Bonus Scene
Lysander
Someone else had died. Every burst of frigid night air against my face carries the sharp, metallic scent with it. Blood. The breeze is heavy with it.
I force my attention forward and my feet running at full speed. Somewhere, deep within my chest, a familiar ache begins, the feeling that comes with loss, with guilt.
I should’ve stayed and fought alongside Avrum. I shouldn’t have let him fight Henri alone. He wasn’t ready. Now, it’s quite possible my only friend at Greystone is dead.
Just another foolish mistake I’ve made.
After centuries of living this nocturnal life, I should’ve learned my lesson by now. Don’t get too close. Don’t allow your emotions to cloud your judgment. Hadn’t the night I’d been changed to a vampire taught me anything?
No, I’d never get it right.
I shove those the feelings away, like I’ve done so many times before. I know too well that they only slow me down, hypnotize me, and I need my wits if I’m to catch the young maid girl who had gotten a head start into the woods.
I pick up my pace. The forest rushes past me. Shadowy trees flash by like the flutter of eyelashes, while the girl’s braided head bobs just in front of me. I’m closing the distance between us, and fast. The erratic beating of her heart is like a siren, calling out to me.
I reach out a hand.
Just a few more inches.
The girl glances over her shoulder, and her eyes widen in terror.
I must look frightening to her, with my gold hair flying around my face and my eyes black.
She doesn’t know I’m meant to help her, and before I can grab her, she changes direction, pushing through the thick brush and dodging low, naked branches. I growl in frustration and follow.
As she turns to look at me again, her next step sinks into the deep snow, making her knees collapse under her. I snatch her by the arm as she falls, but my momentum throws us both forward. We tumble into the snow together.
As the girl’s chest inflates to scream, I clamp a hand over her mouth. She stares up at me and whimpers.
“Don’t,” I warn in a harsh whisper, “or else Henri will come and kill us both. Do you understand?”
Her body goes rigid.
“I am not going to harm you.” I keep my voice low and as nonthreatening as I can manage. Sucking air into my lungs, I command my overactive senses to settle. My fangs recede back into their sheaths, and carefully, I lift my hand away from her lips. “I know you are afraid, but you must trust me.”
What do I do now? Do I bring her back to Greystone Manor?
I can’t, I realize quickly. There’s still danger there. “We need to get far away from this place. We need to run,” I tell her.
A breeze squeezes through the cluttered wood and shoves past us, carrying the scent of blood again. This time even stronger. My stomach clenches with hunger while my chest aches with the truth. There’s no way Avrum survived.
I leap to my feet. “We need to go. Now.” I seize the girl by the hand and jerk her to stand. In one quick motion, I scoop her up and cradle her in my arms like a child. She gasps in surprise.
“I will make sure you are safe. Trust me.”
Her eyes are glossy with tears, but she tucks her head under my chin and links her hands behind my neck.
I hesitate, the simple gesture feeling familiar yet foreign at the same time. Like something from a distant memory. I do my best to ignore it.
“Don’t be afraid.” Then, I use all the strength in my legs to push off the wet ground and run farther away from the manor and all that death.
The forest flies by us in a smear of gray. The late autumn air whistles in my ears and my cheeks and nose tingle. The low temperature does little to me, but the girl buries her face in my shirt.
Her warm breath seeps through the fabric of my clothes, stirring the thick fog of my memory again. It’s been so long since I’ve allowed someone to be this close to me, held someone like this.
The melodic twitter of birds echoes in my head. No, not birds. Laughter. Light and high-pitched, like the chime of silver bells or a spring songbird. My sister’s giggle.
The sound brings with it a deep pinching behind my ribs, and I scold myself as I leap over a fallen tree with ease.
Ignore it and move on. Charise is gone.
Even with all the years passed, her memory still haunts me. But I don’t have time to dwell on her and the lingering sadness that comes with it.
It isn’t real.
I command my thoughts to focus on the present, like the crunch of my shoes on the freshly fallen snow, or the human girl’s rhythmic breathing against my chest. I need to stay here. Not in the past.
She’s dead. You’re fooling yourself. Again.
I don’t slow until the scent of blood no longer assaults my senses and I’m satisfied with the distance between us and Greystone.
Stopping in a small area clear of trees, I place the maid on her feet again, where she wobbles a little. When her fingers grab my hand, my spine stiffens. I’m not sure how to respond.
With her standing so close, I can see just how small she really is.
