Chapter Thirteen
CLARA
The castle breathed like a living thing. If I closed my eyes and focused, I could almost hear it speaking to me. There was an endless hush of stone and memories… ones that felt familiar but foreign all in the same breath.
Even in silence, it pressed down heavily enough to make my skin prickle.
I had spent the day barricaded in my room, refusing to leave after what I’d seen in the undercroft. The animal. The blood. Ivan’s hands slick to the wrist, his face unmasked at last. Terror and curiosity still wrestled in my chest.
I should have been exhausted. Instead, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned under the weight of the castle’s oppressiveness, staring at the fire until its crackle turned to static in my head. When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I rose.
I didn’t go far, just to the heavy chair by the window, wrapping myself tighter in a blanket. My bare feet were curled under me, the cold stone floor enough to cause my whole body to shake from the chill.
Moonlight slanted in through the window, the light pale and bruised. The blanket didn’t help. The coldness of the castle went to its very bones. I brought the blanket to my nose and inhaled. I couldn’t deny the fabric held Ivan’s scent.
My fingers drifted along the edge of the chair. Restless. Frustrated. It had been days, but I didn’t know how many. I couldn’t tell. Time blurred here, hours bleeding into one another until even light and dark felt the same.
I hadn’t spoken to my family. No one knew if I was alive. I pictured both my grandparents’ faces, my mother’s anxious texts, the way panic would hollow them out. They’d have called the police by now. They’d be frantic.
But I knew they’d never find me. Not here. This place wasn’t just a home; it was a fortress built to keep the world out.
To keep me in.
I wanted to scream, wanted to hurl something until glass shattered and stone cracked. I missed them. God, I missed my family. A soft sound broke the air, and I stiffened. My heart kicked once, hard.
“You’re thinking of your family.”
His voice came from the doorway, low and steady, like he’d been standing there for hours, waiting. I turned, breath sharp. Ivan stood half in shadow, half in firelight, the contrast making him seem unreal.
A man, yes, but more… always more. His hair had fallen loose across his forehead, and his shirt hung unbuttoned at the throat, revealing a line of pale skin I hated myself for noticing.
“You want your family,” he whispered, not a question.
“Stay out of my head,” I snapped, though the words trembled.
“I don’t need to read your mind.” He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the room, his presence filling it without effort. “It’s written all over your face like a book.”
He clasped his hands behind his back as he advanced closer, measured and patient. I held my ground even as my pulse betrayed me.
“The way it beats at the base of your throat,” he went on. “The look in your eyes. The way your body carries grief… it’s too heavy to hide.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, keeping the blanket snug around my body like a shield. “I just want them to know I’m alive. That I haven’t disappeared.” My voice cracked. “Do you have any idea what that would do to them? To my mother?”
Something flickered across his expression. Pity maybe, but it looked wrong on him. In fact, his expression was almost one of anger. Not directed at me but for me. Like the idea of me being upset unsettled him more than he’d ever admit.
“I know,” he said finally, and the simplicity of it startled me. “I know what it’s like to lose everything and be left with only silence. I won’t have you suffer the same wound. Not when I can spare you.”
My breath caught. “What are you saying?”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a phone. Not sleek or modern like the one that had vanished from my bag but old and sturdy. A flip phone with no internet, no GPS.
I took it before I realized what I was doing. It felt substantial, solid in a way that made my stomach twist. My fingers curled around it, trembling.
“I will allow you to speak with them,” he said at last, his voice low enough to vibrate against the stone. “A brief call. Tell them you’re safe. That you’re away. Nothing more.”
I stared at the phone as if it were an artifact dredged from the earth. “You’d trust me with that?”
A faint, humorless smile curved his mouth. “You could beg into that machine until your throat bled, Clara, but no one would reach you here. I give you this not because you can betray me but because I don’t want you to fear me. I want you to know you’re not a prisoner.”
His words should have chilled me. Instead, heat spread through me.
Anger and relief tangled into something else entirely.
The phone was warm in my palm, and felt impossibly heavy for its size.
My thumb hovered over the buttons, useless.
What would I say? That I was safe? That I was alive?
That I was a prisoner in a story no one would believe?
My hands shook. Finally, I dialed my mother’s number. When the line clicked alive, her voice cracked through the static, frantic and breathless. “Mom.”
