Twenty-Five
W hen my eyes opened the next morning, the canopy of a bed hung over me. Large, vaulted ceilings, bathed in sunlight which streamed through sheer white curtains. The windows were cracked, letting in a slight breeze, which cooled me, pebbling my skin.
It was the room of a king.
And not mine.
Not my room.
The realization of what I’d done, what decision I’d made the night before, suddenly came back to me.
My mother—Lucas— Wright Highsmith —
I bolted upright.
Vince lay next to me, his arm splayed above his head, and we were both naked, tangled in the silky maroon sheets of his bed, the duvet discarded at the foot of the bed. My slip lay forgotten in the middle of the floor.
I had let him take me.
No, I had run away. I wanted to come.
In only my underwear, no less .
My whole body flushed with embarrassment, remembering the pleasure he had brought me the night before, the absolutely sinful act we had committed in the car . The love-making we did afterward.
My whole body ached. Between my thighs, a lingering dampness remained, a soreness that spread from my thighs to my navel. We had been frenzied, holding back nothing between each other, accepting every part of each other.
And he looked so peaceful now, his eyelashes lying across his sharp cheekbones, his dark, reddish-brown hair tousled against his pillow. In the daylight, his skin seemed to glow. His muscles looked sculpted of marble, his whole figure that of Adonis, a dusting of hair reaching from that pleasurable part of him up to his chest. He was hardly covered by the sheet strewn across his thighs.
Looking at him, a part of my heart cracked. He was here. He wasn’t dead . I couldn’t wrap my head around it, still, that the truth I’d accepted years ago wasn’t the truth after all. That he was well, tangible—I could touch him, I could kiss him, again.
And I’d run away from my brother to do it.
I slid off the bed, careful to stay as quiet as I could. Waking him meant confronting last night, confronting what he was—and I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to feel about it .
Plush carpet dampened the sound of my feet hitting the ground. Two robes had been laid out on the armchairs near an unlit fireplace. Sliding my arms through one, I tied the belt closed, the fabric soft as spider’s silk on my skin, a dark emerald in color. A breakfast had also been laid out, a steaming pot of tea and a plate of fruit. The citrus of Earl Grey permeated the air.
My favorite tea.
But my stomach felt hollow.
Swallowing down my unease, I glanced toward the bed once more. Vince hadn’t moved, his chest rising and falling so imperceptibly, it was like he wasn’t even breathing.
I slipped out of the room before I changed my mind and returned to the warmth of his side. The prospect of returning to that dream world, where there was only pleasure, where I could forget everything but his body and mine, nearly drew me back. I could forget I was technically betrothed. I could pull him to me and insist we never leave.
But I knew where I was, knew what kinds of things went on in this manor, and I needed to know how he played into it.
The hall outside was quiet, vacant, the polished floor icy beneath my bare feet. Looking one way, then the next, I had no idea which way to go, not remembering the path we’d taken last night. So I wandered, taking soft steps, trying to be as quiet as possible. Tried to recall the twists and turns of the night before.
No servants greeted me, no sounds echoing down the halls; not the shutting of a door, the rasp of a broom, the squeak of shoes against the marble. The manor was a true ghost town, as though Vince and I were the only inhabitants. And perhaps we were .
Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes following me as I walked. Glancing over my shoulder, no one appeared behind me. I half-expected to see the heel of a shoe running around the corner into the next hall. A few portraits hung from gilded frames, every now and then, but none so direct and eerie as to feel like they watched my every movement. Some of the faces were familiar, but vague enough, and without a plaque to announce the identity, they remained unknown visages.
Every door I passed was shut, dark mahogany interspersed amongst white and gold wallpaper. I turned the handle of a few and found most to be locked, some entire hallways hidden away. A few that opened held simply furnished bedrooms, their curtains drawn closed against the late morning sunlight. Though, from the thresholds, I could see the rooms were spotless—beds made, corners tucked tightly, not a speck of dust on the furniture. Like the rooms had been used recently.
