Chapter 3
SILENTLY STALKED
VANESSA
Stepping out into the hallway, I held my breath, feeling instantly like I was doing something wrong.
And considering he had suggested I stay in the bedroom, I guessed that I was.
But with my headache thundering against my skull, I refused to spend the night gripping my temple in agony and letting sleep evade me.
Being in this place, navigating the hallways in the dark, felt like stepping into the pages of some gothic novel.
I half expected to see ancient family portraits glaring down from the walls.
Or the ghost of a crazed wife pacing in the tower I could see glimpses of through the windows.
The pale stone bathed in moonlight breaking free of the clouds.
Every creak of the old manor whispered untold secrets, and each shadow seemed to watch me as I passed.
My bare feet made soft sounds against the cold stone floors, and I cursed myself for not finding socks.
The chill bit at my skin, sharp enough that I longed for the warmth of the thick carpets that lined the lower levels.
Last time, he had guided me through these corridors, his large hand steady at my elbow, his quiet voice a low murmur in the dark. Without him beside me, the space felt wider, emptier, lonelier.
It was strange, even unsettling, how part of me missed his presence.
Maybe it was just the remnants of adrenaline from when he’d saved me, or maybe it was something far more dangerous.
There was something about him I couldn’t quite name, something broken and untouchable.
He felt like a tortured soul, the kind people wrote tragic stories about.
The kind that made you ache even when you knew you shouldn’t.
I told myself I wasn’t foolish enough to believe he was the good guy here, but still, I couldn’t help questioning his motives.
As I made my way down to the lower levels, I tried my best to retrace my steps, staying far away from the wing he’d warned me not to enter. Yet curiosity clawed at me. I paused at the crossroads where the hall split, wondering what he didn’t want me to find.
Wasn’t there always a dark family secret in stories like this?
A hidden sin, a locked door, a truth better left uncovered.
After all, I had quite literally found myself in a vampire novel.
And despite how Stacey and Tal had both separately teased me about my love of ‘Vampire porn’ as they had named it, I couldn’t help thinking how familiar it all felt.
The atmosphere, the danger, the sense that I’d stumbled into something that wasn’t meant for me.
There was always a love interest in those stories, wasn’t there? Someone capable of changing the monster, of showing him his lost humanity. I had to wonder if that’s what Tal and Victor’s brother Vasileios needed.
The thought made me shiver. Right along with the name I now knew. A name that echoed through my mind, ancient and weighted with hidden meaning. I wondered about the story behind it, asking myself what kind of man carried a name like that.
I also wondered how he would feel if he found me wandering his home so soon after he’d warned me to stay in my room.
The staircase loomed in front of me, and I could only imagine his face if he found me here, broken and twisted at the bottom of it after falling to my death.
His perfect plan for vengeance was destroyed by my own clumsiness. The thought almost made me smile.
Almost.
I was at least smart enough to hold onto the thick wooden banister so this didn’t happen.
Now, as for making it to my destination without being caught, that was left as an unknown.
Would I get his anger or his calm frustration?
Well, I hoped I wouldn’t find out, as I reached the lower level at last and found my way into the kitchen.
Moonlight poured through the high, arched windows, painting silver lines across the stone floor and sparing me from total darkness. I hesitated at the threshold, half expecting to see him there already, standing there, dominating the shadows with his own.
When I saw only the faint shimmer of light and the silent gleam of metal from the hanging pots, I let out a quiet laugh. One dark and uneasy. The kind of laugh that didn’t sound like it belonged to me.
Because the longer I stood there, the more the silence began to change. It wasn’t empty anymore. There was something in it, something that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
At first, I told myself it was nothing. Old houses creaked, the wind sighed through the cracks, and imagination had a way of twisting shadows into shapes that didn’t exist. But this felt different. The air itself seemed to shift, pressing closer, denser, as if the house was responding to me.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the counter. I could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator somewhere behind me, the soft ticking of an unseen clock. Beyond that, nothing. No footsteps. No voices. Just… watching.
