Chapter 2 Penelope
PENELOPE
There was a vampire in her room.
His eyes burned red in the darkness, his white hair falling in a curtain that stopped just short of them.
“W-what are you doing here?” she stammered, her heart pounding against her ribs in a wild, discordant rhythm. “My father—”
“—is far from here.” He stepped forward, silent despite the weight of his boots. “And your father’s rules mean little to me.”
Penelope sprang from the bench, jumping back.
He tilted his head, a low chuckle escaping as his gaze drifted unhurried over her.
“Even your heart has a melody,” he murmured, his voice dragging over her skin with a rawness that raised every hair along her neck. “A loud one, considering I’ve done nothing…yet.”
She pressed herself back until her spine found the cold edge of her bedpost, her fingers wrapping around the carved wood as if it could anchor her.
He moved without sound—no creak of floorboards, no whisper of cloth—until the space between them felt perilously thin. The scent of rain on stone and something metallic beneath it lingering in the air.
Her breath caught.
“Still,” he continued as he took another step forward, stopping only when fabric met fabric. “A melody is a melody is a melody. As I am sure you would agree.”
He lifted his scar-painted hand, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I never gave you permission to enter so—”
He laughed. A loud, deep laugh that for a moment, eased some of the tension that had been suffocating her.
“Ah,” he said, catching his breath. “Let me guess—you’ve a wooden stake and a bundle of garlic hidden somewhere? Perhaps a vial of holy water?”
Her brows knit, and she pressed herself harder into the bedpost.
His eyes dipped to her waist before climbing back up.
“I fear those are only myths, Lamb. Your wooden stake will pierce no deeper than a pin, and your holy water will do nothing but wet my skin. As for garlic—” his mouth curved again, but this time the amusement was sharper “—I prefer it with bread.”
She tried to shift her weight, to edge sideways, but his hand moved. Just enough to rest against the bedpost. The movement was lazy, almost careless, yet it sealed off her escape.
“You smell of fear,” he murmured, his voice so low it crawled up her chest, sending a shiver through her. “And something sweeter beneath it.”
Her pulse thudded loudly in her ears. “I’m not afraid of you,” she lied.
His eyes glinted at that. “Your scent disagrees.”
He leaned in—not touching, but close enough that the faint rise and fall of his breath brushed against her chest. His gaze dropped to her throat.
“You could scream,” he went on, the words curling like smoke. “Call for your father. For the townsmen.” His mouth hovered near her ear. “But you won’t… will you, Lamb?”
The air seemed to thin. Her hands itched to push him away, yet she could not will them to move. Somewhere deep inside, a small voice whispered that it wasn’t just fear rooting her to the spot.
“Not when I come offering something I am sure you have been wanting. Answers to the reason you look out that window every night.”
“You have been watching me?”
“You, your people, other towns too.” His eyes gleamed with something unreadable. “Unless you wish me to think you special?”
Penelope let out a sharp breath as she shook her head. “I need nothing from you. Leave my home at once, Vampire.”
“Nothing?” He tilted his head again, a shadow of amusement in his voice. “Well… it seems she might have sent me on a pointless journey, then. I do hate wasting time, you see.”
The vampire turned and crossed the room to the window, wrenching it open with little effort.
“She?”
The vampire paused, hands braced on the sill, and glanced over his shoulder.
“Do not trouble yourself about it. I told her—supported now only by your lack of interest—that it was useless. Clearly you have enough friends that you do not fret over losing one.”
Friends?
Penelope did not have friends. Not since they had been married off. Mrs. Pencrook would have scoffed at the idea of a woman occupying her time outside of her duties to her husband.
There was a time, of course, that such things did not matter. When the women she now knew as belonging to various men, were once girls. When they would make crowns of flowers and dance in the streets with no fear of the shadows or what might exist within them.
That time, however, had long since passed.
The only friend Penelope still had was—
“Eleanor is alive?”
Penelope abandoned whatever fear had been building in her chest as she crossed the room, and without thinking, grabbed the sleeves of his white tunic. His eyes fell to her hand before lifting to meet her gaze.
“So you remember her name,” he said, his voice edged with faint mockery. “And here I thought your wealth and luxury blinded you to such mortal things. It almost sounds as though you worry for her.”
“She is my oldest and dearest friend,” Penelope snapped.
“Every night since she was taken, I have stared out that window, hoping to see her return. And every night I weep when I am met with only darkness. So forgive me if I do not take kindly to a monster breaking into my home—into an unwed woman’s bedroom, of all things. I need to know she is safe.”
“Taken?” His brow lifted. “I’m afraid you are mistaken. Your friend left of her own free will. Though I hardly expect someone like you to consider the possibility that she found happiness with a monster.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Someone like me?”
He shrugged, turning to lean casually against the window frame.
“She has letters,” he said, ignoring her question. Dipping a hand into his chest pocket, he drew out a worn, creased piece of parchment. “Many, in fact. Writes to you most nights. And yet… you seem to have received none. One has to wonder why.”
Penelope reached for the envelope but he lifted his hand, clicking his tongue as he waved it above her.
“I have done my job. You know she lives. You know she is in no danger.”
“She sent you with a letter—that is mine! Eleanor wanted me to have it!”
“And she is neither my ward nor my keeper,” he said smoothly. “I told you of her letters. You know she breathes. Beyond that, Lamb, I owe nothing to you nor her.”
“Please. I can pay you. Good coin—gold, silver. Whatever you want!”
“Whatever I want?” He laughed, low and without mirth. “I have walked the world long since before your grandparents’ time. I have more wealth than anything your dear father could dream of offering.”
“Then what is it you wish for? Clearly you want something or you would not have mentioned the letters. So, what is it?”
“I wish to make you an offer. A fair one, if you will have it.”
Penelope’s brows scrunched together, their closeness suddenly dawning on her. Releasing his shirt, she stepped back.
“I shall give you all the letters she writes, become your personal courier. I will also give her your letters should you wish to write back.”
He would do that? A vampire? He would risk wandering beyond the reaches of the Evermore forest for… her?
The vampire’s red eyes were steady upon her.
His brown skin soft under the light of the moon that poured into her room.
He was taller than anyone she had met before and looked as though he were carved from the mountains.
If he wanted to, he could take her, and her screams would be lost to the night.
He had no reason to offer her anything. So, if he was asking, that meant it was something only she could offer.
Only she could know. And likely, it would be no small ask.
Not when he seemed to know Eleanor, and know Penelope’s habits of how oft she would stare out the window.
“What do you want?” she finally asked. “If it is not coin, I do not see that there is much I can offer.”
The vampire smiled as he took a step forward, his eyes upon her like a predator, his fangs peaking out of the corners of his mouth.
Penelope swallowed nothing but her own fear.
Those fangs had tasted blood—violence. They have killed. Knew the taste of death.
“Teach me to play,” he said, tilting his chin toward the grand piano behind her. “Every night, when I know you are alone and your father is asleep. And,” he paused.
Penelope’s breath caught in her throat. Of course. Of course there was more. Of course he would not ask for something as simple as having her play School Ma’am.
Leaning in, his breath fanned the nape of her neck as his voice turned into something smooth, something dangerous.
“And each night,” he continued, “you will let me drink from you until you have satisfied me.”