I made sure to shut every door behind me. I wasn’t certain if I was allowed to be prying, if I was even allowed down these halls. And I worried every time I opened a door I’d find something I wouldn’t like.
They were all nondescript, empty, unremarkable, and I wondered when I’d find something else. This house couldn’t possibly hold only bedrooms?
Turning one more door handle, expecting nothing, I nearly moved on after a quick glance within, until I realized I’d seen the space before. Seen those drawn curtains, that bed, that plush, deep red rug covering the entirety of the floor. My breath caught, and though the room itself wasn’t much different from the others, I saw the memory of that feeding couple again, in the center of the room, arms wrapped around each other as she drank from two pin-prick wounds on his neck. Blood down her chin, the same color as her dress. His sharp grin as they switched roles, as he brought her onto her lap and laved at her throat.
The vampire couple Vince and I had watched that evening had been in this room.
The energy hung in the air, heavy and low like a storm cloud. No blood stains ruined the floor, the furniture. All had been cleaned away. No evidence of the couple that had spent the evening here, save for the static electricity I swore sparked on my fingertips, heady and intoxicating. Residual ecstasy, lingering touches.
I shouldn’t be here .
Stepping out of the room, shaking off the memory, I shut the door behind me, perhaps too harshly. The sound of the door hitting the frame echoed down the hall and I winced. If I wasn’t supposed to be here, I’d just alerted anyone listening as to where I was.
I padded a bit quicker down the hall, putting distance between myself and that room. The feeling of Vince pressing me against the window, kissing me while that couple fed from each other on just the other side of the glass—it awoke something within me, a fear, a fever, a thrill. The want to keep going, to ignore all warning bells.
And after—we’d fallen prey to that passion. Again, last night.
Coming around a corner too quickly, I ran into a hard wall, almost knocking all the air from my lungs. But—no, not a wall .
A shriek stalled in my throat as I lost my footing. Quick hands grabbed me by the shoulders, steadying me on my feet, just as I was about to fall.
“You may not want to run in these halls.”
Sinclair stood before me, those amber irises catching the sunlight in a dangerous glint.
My eyes widened, and I quickly scrambled out of his grip. The last time I saw him, he was covered in blood, showing off those knifelike teeth. “You!”
His brows quirked in amusement. “You,” he echoed, amused, though there was no surprise in the expression.
“What are you doing here?” My feet carried me a few steps backward, my heart picking up speed at the shock of running into a vampire. Alone.
Sinclair was a vampire, and I was alone. With him.
I glanced over my shoulder as if I could summon Vince.
“What are you doing here?” He was following me, one large stride at a time.
“I—”
“Were you snooping , Miss Helena?” That glint in his eye danced, the corner of his lips turning upward. A tilt to his head, animalistic. “What were you looking for?”
“Nothing,” I said, because it was mostly true—I didn’t know what I was searching for, just that it was here, in this house.
“Oh, come now,” he said, leaning on the wall with all the casualness in the world. “You and I both know you’ve been rooting around in those rooms.”
Under his stare, I felt like a deer that knew the wolf was hiding in the brush. My instincts, my body, knew he was a predator, even if my eyes told me he was any other man—a warning I’d not sensed when I first met him.
It was terrifying how easily they hid amongst humans. Drinking with us, sleeping with us, the only evidence of something uncanny the point to their teeth.
I didn’t know whether to fear him or thank him for bringing me to Vince.
But he didn’t hold any malice in his gaze, just an amusement at my jumpiness and a cool, collected exterior.
“I’m a guest here,” I said, lifting my chin. As though being a guest offered protection.
“Just a guest?” He crossed his arms. “I won’t hurt you, Helena. But be mindful of who’s around when you go running like that. You might inspire someone to… give chase.” Another flash in those eyes.
I swallowed. “Who else is here?”
