Yes, we will. Helena knows him.”
I didn’t want to get in between this lovers’ spat, but Dixon’s eyes narrowed on me.
“How do you know him?”
I didn’t want to reveal the truth. Maybe because I didn’t want Dixon to think less of me, and maybe because I just wanted to keep it to myself, a secret that was mine. Dixon already hated him, it seemed, and I didn’t know if telling him our history would do Adam any favors. Dixon probably thought I’d stumbled into whatever happened in this house and ran into Vince Thornton, somehow entangling myself in whatever dark world slept under the surface of reality here.
So, all I could come up with was, “It just happened.”
Dixon turned back to Flora. “Come, let me take you back downstairs. We can dance.”
“No, don’t you try to distract me!” she said, pointing a finger in his face.
She truly was a sight to behold, this young and small blond woman, standing up to the tall English gentleman, with pure frustration written all over his face. He ran a hand down his face. “Flora—”
She looped her arm through mine. “I’ll meet you later.”
“Fine.” He looked to the gilt ceiling as if for guidance from his ancestors, exasperation clear in his eyes. “If you come with me, I’ll tell Helena where he is.”
She scowled, though she glanced to me, unsure of how to proceed.
“I don’t want you mingling with his crowd,” Dixon said.
“But Helena can? ”
He muttered under his breath what sounded like an odd British curse of irritation.
“It’s fine,” I decided, pulling my arm away from her. “I can manage on my own. I’ll find you later?”
She sniffed once, then nodded hesitantly, crossing her arms so Dixon couldn’t grab her hand.
He leaned down to me, telling me some indecipherable message with his eyes, as his lips nearly brushed my ear. I felt his breath hot on my cheek, but it didn’t make my toes curl like… like it had when Adam and I were young. In a whisper only I could hear, he said, “ He’s in the garden. Waiting for you .”
How he knew it, I wasn’t sure.
And he moved away, pulling Flora to his side. Don’t drag her into this , that message in his eyes seemed to say. In a singular nod, I watched as he guided her back down the stairs. She glanced over her shoulder at me, and I knew then he was right, that she had no business getting caught in this web of monsters.
I let the crowd swallow them, disappearing from sight.
I was on my own, and maybe that was how it should’ve been. I had no idea what Flora would do if she actually faced Adam, how he’d react to a third party witnessing our second meeting.
Was he really waiting for me ?
And how did Dixon know ?
There were seedy dealings in the manor, maybe relating to Dixon’s income—there was plenty of liquor in the building to make that a possibility—and clearly the revelers were either oblivious, didn’t care, or were just as ensnared in that web. I’d likely never truly know what was going on in this elegant manor that might as well have been the underbelly of the city .
The glitz and glamor hid the murk well.
Steeling myself, I turned on my heel and made my way down, the only way I knew how to get outside. I still had yet to fully explore the grounds, but I assumed the gardens were behind the house—really, the entire house was surrounded by gardens.
The band in the ballroom continued to play, and the professional dancers beamed at the guests, whirling around and kicking their feet out, barely touching the ground. Feathers and silver beading swung around their bodies, men reaching for the strings of beads as though they could catch the girls dancing. The revelers who joined in were not of the same skill, but that didn’t seem to matter.
When I was a child, I’d read books under candlelight about fairies and their dances, how they could charm you to dance until your feet bled, and you wouldn’t even want to stop. Your mind would be lost, thrown to the wind, with only the search for pleasure to move you. And the fairies would watch in glee, laughing at their human puppets.
Outside, I could still hear the music, though much subdued, surrounding the murmur of casual conversation. The fountain bubbled, and a couple jumped in, still in their clothes, laughing riotously. The girl wore a black number, lucky for her, and her stockings already had holes. The man fell, bursting forth with laughter as a wave of water went over the stone side of the fountain, and he pulled the girl on top of him.
A drop of water flew and landed on my arm, but I didn’t wipe it away. I felt it trail down my skin as I walked along the path to the side of the house .
There were large iron gates, propped open, the borders of the garden lined with full hedges and cypress trees twirled toward the stars. Their height reached almost that of the spires of the manor.
When I stepped across the entrance to the gardens, a chill wracked my body, a cool phantom pulling me in. The breeze fell, and a stillness settled deep into the stones.