It was the same feeling I’d had before, when he had been near without ever touching me. That sense of being pinned in place by an unseen gaze.
I swallowed hard, forcing a shaky laugh.
“Get a grip, Nessa,” I whispered under my breath.
“You’re just tired,” I told myself again as I found the light switch, one that I didn’t remember him turning off when we left.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” I said to myself out loud, the sound of my own voice doing little to calm the nerves clawing at my chest. It felt like any second, he’d leap out from the dark and shout boo, and my heart would just give up entirely.
Everything in the kitchen looked exactly as we’d left it.
The black box still sat on the counter, and the bowl of pinkish water, the one mixed with my blood.
It was all still there as proof that none of it had been a dream.
I swallowed, forcing myself to move, rummaging through the box in search of anything that looked like medication.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered under my breath.
“There’s got to be something in here.” But no such luck. I let out a frustrated groan before moving on to the cupboards and then the drawers, which only drew even more sighs of annoyance from me.
But then the sound came. Soft. Barely there. A floorboard groaning under a weight that wasn’t mine.
My breath caught.
I didn’t move, afraid to break whatever fragile thread of stillness held the moment together. Slowly, I turned my head, eyes straining to pierce the shadows near the doorway.
And there he was.
Vasileios.
Standing just inside the threshold, half bathed in the low ceiling light, half swallowed by the dark.
His presence filled the room without a single word.
The light touched the sharp line of his jaw, the dark fall of his hair, the faint glint of crimson still caught beneath his nails.
His expression was unreadable, somewhere between anger and fascination.
As if he couldn’t decide which part of him wanted to step forward first.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.
The air between us trembled, charged with something unspoken, something dangerous. And then I remembered to breathe.
“If you’re looking for a knife,” came a deep voice from the doorway, smooth and low,
“…then you won’t have much luck looking in there.” He said, making me scream in shock, slamming the drawer that held nothing but serving dishes shut. The abrupt action caught my finger in the wood, making pain dig in deep, dragging a second cry from my throat, this one sharp and shocked.
A sound rumbled from him, not quite a growl, but close enough to make the air shift.
“Are you always this incapable?” he asked dryly, pushing away from the doorframe and stepping toward me. The closer he came, the larger he seemed, his shadow spilling across the tiles. Instinct made me step back.
“You startled me! I didn’t expect to trap my finger!” I said defensively, shoving the injured finger into my mouth like a scolded child. He stopped close enough for me to feel the warmth of him, his frown deepening as his eyes flicked down to my hand.
“Something, I might add, that wouldn’t have happened had you not been snooping around,” he said evenly.
“And had you remained in your room as requested.” His words sliced through the silence as sharply as any blade he claimed I wouldn’t find.
“Yes, well,” I snapped back,
“You may have used bandages and band-aids on me, but that doesn’t exactly cure the pain of being hit around the head a few times, does it?” I said like an insane person who had no concept of self-preservation. He blinked, the faintest crease forming between his brows.
“Pain,” he said flatly, as if it were a foreign concept.
“Yeah,” I shot back, exasperated and well… in for a dime, in for a dollar, so I might as well continue down this suicidal road,
“You know, painkillers, headaches, that pounding feeling like someone’s tap dancing on your brain?
That type of thing.” The words tumbled out faster than they should have, nervous energy tripping over itself.
Which meant I barely noticed the ghost of a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth.
He caught it too, snuffing it out almost instantly, as if the idea of smiling offended him.
It was almost amusing how he seemed irritated that I could provoke any emotion in him beyond anger or disdain. It made me wonder if the man had ever actually smiled.
And if he did, would his impossibly handsome face crack from the effort? Would it ruin that dark, brooding spell he seemed to live under? Probably not. I doubted anyone sane enough to look at him would ever dare to question him. His presence alone was enough to make grown men cry and run.
He was still watching me, silent, the faintest glint of curiosity in his eyes.
And the silence…the silence that was starting to gnaw at me, making me push for something.
“So, any chance a vampire would have any need for painkillers?”