A noncommittal shrug, as he pushed off the wall to standing again. “Right now, no one who will harm you.”
I heard the underlying message: that vampires, other than Sinclair, frequented these halls, and not just when those strange blood parties took place.
What did I get myself into? From one stifling house to another full of preternatural beings.
I should’ve hidden away at Flora’s—shouldn’t have let Vince convince me to leave, that coming with him was the best option. At least at Flora’s, I’d be safe until my brother realized where I was, banging on the door with a team of cops behind him.
It hit me that no one knew where I was. Not Flora, not Dixon, the only two that I could rely on should anything happen to me .
And there was a vampire standing before me, every so often glancing at the pulse in my neck, even if he didn’t seem like he was about to rip into my flesh.
My eyes narrowed on him. “What is going on here?”
His grin widened almost imperceptibly. “There it is,” he said. “Her curiosity wins out.”
My scowl deepened. “You were the one that brought me here.”
“I did no such thing,” he said, hands raised to feign innocence. “One can be easily swayed when someone pushes them to do what they already wanted. I made a suggestion. You came here on your own.”
“You wanted me to see.” He may as well have walked me right to the doors of that dark, red room himself. Pointing out the people in the robes, sparking that curiosity—he knew exactly what he was doing. And he’d been put up to do it by Vince, one way or another.
Sinclair leaned a bit closer. I cemented my feet, unwilling to move.
“And what did you see, Helena?”
Words stalled in my throat.
“It wouldn’t just so happen to be coincidence we’re around the corner from that room, would it?”
My tongue turned dry against my teeth at the thought. I had no idea, but perhaps something had been pushing me along, guiding me there without my knowing. And all these guest rooms lining the halls nearby—rooms for vampires to consummate whatever lust took over, away from the eyes of prying humans that partied downstairs.
“I didn’t know,” I managed .
“You want to see it again,” he said, not a question, but a fact. That amused brow still arched, eyes half-lidded. “You want to watch ,” the word charged, the accusation full of mirth, “so you can understand, yes?”
Biting my lip, his gaze growing too intense, I looked away, down the hall behind him. The direction he came from. That room, just around the corner, regaled by grand, embellished wooden doors that warned of the danger within, demons and angels warring. The precipice of the underworld.
“Why—” My voice caught.
“Because we need to feed, Helena,” he said, voice lowering. “And why not share the pleasure of it amongst ourselves?”
I hadn’t realized we’d moved closer, just a few steps, to the corner. Like he was drawing me in. He had said no one here would harm me—the room must be empty, but the pull to peek inside, to get any sort of hint of why , the true why, was alluring like a siren at sea. I didn’t know how, or why, but I knew that understanding the bloodletting would lead me to the truth about Vince.
“There you are.”
As though my thoughts summoned him, his voice echoed down the hall, Sinclair’s eyes darting over my shoulder.
When I turned, I saw he was moving quite leisurely toward us, wearing a satin robe himself, parted around his bare chest as he walked. I swore, even from this distance, I saw a dangerous glint in his eye, his stare locked onto Sinclair. A faint bruising on one side of his neck, where I’d kissed him over and over again. Hair mussed, a shadow at his jaw .
He came to a stop right before us, his stare never leaving the other man, even when his arm came around my hips.
“The bed was cold,” he said to me, voice softer.
“I didn’t want to wake you.” I turned in his arms, placing my hands at his chest, feeling the muscles underneath. But he still didn’t look at me.
He clenched his jaw. “Thank you for watching over her.” But a warning danced in his words.
“Was only making sure she didn’t get into anything she shouldn’t,” Sinclair said, some of the amusement on his face fading away.
Vince said nothing, his features unmoving, his fingers on my hips tightening near-imperceptibly. I almost didn’t feel it.
Sinclair’s eyes narrowed before he looked away. Much like my attacker had when Vince confronted him. And after a moment, he turned and walked off without a word, disappearing around that corner like he’d never been there to begin with.