A few people mulled around, but at my entrance into the gated space, they looked up.
I felt like an intruder as I turned my gaze from person to person. Every face, I anticipated seeing him, and when it was only a stranger, I felt both relief and a building of anticipation. I could hear them whisper as I passed. Was it so strange that a lone girl was wandering at this party? Stranger things must have happened, surely.
I hugged myself as I wound deeper into the cypresses, a few sycamores scattered here and there. Once I traversed far enough and the gate was around a bend and out of sight, I realized that all the flowers around me, open and crisply white, were moonflowers, alive and pure. Fragrant gardenias and curiously bright lilies bobbed at me. The perfume of the blooms was so potent, so heady, when I shut my eyes, I nearly felt my feet come off the ground, floating into the air. It was an enchanted fairy garden from my stories, luring me in to trap me in their underground revelry.
Every bloom appeared as though it were watered that day; not a blemish on the petals. They were perfect. Almost too perfect, maybe even artificial.
A stranger rounded the bend and I felt my heart soar, anticipation tingling in my core .
Until I saw his face.
It was not Adam.
But I did recognize him.
He grinned when he saw me, a sharp tooth glinting bright like the petals of the moonflower. Hands in his pockets, he walked toward me, and though my alarm bells rang again, I found myself rooted to the spot.
“Interesting seeing you here,” he crooned.
He stopped only a few inches before me, too close for comfort.
But I refused to let him see the fear that made my pulse beat against my neck, my ribs. It must have worked, at least a little bit. He eyed the fluttering of my heart beneath my ear. His gaze felt like the sharp graze of a knife on my throat. Sharp like I knew those teeth could be. His eyes snapped back up to mine. “Not quite as scared, are you?”
“What is there to be scared of?” I challenged. But my hands were in fists at my side.
It was then I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and peculiarly, I relaxed a little. Maybe he wasn’t a threat, just an intoxicated man. Maybe I was overreacting and he wasn’t one of them . A drunk man I could handle. I knew where to kick and make it count.
He sucked in a deep breath, like he was taking in the smell of the air, filling his lungs with the aroma of the flowers. His nostrils flared.
“Girls like you should always be scared.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is that a threat?”
He shrugged in nonchalance. “It’s whatever you make of it.” He casually looked around, then moved in closer .
Instinctively, I stepped back, but felt leafy thorns at my back. A hedge. Cool stones beneath them. A wall. In the center of the gardens.
“I could Make you,” he whispered, leaning in so I could see only his eyes. They were brown, but so close I could see the flecks of gold, the blackness of his pupils, so deep they nearly drew me in.
“Make me?”
He nodded once, and I realized he was staring at my throat again. “It will take only a moment.”
Perhaps I should’ve let Flora and Dixon come along, just so my being alone didn’t put a target on my back.
“I’m not interested.” I mustered as much strength and boredom into my voice as I could and moved to side-step the man.
His hand fell on my elbow. The feeling of sliminess snaked its way into me, making me cringe.
“Just a moment, and you won’t have to worry anymore,” he crooned, and then his lips were nearly on my neck, and though I knew I had to run, willing my knee to jerk upward, to move , I was still as stone, paralyzed. I lost all control of my movements as his nose trailed along my ear.
I shut my eyes and shivered.
Move .
A large, pale hand landed on his shoulder and wrenched him back. His eyes widened as he stumbled, but only for a moment.
The face I had been looking for, the man of the hour, stood just behind him.
I’d seen Adam glare, seen him angry before. The last time I’d seen him, before , was the only time I’d seen a cool rage take over, and he was no longer himself. It was as though the life left his eyes, and he darkened, and though he said nothing when Lucas berated him and threatened him, threatened me , I knew everything he wanted to say, because that look in his face made him the progeny of a devil.
And it was the look he bestowed upon my would-be attacker, who paled even whiter than the moon flowers around us.
“Go,” Adam said, and his voice wasn’t his own.
But it only took the one word, and I was forgotten to the stranger. He didn’t even look at me, eyes glazed over as soon as Adam appeared, and he turned to leave. I thought I saw claws at his fingertips, poised at his sides, stiff and ready.
I loosed a shuddering breath, watching my attacker retreat. But my heart still pounded. “I had it handled.”
Those predator eyes slid toward me. “You had that anything but handled.”
