13. Valtu
Valtu
I can’t believe my eyes.
Somehow the redheaded girl has gotten out of her cage. I know the wards I have holding those cuffs in place are strong, but unless she’s made of magic herself there’s no way she could have gotten out of it on her own accord.
And that gives me cause for alarm. Though she looks deliciously scared, breathing hard, with her wide green eyes, wearing just the sweater and panties, I have to wonder if she’s part witch. A witch is—
The demon appears behind her.
I stare at it, wondering what it’s going to do.
Did it free her from the room? Was it just chasing her?
Was this all for its own pleasure, a need to hunt?
Or is it some backwards way of showing me that it can fuck with my possessions, even those I’m not sure I want to keep.
The demon has slaughtered nearly every human I’ve had in this place.
“Well,” I repeat, my gaze flicking from the demon back to the girl. “How did you get out of there?”
“It, it freed me,” she says, her voice shaking. She looks at me and then to the doctor. “This house is haunted.”
I let out an empty laugh. “You thought it wouldn’t be?”
“What do you mean it freed you?” Van Helsing asks. He’s keeping a safe distance behind me, as he should.
She gives her head a shake. “It cut off the cuffs and opened the door for me.”
Now this is hard to believe.
The demon starts to come toward her now, tired of waiting in the shadows.
The girl’s body stiffens and shakes slightly from fright and for once I’m not really enjoying this.
It’s not even about the mess that the creature would make in the middle of the living room, but that I don’t want to see it devour her before I get to chance to fuck her.
“What do I do?” she whispers, eyes darting around her, knowing it’s creeping closer.
“Valtu,” Van Helsing hisses at me. “Control it.”
“I can’t,” I say absently, watching as the demon stops right behind her and rises up on its back legs. It puts its inhuman claws over her shoulders, the tips of them pressing into the tops of her breasts, enough to draw blood that slowly darkens her sweater.
Christ on a bike.
Even though it’s drawing blood, it seems to be gentle with her, its movements delicate and controlled.
Possessive.
The redhead looks pained and is trembling in terror but I’m staring at the demon’s small red eyes, the empty inhumanness of them the epitome of cosmic horror.
Do you want her? I project toward it. Why? Why her? What makes her so special?
The demon doesn’t answer. It never does.
But it’s clear from the way it’s cradling her from behind that it does want her and it’s showing me how easily it can take what it wants.
A hot burst of possession runs through me. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way toward anyone. Controlling, yes, always, but I dislike the feeling of things belonging to me.
Except for the book, of course. There is no question that belongs to me.
And now, I guess, this girl belongs to me too.
“Get away from her,” I command, my voice a fist. “She is not yours. She is mine.”
The girl eyes me in surprise, a glimpse of that warmth in her eyes, that strange adoration that she has for me. She knows I’m trying to save her from a gruesome fate but I’m not yet sure she should celebrate.
But the demon doesn’t put up a fight. It just stares at me for a moment, then removes its claws, one by one. The girl gasps, her hands flying to her chest where blood seeps over her fingers.
Then the demon goes back down on all fours and saunters off into the shadows, the clicking of its nails on the stone fading as it disappears.
The girl looks at the blood on her palms and then eyes me sharply, a darkness coming over her expression, reminding me of what I tasted in her tears. “Nice pet,” she says stiffly.
“It let you loose, didn’t it?”
“Are you okay, Rose?” Van Helsing asks, and she nods. Of course the doctor is always so caring and considerate. Makes me look like a real asshole for not asking.
You are a real asshole , I remind myself. That demon would have shredded her to pieces and the truth is you probably wouldn’t even blink.
I sigh internally. Once upon a time I remember being someone who would care, but that person seems so removed from me now, it’s like it happened in another life, to someone else.
And yet I did choose Rose. I told the demon that she’s mine.
Now, what to do with my new possession?
But it is the middle of the night and I am tired, having talked and drank with Van Helsing into the wee hours. All this excitement has me riled up and yet I know I won’t perform at my best with her if I don’t get some sleep.
“Well, I best be off to bed,” I say, clapping my hands together. “That’s enough excitement for one night.”
“Please don’t make me sleep back in that room,” Rose says softly, averting her eyes to the floor.
I fold my arms across my chest as I appraise her.
I can’t seem to figure her out. One moment she’s gazing at me with affection, the next she’s hard, the next she’s aching in her vulnerability.
