Chapter Seventeen
“Perhaps you could teach me.”
Winifred’s whispered words echoed in Marcus’s mind as he removed his leather apron from a peg on the wall in his workshop and donned it. She’d made her interest clear, but he’d foolishly not responded in kind. Instead, he’d offered a weak excuse that she’d inevitably question.
The problem was, every time he thought about kissing her, he remembered how he’d initially pursued Marguerite when he’d been human.
If he’d known she’d been a vampire, he never would have gone willingly to her bed.
She had deceived him in the same way he was deceiving Winifred.
If he continued down the same path, he feared Winifred would come to resent him as much as he had Marguerite.
He carefully slotted vials of his latest concoction in the machine he’d decided not to destroy, even though it had harmed Winifred. Her practice session had given him a new insight into how he might confirm his suspicions regarding contamination in his livestock.
Before he saw her again, he would need to craft a believable explanation for his behavior. She was an intelligent, curious woman. If she hadn’t already come up with her own theory, she would soon.
The truth would almost be easier, but he did not dare broach that subject until she’d had time to read the books he’d selected to educate her about his kind and was less likely to flee screaming from his presence.
It was not every day that one learned monsters were real.
He cranked his invention until it rattled, then released his tight grip, waited for the gears to slow to a halt, and opened the lid.
To his surprise, the glass tubes tucked in the mahogany block had not shattered.
When he lifted one, the cow’s blood inside had separated into vague layers.
He held it to a candle and inspected the topmost section.
Unlike the samples he’d drawn from his animals several weeks prior and agitated, the cloudy liquid was not a pale yellow, but a faint pink.
It was the confirmation he’d been seeking, but it gave him no sense of satisfaction, especially because he didn’t know how drinking tainted blood would affect him.
Winifred’s exercises were helpful in managing his attacks but did not explain how they had started.
Given that they had worsened at the same time he’d discovered someone had tampered with his food supply, it seemed likely the hunters were responsible.
When he was too weak to fight back, they would stage their attack. If they were smart, they’d wait for his brothers to be present and pick them off one-by-one.
His head filled with static. He braced himself against his workbench and tried to remember that the situation was not yet dire. His enemy had infiltrated his pasture and coop, but there was one remaining source that was much harder to access.
The aviary.
It would be difficult to siphon only enough from his birds to sustain him while keeping them healthy, but the throbbing in his head and dryness of his throat told him he was running out of options.
He exited his workshop and stumbled down the steps to a locked iron gate—thank God it was housed in the same tower—then shoved his hand in his pocket and removed a keyring.
It took several painful seconds to force his unfeeling fingers to maneuver the correct key into the lock, but eventually, the latch made a reassuring click.
He turned the handle, shoved the rusty, metal gate open, and immediately knew something was wrong. The presence of a human should have elicited a riot of screeching, but it was unnaturally silent.
“No,” he whispered. “Please, no.”
Several more steps and the cause became clear.
The cages were open and every bird, from the smallest dove to the largest eagle, had been torn apart.
It was such a grisly scene that his first thought was that a wolf had somehow breached the castle, but that was absurd.
The room had been locked, and the window was too high for any four-legged creature to reach.
He clenched his shirt over his heart. It felt like he was caught in the grip of an enormous, constricting snake.
His animals were all that kept him from regressing into bloodlust and attacking his staff.
If he couldn’t find a solution, the castle might become the scene of a slaughter worse than the one he’d caused in his village shortly after being turned.
Smith, Gillanders, Mrs. Gillanders, and even Winifred would have no chance of stopping him.
One after another, he would tear out their throats, drain them dry, and leave their limp, discarded bodies for his siblings to find when they next visited.
He crumpled to his knees onto a pile of rotten turnips and clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.
The sense of doom that had him imagining violent, awful futures for the people under his protection was nothing more than a trick of his mind.
The latest symptom of the affliction that had taken his freedom, independence, and pride.
He rifled through his memories until he recalled Winifred’s calming voice during his attack in the music room.
“Breathe.”
He inhaled through his mouth until his lungs were full to bursting, then exhaled powerfully through his nose.
“Remember where you are.”
Inside the castle aviary, kneeling on a sticky floor.
The weight in his chest eased, and he rose unsteadily to his feet.
Impending sunrise meant it was time for him to retire, but first, he would tell the groundskeeper to set snares and traps.
The blood of a few rabbits or a dozen rats wouldn’t satisfy him for long, but it was preferable to starvation.