“I don’t need you to step in and save me.” I’ve made it this long .
But monsters didn’t exist until he came back. Monsters that drew blood for their own pleasure didn’t prowl here until he came back.
He clenched his jaw, and I thought he’d fight me on it, but after a moment, he just nodded. “I’m sorry.”
I scoffed. “For what?” The waning adrenaline made my fingers numb.
Maybe it was because we expected each other this evening, but the air between us felt different. I hadn’t happened upon him by surprise—and he seemed to want to be found. He waited. For me .
“For everything,” he said. I felt my resolve crack a little.
I didn’t want to forgive so easily.
“For leaving you. For waiting all these years. For letting you go through it alone.”
“I wasn’t alone.”
His expression was pained, almost like he couldn’t look at me, and it made me angry.
“I had Flora,” I said. I wanted him to hurt, too. “I found ways to pass the time—people to pass the time with.” He knew what it meant.
Adam swallowed, and he nodded again. “It’s my fault.”
I was years past worrying whose fault it was. It was something I’d gone over in my head to exhaustion. In the end, it didn’t matter, because I was still stuck with Mother wanting me to marry, and Lucas choosing the lucky bachelor. I was still stuck all this time with men I didn’t want. One man I didn’t want, ready to take me away to England.
The weight of it all felt immovable, crushing.
A sob suddenly wracked through me, catching in my throat. “What happened?” Voice breaking, it came out a plea.
It was what I wanted to know all this time. He’d been missing—I thought he died . On a battlefield, thousands of miles away from his home, on another continent, surrounded by other boys sent away to die. All these years, I’d wondered what it felt like to get shot in the mud, to feel that bullet pierce through flesh and know you were going to die. What were his last thoughts? Who shot him? Friendly fire, an accident, something completely preventable? Or was he taken? A hostage?
He looked like he wanted to come to me, to make the step forward and take me into his arms, but he didn’t. Maybe he forgot how .
“I went to France,” he began.
I suppressed the urge to tell him to stop. Not to tell me. He didn’t have to relive whatever it was.
But I needed to know.
“It was my first time on the field, in battle, and before it felt like it even began, I was full of bullets. I don’t remember a lot of it,” he confessed, and looked at me through his lashes, as though he worried about my reaction. “There were bombs, and gasses, and I couldn’t move, and I thought I lost all my limbs. Then I couldn’t breathe.”
He glanced upward at the sky, mirroring Dixon’s exasperation from earlier. Except this time, Adam looked hurt. Worry lines at his eyes.
I’d seen men come home from overseas. They never came back the same. Some were deformed, and if it wasn’t a physical injury, a missing arm or leg, it was something they lost in their mind. Like they went to the war and came back a little less themselves, forgetting a piece of their soul across the ocean.
Lucas sneered at the men in the streets, and Mother never said anything, but her eyes said it all.
“I wanted to follow you,” I admitted. Wanted to tell him everything, how I’d been dragged home by Lucas after Adam had left, locked in my room.
He shook his head. “No you didn’t. I wouldn’t have let you.
“I woke up dead,” he said, returning to his past. His eyes glazed over like he was watching it all before him, like one of those moving pictures. “I was dead, but I could feel my arms again. Couldn’t feel the beat of my heart, didn’t need to breathe, but I could move. Could feel a burning hunger. There wasn’t any more blood. At least, none of mine .”
He’d held a glass of red liquid a few nights ago. I hadn’t wanted to accept it, to admit it to myself, that he wasn’t just living amongst these monsters.
“You…” I didn’t know how to say it. “You didn’t come back the same.”
“I’m not the same,” he said, and looked me straight in the eyes, and I knew he told the truth. This was not my Adam. He used to be, but he was something, some one different. The dangerous glint to his eye told me so. His ease of control over those peculiar guests at his house. It wasn’t just the war.
“You have to tell me,” I insisted. I couldn’t go home without the truth. Couldn’t return to Mother and Lucas and the prospect of Lord Wright Highsmith without knowing wholly what had happened.
He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. “Come here.” He held his arm out to me. And at my hesitation, I saw something break in him. A glimmer in those eyes. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice so soft, just like those whispers he used to say to me, late at night in the garden, right in my ear.
I put my hand in his and tried to ignore the shock I felt at his cool skin.
