Chapter 1 #2
“Yes, lost,” he answers, and turns back to me. “As I said before, she may still be a bit confused. It’s to be expected for a woman in her situation. She will understand in time that I only mean to help her. I need you to protect her until then. Can you do that for me, Avrum?”
“Of course, my lord.”
“Excellent. Now, I must introduce her to this new life. If you’ll excuse me.” Henri nods once and leads Haven away from us across the floor. The music begins again, and the dancing couples resume their places.
“It’s difficult to believe she’s the same girl Henri rescued a few nights ago,” I muse, once Lysander and I are alone again. My gaze lingers across the room where Henri and Haven stroll. While he laughs and smiles at others, Haven’s demeanor stays tense and angry.
How strange.
As if sensing my stare, she glances over her shoulder, and I quickly roll my eyes to the chandelier instead. Its many candles flicker like stars above us.
“I’m not sure rescued is the correct term to use,” Lysander mutters beside me.
“What do you mean? Lord Henri saved her, just as he saved me, you, and all the others living here. He has given us another chance.”
Lysander only lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug as a response.
“Do you think Henri will turn her? Make her like us?” I ask the real question hovering in the air.
It’s what he’s known for after all. Finding less fortunate souls, introducing them into this lavish life, taking them in, and gifting them with immortality…
He’s a man of truth and generosity unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.
“It is possible,” he replies. “It’s always hard to determine what Henri is thinking.”
I think back to my own turning—the extensive pain I felt of my body dying, my heart stopping, the seeping coldness in my bones—and then there was the flooding warmth of life again, and the thirst. Oh, the thirst. It’d been unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.
To this day, the cravings are the worst for me.
The need to kill and consume blood is overwhelming.
Henri’s cellar stock of animal blood had saved me from losing control that first month, and has been my steady source of food, but it’s been a struggle.
With immortality comes the consuming need to feed on a human host, something I’m not willing to do.
I’m not sure if Haven knows of the struggles that await her if she decides to be changed. But Henri would always give her the choice before doing so.
Leaning against the banister, Lysander sighs, his lips curling up in an amused smile. It’s something I rarely see from him. “So, you seem to have a charge now.”
Again, the idea of getting closer to Haven has my stomach twisting into knots, and I’m not sure why. I clear my throat to try and recover. “I do...”
“Do you think you will be able to handle such a task?” he asks.
I eye him. “You make it sound like it will be a challenge.”
His smirk growing, Lysander gestures across the room, and I squint to see what he’s pointing to. Past the swirling and dancing bodies on the dance floor, I can just make out Lord Henri standing against one of the large arch windows, deep in conversation with an unknown man.
Still not sure what he means, I ask, “What is it?”
Lysander grabs my two shoulders and jerks me to stand in his place for a more direct view. When a dancing couple glides past, I finally see what Lysander is referring to. Henri and the man are the only ones there. Haven’s no longer beside them.
My stomach flips. She’s gone.
Haven
The storm is worse now than before. Even the warm glow from the streetlamps struggles to penetrate the sheets of rain that fall from the dark sky.
The water clings to my arms and face, making me shiver as the wind rushes past. Part of me wishes I had stayed at the party where it was at least warm and dry, but I don’t belong there. With those… demons.
I couldn’t stand how Henri made me follow him around like his little pet, nodding at strangers and pretending to be interested in their petty talk. Acting like a socialite, a man of sophistication, when I know what he really is. A monster. Just like the rest of them.
I can barely stomach the lies and elaborate attempts at this charade.
There’s no way I’m going to let him keep me like a prisoner. I knew I had to get away, so I waited until they all were too engrossed in their merriment before slipping away.
This is my second attempt at an escape. During the first, I hadn’t gotten farther than Greystone’s gate, but that was because I didn’t have a distraction like tonight’s party.
My only hope is that it lasts long enough for me to return to my father and get us both away from Birmingham before someone comes looking for me.
There’s no doubt in my mind they will. Especially with Henri’s determination to keep me close by.
With the sounds of the band and the bright lights of the ballroom far behind me, I hug my arms tighter around myself and trudge on through the city streets.
My dress clings to my body like another layer of skin, and my pointed-heel boots click against the cobblestones.
The many pins holding up my curls make my head pound, and the heavy-stoned jewelry around my throat and wrists feel extra heavy suddenly, slowing me down.
Breaking into a run down Smallbrook Street, I fiddle with the ribbon behind my neck, but the moment the necklace falls free, I hesitate. If I save the jewels, I can sell them for food—a good amount of food, too. Or even for transport out of the town, to somewhere safe.
But Henri’s haunting words float from my memory, and my gut clenches. “I love seeing you in my gifts. You’re like my treasure, sparkling and radiant. You’ll be thanking me for this later.”
Thanking him…
Dread trembles through me. I don’t even want to think what he means by that.
Glancing down at the necklace in my palm, decorated with sapphires, I change my mind. Anything I do with it would just be me accepting another “gift” from him. And I want no part in it.
I drop the necklace. It clatters onto the ground.
The bracelets come next. One by one, I yank them off my wrists and let them go. Then, I pluck the pins out of my hair and toss them away. I shake out my wet locks, enjoying the freeness I suddenly feel all around.
Much better.
I smile.
Turning down a narrow alleyway, I continue until I reach the abandoned factory building my father and I have called home ever since my mother died five years ago.
Somewhere in the distance, a hungry cat whines.
The smell of urine is pungent, even with the rain.
To anyone else, it’d look like a rattrap—and they’d be partly right—but even with its doors boarded and its gray-brick face crumbling, its broken windows and pest problem, I’d take it over Greystone Manor any day. Why? Because here, I am safe.
Standing underneath the familiar circular framed window with chipped stain glass, my chest warms despite the cold.
A light flickers on overhead, piercing the darkness—someone lighting a candle—and my heart flutters knowing my father is just inside.
I try to picture his face again. The soft wrinkles that appear above his brow whenever he’s thinking, the ones at the corners of his blue eyes when he smiles, the redness of his round cheeks, and the slight dip in his chin…
It’s that image that helped me sleep at night at Greystone.
The thought of seeing him again was my only comfort when confronted with such fear.
He must think I’m dead by now. I’ve been gone long enough.
At first, Henri had wanted to take my father, but when he’d seen me, his sights changed.
When Henri discovers I ran off again, the first place he’ll look is here.
He’ll send the one man after me, the one with the soft brown eyes, long dark hair, and the golden tint to his skin.
Avrum, I think his name is. He may not look like the others, with his broad shoulders and thick arms, suggesting that he’s used to hard work, but he’s like Henri.
A creature of the night who feeds off blood and possesses inhuman abilities.
Handsome but dangerous. They all are. And Avrum’s no different.
That means he’ll be the one to come for me. Maybe even kill my father for my disobedience.
Terror rockets through me at the thought. I’ve already lost my mother. I can’t lose my father, too.
My vision blurs, tears fighting for release. Pressing my fingertips to the brick building, I close my eyes as my fears collide with my desperation to see my father again.
Regret stirs as the tears fall. Why did I leave? I put both my father’s life and my own in even more danger. If I go back now, maybe I can slip back into the party before anyone realizes I’m gone.
Henri may try to hide the truth of what he is with gaudy jewelry and gowns, but my skin shows the truth. I’m permanently marked by him. And I know, whether it’s here or back there, the risk of death is always there; I can never escape it.
The wound marks on my neck sting, my legs throb, and the scars on my wrists itch, reminding me of what awaits back at Greystone. The question is… what kind of end will I choose?