“Clara?” My mother’s voice hit like a knife. Raw, hoarse, broken. “Oh my God, Clara, where are you? Are you hurt? We thought—” Her breath hitched. “We thought something terrible had happened.”
Tears blurred my vision instantly. “Mom, no. I’m okay.”
“You’re okay?” Her voice cracked on the word. “You vanished without a word, your phone is off, and the police found your car abandoned near the trailhead. Clara, where are you? Please, just tell me something.”
“Don’t worry, Mom.” My throat tightened until it hurt to breathe. “Please—just listen to me, okay? I’m safe. I promise. I’m… with someone I trust.”
Across the room, Ivan stood near the fire, the flames painting his face in gold and shadow. His expression didn’t change, but the weight of his stare anchored me in place.
“Someone?” she echoed, soft and confused. “Who? Clara, what are you talking about? Are you with Laszlo? He called us and said he gone out to see you, and the two of you spent a little time together, but he hasn’t been able to get a hold of you for days.”
My pulse stumbled. “No, I’m not with Laszlo,” I blurted. “I… met someone new. Things just got complicated. I guess time got away from me. I’ve been overwhelmed with everything. I just needed to step back for a bit.”
There was silence, the kind that felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting for the ground to give way. Then my mother whispered, her voice trembling, “Sweetheart… if someone’s there and you can’t talk freely, just tell me your grandmother’s name. I’ll know. I’ll get help.”
My throat closed, words scraping out raw. “I’m fine. I promise. I love you, Mom,” I said, the truth of it splintering something inside me. “I swear I’m okay. Please, just tell everyone not to worry.”
“I cannot help but worry,” she breathed, and I could hear the quiet hitch of her breath. “You sound… different, honey. Scared. Just come home, Clara. Whatever’s happening, we’ll fix it together.”
“I will,” I lied, my voice barely a whisper. “Soon. But, Mom, listen to me.”
A beat of hesitation, then, “What is it, sweetheart?”
“Laszlo isn’t who you think he is. I broke things off and I don’t want to talk to him again. If he tries to reach out, don’t believe a word he says. Please. Promise me.”
There was a pause so long I thought the line had gone dead. Then, quietly, “Okay. I promise. But, Clara… whatever’s going on, whatever you’re caught in, you can still come home. Nothing is too far gone.”
The lump in my throat nearly strangled me. “I know,” I whispered. “I know, Mom.” There was nothing left to say. I ended the call before the sound of her crying could destroy me.
The phone felt heavier than it should as I set it down. Ivan still hadn’t moved. His eyes were dark, unreadable, but the surrounding air had shifted. It was less menacing now and filled with dark hunger.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. I stood trembling, heart in pieces, caught somewhere between rage, relief, and something I didn’t want to name.
“You’re welcome, Clara.”
I turned toward the window, but his hand caught my wrist. The jolt of it stole my breath. He didn’t squeeze—just held me, his thumb brushing the pulse that thundered beneath my skin. His eyes locked on mine, and for the first time, the hunger in them was unmasked. Not for blood but hunger for me.
“You dream of me,” he said. Not a question. A truth. “You always have. You just didn’t know who I was until now.”
My mouth opened, but no denial spilled out. He was right. I had dreamt of him my entire life. Sometimes just flashes of a shadowed face or of a voice calling my name. Other times, especially since I’d come to Romania, they’d been more intimate… more revealing.
And here in this castle, they’d grown darker. I could feel the ghost of his lips at my throat, the weight of his hands on my bare skin, and the sensation of those sharp teeth breaking skin and sinking deep into my neck.
“I don’t—”
He was in front of me before I could finish, his body a blur of movement that stole the air from the room.
Instinct made me hold my breath, and I tipped my chin back as I met his gaze.
For an instant, everything felt achingly familiar, like I’d stood in this exact moment before, reaching for him in another time.
A yearning rose inside me, deep and raw. It felt like something that had always lived in my bones waiting to be remembered.
“Ivan.” His name fell from my lips in a whisper, soft and desperate, more plea than anything else.
His focus dropped to my mouth, his gaze heavy-lidded, his expression twisting with hunger and something dangerously close to worship. The air thickened, vibrating between us. I knew then that whatever line existed between us was about to shatter.