Chapter 3 Penelope
PENELOPE
Silence fell between them as he stood there, arrogantly staring down at her as if he had already won her over. As though she were nothing more than a pretty little trinket for his amusement.
Her lips parted, breath stalling, heat flooding her cheeks as she forced her gaze anywhere but on him.
He only smirked. Slow. Languid—mocking. And damn him, even that was an insult.
The letters dangled from his fingers, close enough that she could snatch them if she wanted to…but he knew she wouldn’t. Not when his meaning was so blatant. He wanted her to play along. To play School Ma’am for a vampire. To submit. To bare herself anytime he wished and let him drink.
He stepped back at last granting her a breath of space, his laugh rolling out low and wicked. Sinful. Almost musical. As though he hadn’t just invited the Mayor’s daughter to give herself to the very monster her father wished to see eradicated.
“I will not force myself on you, so calm your heart, Lamb. I like my women to squeal beneath me, but only because that is where they wish to be. And if you prefer your surrender dressed up in the lie of being taken—” his smirk cut sharper “—I can give you that, too.”
Penelope’s mouth fell open again and this time the words did not catch in her throat.
“Absolutely not,” she gasped. The thought of the impropriety—that she might wish for such an outrage, that she might long for the dangerous play he suggested—was so dreadful it made her dizzy.
“Leave. Leave at once!” she exclaimed, finding her footing as she shooed him away until he was once again at the open window.
“I would never give my body away at the whim of some sleazy, ill-mannered, whoreish, law-breaking vampire!”
Her shrill and shaken voice clanged around the room, echoing even louder then when she practiced her music.
Even as his back pressed against the window, and her hands found his chest to push him out—half hoping he might tumble to the street below and shatter upon it like glass.
But he only allowed the push, smiling still, as calm and unshaken as ever, watching her fury as though it were some delightful performance.
“I never said you must surrender your body or your virtue,” he murmured.
His hands moved with infuriating ease, catching her wrists, stilling her without effort.
His fingers curled warmly—too warmly—around her, drawing her hands down from his shirt and leaving the fabric rumpled in her wake.
With slow intention, he turned her wrists over, pale and delicate beneath the wavering candlelight.
“Blood,” he whispered, and the word itself seemed to darken the room. His thumb brushed against the frantic rhythm of her pulse. “That is all I require. And I can make it painless, should this thought frighten you.”
Penelope’s brows pinched together, her chest tightening at the thought of his teeth sinking into her.
“You’re a vampire,” she whispered.
“And you are human.” His gaze softened, though it gleamed no less dangerously. “But which of us, I wonder, is the greater monster?”
He dropped her hands like her touch burned him, straightening his tunic. “I know who your father is, Penelope. I know what he wishes for. What you all wish for. And yet what I offer you is not death, not chains, nor fire. It is a choice. Something your kind has never offered mine.”
Her room suddenly felt too small. Too closed in. His presence overpowered all else.
“You could take blood from anyone,” she forced out at last, her voice trembling but sharp, her chin lifted. “Why me? Why my blood?”
She expected him to laugh, to evade, to scorn her for her presumption.
Instead, his gaze dropped to her throat, and as his eyes lingered, her breath caught, her pulse stuttering under his heated watch.
“I have not drank from a human in many years,” he said at last. His gaze caught hers, and what flickered there was loneliness so sharp it lanced her chest. “I can drink from animals, it is how I survive. But as I have come to realize as of late, perhaps I deserve more than survival.”
Penelope felt her shoulders relaxing, as though his words had placated her growing nerves, morphing whatever emotions he drew out of her into something almost like sympathy…almost. After all, she knew that feeling. Knew what it was like to exist. To survive.
“Thus, I offer a deal that shall make us both feel something more than existence.”
“You cannot expect me to give myself to a m—”
Her words caught in her throat as his eyes narrowed at her, watching her as though he were expecting vitriol.
“To give myself to a man,” she corrected. “And what if my father were to find you? He could have you burned at the stake for even thinking to speak to me. Let alone trespass in my chambers, no less. It is not dignified in the slightest.”
His smile returned, slow and dangerous, as though he tasted something sweet in her defiance. “Perhaps you would fare better, Lamb, if you allowed yourself, once in a while, the luxury of being undignified.”
“And you presume to be the judge of what would do me well?” she demanded.
His fangs gleamed faintly as he leaned closer. “I presume nothing, Lamb. I only observe.”
“Why do you wish to learn to play?” she asked, gesturing towards her piano.
His eyes followed her hand, settling upon the ivory keys. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper.
“Because I like to listen. There is a sorrow in the music you make. A sorrow I would quite like to understand.” His gaze flicked back to her. “This despair you create. It sings to me.”
Penelope’s throat tightened at his words. Despair you create. She had never heard anyone speak of her music so plainly, nor so accurately.
Had anyone ever noticed anything beyond the well-timed notes she played? Beyond the mask of elegance of her music? Past every careful gesture demanded by her station?
“And if I refuse?” she asked, her voice breaking despite her resolve.
A shadow of a smile passed over his lips, and he bowed his head, as though her refusal wounded him and he welcomed that injury.
“Then I go. You will not see me again. You will never hear my voice, nor feel my hand upon yours. You will continue your life of silence, locked away until you are given like coin to a man. You will play your piano, and fill your father’s house with sorrow, and one day your husband’s.
And still, no one will know the song but you. ”
Her heart stuttered as his hand brushed over the breast of his coat, where the letters now rested. “And you will never see these again,” he added, soft and merciless. “And I ken, you could use a pause from your relentless routine.”
Heat burned her face. “You presume much.”
“Perhaps,” he answered gently. “But perhaps I do not.” His gaze deepened, as if he could strip away every layer of her.
“Because, Penelope Adams, do you truly wish for your life to remain within the walls another builds for you? Do you wish to give your music only to empty rooms… to ears that will never truly hear it?”
The air grew heavier, the candlelight itself bending toward him.
“I have a feeling, Lamb,” his voice dropped lower as he continued, “that should this be your final composition, it shall be the most polished sound of despair to grace even the heavens.”
Without warning, he stepped back, relieving her for the final time of his presence as he clung onto the edges of the open window.
She could not breathe. The way he had spoken, the way his eyes had stripped her bare—he had seen her.
Every hidden thought, every trembling piece of her that she fought to bury beneath civility and grace and the teachings she had been given.
His words had been mocking, yes—uncharitable, even.
But they had jangled within her like a church bell, ringing honest and loud, nonetheless.
“Your name,” she caught herself calling out as the vampire hoisted himself onto her windowsill, turning his head over his shoulder to glance back at her. “You never told me.”
“Elias.”
And with that, he dropped from her sight, disappearing into the darkness.