His fingers fit in mine just like they used to, intertwining the exact same.
He led me out of the garden, and the guests watched as we passed, staring just like they did when I wandered in. Except now, their eyes widened at Adam, at our hands linked together, and they averted their eyes almost in a sort of reverence .
He was not the same .
The party on the lawn was slightly more subdued than before; a few people passed out against tables, the couple no longer in the fountain, a few articles of clothing discarded and soaked on the ground. Adam led me around the side of the house, down a walk I’d not seen before, and we ended up on a veranda. Huge marble columns, like those of Ancient Greece, supported the roof covering. Electric lights strung there, too, to light our way.
“You live here,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
He nodded. “This is my manor.”
“How long?”
How long have you been back?
He paused, and I felt his grip on me tighten almost imperceptibly. “Two years.” He cleared his throat. But the parties had only been going on for the better part of a year.
“Why?”
He seemed to know what I meant and looked directly at me. I felt the same chill run down my flesh as I did that first night, when he was high above the crowd, and he found me, even when I must have been a speck amongst thousands. “To find you.”
We rounded a corner, and the only noise I could hear from the party came muffled through the windows, the echoes bouncing off the trees on his lawn. It sounded so far away, like we had the house to ourselves. He pulled me to a stop. “Look.”
At first, I saw only darkness, the window seemingly looking in on a lightless room. But as my eyes adjusted, I could see we looked in on a room—private quarters of sorts, because there were only two people I could see. A couple, strange to me, but not to each other. They held each other in a lover’s embrace. My cheeks burned as I realized I was a voyeur to their pleasure.
“I need you to understand,” Adam was saying behind me. He caged me in to the window, his strong frame pressed against mine.
And as the woman bit the neck of her lover, I felt it. I felt the bite myself. The prick against my neck. I reached up as though to palm the wound, but there was nothing there.
Adam’s hand fell to my hip. The touch so familiar I nearly wept.
The woman, a beautiful blonde, cradled the man’s skull, and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her even closer. He angled his throat to give her greater access. Rivulets of red ran down the column of his neck, staining his collar, running in streams down her arm. He fell to his knees, and she followed. I gasped, believing him unconscious, but he gripped her harder, and she was suddenly in his lap.
I did not know where the blood or her red dress began; it blended all together. And when she finally pulled away, the man gazed at her in hunger. He leaned up and licked his own blood off her lips. I saw he had the knife-like teeth of his own as he grinned at her.
Adam’s lips came suddenly to my neck, and another gasp slipped from my lips. He kissed the spot beneath my ear so gently, savoring the taste of my skin. I reached up and wound my fingers through his hair and shut my eyes.
If I willed it hard enough, I could pretend we were six years younger, and Lucas had never found out and sent him away, and he’d never died. I could pretend we’d never parted .
His caress sent a heat straight through me, I knew he felt it too, his hand gripping my hips even harder, pulling me straight into him.
“I missed you,” he said against my neck, ravishing me with more kisses, and I never wanted to leave his grasp, never wanted to leave that moment where maybe everything could be okay. He’d returned, and he was okay, and I had yet some freedom.
I turned in his arms, wrapping my arms around his neck and bringing him down to me. His lips grazed mine so faintly, but I pulled away before he could kiss me like that. I pressed my forehead to his and just breathed in the scent of him. A smokiness, a familiar sweet smell of his cologne. The same from before. It wasn’t a scent he could afford, but I’d gifted it to him and he wore it until he left. A smile pulled at my lips.
He gazed down at me hungrily, but it was a different hunger from the couple on the other side of the window. They continued their bloodletting, but I could see now it was a feeding of passion, a frenzy of lust, and not the murder I thought it was. Muffled throes of pleasure sounded out from the glass.
And if this was Adam’s world, then so be it.
“I want to kiss you,” he said, echoing the first night we’d ever been alone.
My cheeks were wet, my vision blurred.
He didn’t have to say anything more, because I stood on my toes and pressed my lips to his, and it was like coming home, more addictive than any ambrosia, and I burned for him. Ached for the way he held me. Wanted him to make me forget everything I’d done these past few years, every other person I’d entertained, every night alone .
“I want you,” I breathed, and before the words were fully spoken, he lifted me up, a predatory glint in his eye, and whisked me away.