In her black maid’s frock and stained white apron, she’s almost half my size.
The top of her blonde, braided head only reaches the center of my chest. And she’s young.
The roundness of her face and rosiness of her cheeks tells me she must be only around twelve, but no older than fifteen. Still a child.
When the maid steps away, my arm swings lifelessly by my side.
Returning to Greystone Manor is no longer an option. Somewhere, deep down, I know Avrum has failed. And if Henri is still alive, he knows of my treachery and our attempt to escape. He will have us killed on the spot. Our shared past together will not be able to save me this time.
I scan the woods around us but see nothing but bare oak trunks and a vast, endless ocean of snow. I try to ignore the thumping of the girl’s heartbeat beside me and listen for other footsteps.
All I hear is the calming silence of the earth waking all around us, which means, luckily, we haven’t been followed. Maybe Henri is cleaning up his mess, or maybe he really has no interest in us at all. I’m hoping for the latter.
I glance over at the girl I had given my word to protect. Wrapping her slender arms around herself, she shivers against the cold. I left Avrum when he’d needed me most, and for what—my own pride?
She’s a human girl. A maid. She’s nothing to him. He didn't even know what name to call her.
“Your name?” I ask. My voice sounds too loud in the stillness.
Her green eyes snap my way.
“What is your name?” I repeat in an attempt to be more gentle. I tried to recall my tone when speaking to Charise, but it has been too long since I had to speak to a child.
“E-Emma.” It is the first time she has spoken since our escape, and her voice shakes.
“Emma.” That’s right. Avrum had once called her that. “Emma, are you hurt?”
“No,” she breathes. “I don't believe so.”
“Good.”
“Where are we, Mr. Douay?”
I’m surprised she recalls my last name. “Closer to West Bromwich, I believe.” My gaze searches the shadows again and then lifts to the sky.
Through the canopy of stripped branches, the silvery clouds are lightening, signaling dawn.
With the neighboring town still some distance away, we are going to have to stay here during daylight hours.
“West Bromwich is miles away from the manor.” Emma interrupts my thoughts. “We must’ve run miles.”
“Yes, I needed to make sure we were a safe distance away.”
“What about Miss Haven? And Mr. Brenin?”
I close my eyes for a brief moment as the familiar dull ache returns to my chest. I need to just bury it, and bury it deep. “They are gone.”
And it’s your fault.
“No…” Emma’s breath hitches. “No, Miss Haven can’t be gone.” She sinks to her knees and covers her face with her hands.
My insides twist into a tight knot. “Stop crying.”
When she peeks up at me with wet, glittering eyes, guilt wrestles through me.
“Please, stop.”
Emma sniffs and hastily wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand.
I pull back my shoulders, trying to regain my nerve.
I’m over two hundred and seventy years old.
There was a time in my human life when I saw death as nothing more than a sport.
When the word “mercy” never passed my lips.
This human girl is affecting me in ways I can’t explain or control. I should be stronger than this.
“Crying won't change what’s happened. We still have some time before we reach the next town, and it is almost morning, so we’ll stay here and rest until nightfall.”
Emma shifts to sit on her bottom with her legs stretched out.
Clumps of snow stick to her stockings, and she pulls a satchel’s strap over her head.
Accidently, she flips it upside down and the contents tumble out in front of her—a hairbrush, an assortment of pastries and bread rolls, a folded quilted blanket, and a pocket watch on a chain.
Of course, the watch catches my eye. It’s a rose-gold color with intricate floral patterns engraved in its face. And it looks expensive, so what is a maid doing with it?
I pick it up for a closer look. I’ve seen watches with similar designs in the pockets of the wealthy. It weighs heavier than I’d expected too, but the watch’s hands are immobile, frozen fifteen minutes past twelve.
I flip it over in my palm. There, on the back, is the name E.W. Harris in large, scripted font.
Whoever this E.W. Harris is, the man has taste and, undoubtedly, money.
But then, how did Emma, a servant girl, get it?
“That is one of the last things I have from my mother,” she answers my thoughts. She holds up the silver-plated hairbrush. “Well, and this, too.” She stops and hastily stuffs the brush back into the satchel, followed by the bread rolls and treats.
“Where is your mother now?” I ask.
“I don’t know. You see, I don’t remember much about her. She left me to work for Lord Henri when I was very young. From what I’ve been told, I was just four. All I have to go on are these few trinkets and a note—”