It’s making me feel things I shouldn’t be feeling, and I ignore the faint pinch in my chest, this compulsion of wanting to protect her.
“She can stay with me,” Van Helsing offers, a little too enthusiastically.
I cock my brow and eye him over my shoulder. “What?”
He raises his hands. “Why not?” he asks. I know she sure as hell isn’t staying with you , he adds in his head.
He’s got a point. I always sleep alone, and my bedroom is always off limits. I never let anyone over the threshold.
It’s where I keep the book.
I look over at Rose, and she’s staring at me with hope in her eyes.
She wants to share his bed tonight. Whether it’s out of a fear or for other reasons—after all I don’t actually know if she and the doctor have anything going on between them—I can’t let that happen.
Not after I made a big show to the demon that the girl is mine and no one else’s.
“I don’t think so,” I eventually say, and I watch the disappointment and fear cloud Rose’s eyes as I walk over to her. I grab her by the elbow, my fingers digging into her sweater on the off-chance she decides to run. “You want to stay here? This is part of the package deal.”
She gives Van Helsing a worried look as I lead her out of the room and up the stairs, back to the bedroom.
“Please don’t make me go back in there,” she says, her words trembling. “Please.”
“The demon likes you,” I say into her ear, catching the scent of her shampoo, that floral scent that instantly makes me hard. “I don’t think you have too much to worry about.”
“But there are…there are ghosts…of things from my past.”
I pull her to a stop and peer down at her. The nearest light, a candle in a sconce, is further down the hall, putting her face into shadow. Here her features look harder, but her eyes remain wet and vulnerable, the light from the far-off flames flickering in them.
“What do you mean you’ve seen things from your past?” I ask.
She licks her lips and she’s thinking something over and I try to push myself into her mind. But there’s a wall there, solid black and as strong as the doors fortifying this castle. This girl knows how to protect herself. Another thing I find intriguing.
“What did you see?” I prod.
She swallows hard and I’m distracted by the way her throat moves. I have this brief urge to sink my teeth into the sweet soft flesh of her jugular and I don’t know where that comes from since I’ve never been into drinking from other vampires.
“I saw…a baby,” she says, and the word comes out in a hush.
The hairs on the back of my neck raise and I instantly see the baby too, the one that’s been haunting me. How could she have seen it too?
“Are you sure it’s from your past? Did you recognize it?” I ask carefully.
She gives a small shake of her head. “No. I didn’t recognize it.
But I think it thought I was its mother.
” She closes her eyes and to my surprise a tear rolls down.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, keeping her eyes closed while she hurriedly wipes the tear away with the heel of her palm. “This is hard to talk about.”
I swear I hear the way she wanted to end the sentence:
This is hard to talk about with you .
I have this sudden urge to put my arms around her and hold her close to me.
It makes me take one step back.
“This place,” I say to her, my voice low, “it has a way of playing tricks on you. There are things that come alive here, fears that manifest.” I pause, wondering how much I should say. “Maybe it’s not so much this place, but me. They haunt me. And they’ll haunt you too for as long as you’re here.”
There’s no point in telling her that I’ve seen a baby too.
“So the baby…wasn’t yours?” I go on. “Have you ever been pregnant?”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I swear I see her flinch. She opens her eyes and meets my gaze head on. “I’m only twenty-one.”
Fuck me.
“Are you serious?” I ask.
Twenty-one? I knew she was young, but I didn’t know she was this young.
“I just turned a couple of days ago,” she admits.
“You what?” I let her go and run my hand over my face in disbelief. Van Helsing brought me a barely legal vampire. Hell, barely a vampire. “You’ve only been a vampire for a few days?”
She swallows and nods. “Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“A problem?” My dick doesn’t seem to think so. It’s harder than ever and it’s taking a lot of effort to ignore it. I’ve never had someone so young before. “There’s a bit of an age gap here.”
The corner of her mouth lifts. “You’re worried about an age gap? There are no age gaps with vampires.”
“Considering I was born in the sixteen hundreds and you were born twenty-one years ago, yeah, I think that could be considered an age gap.”
The fear seems to leave her eyes as she gazes at me. Something hot and carnal makes her pupils expand into black pools. “Are you having second thoughts about fucking me?”
Sweet Jesus. My dick practically screams for attention.