Chapter 29
FRANK N. STEIN
“She’s my best friend, and I’ve known her since we were kids, and I also know she didn’t mean your superpowers. So, what gives?” Bernadette continues.
I stare at her blankly, unsure of what to say, suddenly feeling as if my gray t-shirt and jeans are too tight.
She shakes her head, her face becoming flushed with annoyance at my not answering her, I assume.
“I’ve followed you on socials for as long as I can remember and today, I found out you’re sheltering unicorns and keeping them hidden.
Not to mention what you do for Brom and Dexter’s Laboratory back there,” she says, pointing back towards Jekyll’s lab, “so why did Aubrey call you a monster?”
It takes me a moment to place the name as she scowls over her glasses, until I realize she means Vlad’s human.
Only, there’s no easy way to explain that.
If I’d known the woman was his mate, I’d have never taken her from his castle.
“Are you aware of what Vlad, Aubrey’s new boyfriend, is exactly?
” I ask her, deciding to follow with logic, since she has shown herself to have a keen mind.
This afternoon has been a revelation, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so open with anyone, if ever. I never had the chance to share what I was with Anna as our mate bond never became what I know mine and Bernadette’s to be.
I can see the magic even now settling around us both, which is why I decided to take Jekyll’s advice and attempted to share some of my life with her.
If she decides to leave, it’ll be on his head.
“Yeah, he’s a vampire, and that’s what led me to looking into Talbot in the first place. I couldn’t find anything about him on the internet except one document linking him to you,” she says.
So that’s why she went looking into Talbot. That’s what put her on a path to me.
Energy wells inside of me, surging at the thought of never knowing that she existed. Even if things had been different and she hadn’t hacked into my company, I can’t say things wouldn’t have played out the same once I learned of her.
I’d pluck her off the street with her kicking and screaming the entire way with only an inkling that she was my mate.
Instead, she found me and put herself on my radar in a way that has kept my attention for months, and now, I must keep hers.
“I’m sure you can see how it doesn’t seem smart to open a vampire’s castle to humans when he hasn’t eaten in years,” I say.
A frown creases her brow. “Yeah, I can see how that could be an issue.”
“I did what I thought was necessary at the time. Until current events, it was frowned upon to interact with your kind. So, while visiting the castle, I saw an opportunity to split them up and I put her on a flight home,” I say.
Until now, it was the only pact most of us upheld, and yet we’re all succumbing to the whims of humans like dominoes.
“You didn’t hurt her?” she asks.
“No, not a hair on her head. I drove her to the airstrip near the castle and had my pilot take her home. That’s it,” I say truthfully.
“That’s why she was so scared that night,” she murmurs.
I nod, giving her a blank stare, refusing to look away as she makes her judgment of me.
“Alright, fair enough,” she finally says.
My shoulders relax a bit more against the train seat, mollified by her reaction.
“So you’re truly not like Frankenstein’s monster at all, huh,” she muses.
“No.”
She frowns, scrunching up her nose, and I want to laugh at how adorable she looks.
“Then why did that woman call you that when we were in the village that day?” she asks.
I groan, and sigh aloud. “After hearing the tale, my maker thought it fitting, but I refused the name. Instead of grotesque and deformed, I was stitched together using magic by the woman you saw in the village.”
“The one that spoofed away,” she says.
I tug at the gray fabric of my jacket and expose my wrist before bringing a spark of power to my palm to show her. “If you look closely, you can see the stitching.”
“Wow,” she says, rubbing one finger across the line Odette’s magic made.
“Frankenstein symbolizes the danger of unchecked scientific ambition. I’m a product of my creator’s unchecked magical ambitions, but that is where the similarities end,” I say, knowing from the moment I was brought into existence, I’ve never had any love or even likability for the witch, vain and unsympathetic as she is to the strife she causes others.
“So you were created by her?”
“Created, but not bound to her. Odette has extraordinary magic and once tried a spell so massive it created dozens of ghouls, but left them stranded and without direction. She’s known for her amazing feats, but not all of them are good.”
The train thankfully pulls to a stop before Bernadette can ask any more invasive questions. I wait for the doors to open and hold a hand to help her from her seat.
We make our way through my underground facility, and I notice how her gaze latches onto the electrical pod as we pass it on our way to the stone steps that lead back into the house.
I find myself wondering what she could possibly be thinking, and once we reach the landing, I press my palm to the control panel, unlocking it with my touch.
I frown, the realization coming over me that since she stopped me in the foyer earlier today, my power levels have been stable when they hadn’t been for weeks.
It’s possible I could have been reacting to the mate bond taking hold before she ever arrived here, which fits, since other than this morning, the surges have been minimal now that I’ve mated with her.
“This has been the weirdest and coolest day of my life. I’ve got to go feed Edgar and hunt down some food,” she mutters under her breath, pulling me from my thoughts.
She smiles up at me suddenly, and the soft curve of her lips sends a wave of tenderness through me.
Only a short time ago, I wanted her snuffed out for what she’d done, now I’m practically giving her the keys to the castle.
Yet, I’m experiencing no inklings of impending doom or disaster as I usually would if there’d been even an utterance of the word human.
With her, every intuition I have tells me it's right to share with her.
“Speaking of food. Who do you have working for you, ninja maids? I hung out by the door one afternoon after I figured out finally that dinner comes around seven, but I didn’t see anyone in the hall,” she says as we make our way through the foyer.
I laugh, the ghouls are stealthy and prefer to move about undetected in the best of circumstances, and the staff I’ve had coming for daily cleaning and meals were ordered to stay hidden.
The last thing I needed when she arrived here was to give her access to the internet or anyone that could be persuaded to help her.
“Fine, don’t tell me. Do you want to hang out some more after I feed my cat?” she asks, a small smirk on her lips telling me she’s not upset I’m not divulging information to her.
After the last few hours, I half expected her to double her efforts once we arrived back at the house to track down any device to get her out of here. Instead, she asks me to spend more time with her.
Females are a conundrum at best, but this time it seems to be paying off.
“I’d like for you to show me around some more later. I mean, if you’d want,” she says, as we make our way to the steps of the grand staircase, when a commotion can be heard coming from the dining room.
Without pausing, she starts toward the sound before I can stop her. I follow on her heels as she heads into the dining room to find Mikael and the rest of my security team at the long table.
“Oh good, we were wondering when you’d finally show up,” Bruno says, smirking while his twin broods, staring at the dark wood of the dining room table.
I turn back to Bernadette, pushing my hands into my joggers’ pockets as I do. “Why don’t you go feed Edgar, and I’ll come find you later?” I ask.
She purses her lips as if the last thing she wants to do is leave, but her small shoulders shrug and she moves to do as I ask.
I touch her at the small of her back and lead her back to the staircase. “I’ll see you soon,” I promise, and watch as she makes her way upstairs, cursing Mikael’s timing.
“Alright, what do you have for me?” I ask them the moment I step inside the dining room. The faster this is over with, the faster I can join Bernadette for dinner.