Chapter 18
PENELOPE
The bench was too small for them both, but Penelope didn’t mind.
She loved the way his thigh pressed against hers, the way his sleeve brushed her arm whenever he moved.
The piano loomed before them, an ancient, untamed thing, and Elias—immortal, merciless Elias—looked almost human as he studied the keys with a frown.
His hands hovered, elegant and unsure, before dropping into another harsh chord. The sound clanged through the room, too loud, too sharp, and he cursed under his breath.
Penelope smiled, unable to help herself. “For someone as ancient as yourself, I am surprised that you let a piano get the better of you.”
His head turned, eyes narrowing, but the heat in his gaze softened when he caught the curve of her grin. “Careful, Lamb. I’ve slain men for less mockery.”
“You should not find such ease in uttering threats, Vampire,” she teased, her hand sliding over his. She pressed his fingers gently onto the ivory, shaping the notes herself.
The sound that came was imperfect, hesitant—but when he looked at her, not the keys, she thought it was the most beautiful music she’d ever heard.
“Why would I stop,” he murmured, lips brushing her temple as his hand left the keys, “when I know how my threats… excite you?”
His other hand had already found her thigh, fingers curling into the folds of her skirts, anchoring her to him.
Penelope tried to laugh, but it caught somewhere in her throat, the sound breaking into a breathless gasp. “Elias—”
“Yes, Lamb?” His smile was wicked, but his gaze softened, reverent even as his thumb stroked the tender skin just below her sex through the thin fabric. “You guide my hands at the keys, but here”—he pressed firmer, closer, teasing—“here, I think you prefer when I do the leading.”
Her lips parted, her retort lost somewhere in the thunder of her pulse. He turned to her, slow, deliberate, as though daring her to pull away.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
When his mouth finally touched hers, the piano beneath her hands gave a soft, accidental chord—thin and trembling, the sound of her complete surrender.
“I think,” she whispered against his lips.
“Tell me all that you think,” he whispered back, kissing her again and again.
Her heart thundered in her chest, so loud she wondered if either of them could hear anything beyond that small space that existed between them.
“I think, I love—”
“What is the meaning of this?”
Her stomach dropped as though the floor had vanished, all of the blood rushing to her head causing her to dizzy as she looked at her bedroom door, because standing there was her father.
His face was red and contorted with rage as he stared at the pair of them, Elias’ hand still on her thigh.
“F-father,” she stammered, rushing to stand on her unstable legs.
It felt as though time had been suspended as she crossed the room, placing her hands on his chest. “Father, please, I can explain! I-I—” But no—no.
The words couldn’t come out. They wouldn’t come out.
Her breaths caught in her throat, choking her all while she fought to keep up with her own heart.
“Vampire!” her father roared, seizing Penelope by the arm with enough force to make her yelp as he dragged her behind him. “Penelope, get Henry. He will save you!”
At the sound of her pain, Elias shot to his feet, every motion fluid and predatory. He towered over her father, keeping deliberate space between them. “Release her,” he ordered.
“In the name of god—I compel you! Begone!”
Elias chuckled—dark and misshapen as he stepped closer. “God?” he asked, stepping closer and closer, removing that dreaded space between them.
“Father, please—”
“Silence!” he ordered her. “In the morning we will cleanse you at the church.”
“Cleanse?” Elias clicked his tongue, amused. “Is my touch so filthy? If you wish to cleanse me from her… I’m afraid it is far too late. The only time your daughter calls to God is when I am with her at night.”
“Elias!” Penelope gasped, heart thrumming, caught between shame and fear.
Elias’ gaze met hers and a flash of… hurt? Yes, pain crossed his feature. But he held his hand out to her. An offer.
“Elias… please. Go,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Please.”
His brows pinched together as he backed away slowly, his face contorting as his shoulders fell as though she had struck him. And then—he laughed.
“Perhaps it does little to help our cause,” Elias murmured, the barest curl of a smile tugging at his lips, “to confess that your daughter tastes… exquisite.”
“Elias!” Penelope exclaimed, but it was too late. He was gone, out the window and onto the streets below. Penelope did not think as she rushed towards the window.
“Penelope! We must fetch Henry!” her father roared behind her, voice ragged with disbelief and fury.
But she did not hear him—not truly. Not as her feet found their own will, perhaps for the very first time, carrying her down the stairs, through the door, and out into the street.
And there he was—in broad daylight, exposed, standing in the street watching her.
“You’re behaving like a—”
Elias closed the space between them, moving faster than her mind could comprehend until he was towering over her, his breath caressing her.
“A what? Go on. Say it.”
“I—I was not going to—”
“Say it!” His voice cut through her. “I was acting like what? A monster? A vampire? Tell me, what should I act like then? Like you? Like them? All prim smiles and practiced false kindness? Shall I pretend not to smell the blood in their churches or hear the screams behind the silence of their women? Would that make me more palatable? More acceptable? To your father? To you? If I did all of this, would you call me as yours or even then would you be ashamed of me?” Her chest tightened as his gaze bore into her.
“I hear your heart when I call you mine,” he whispered.
“The fear. The shame. It surrounds me, suffocates me. And yet… I endure it. Because I… I don’t have a choice. ”
Penelope’s eyes searched his and she trembled beneath the weight of her own cowardice. Her lips parted, closed. Opened again. Nothing. Nothing but the silence.
Elias drew in a breath he did not require, his voice softening into something wounded and ruinous.
“Of course you wouldn’t accept me. How could you? I am a vampire. A murderer, by nature. My veins run cold. My breath lingers only out of habit. When you kiss me, I do not breathe. When you enter a room, my heart does not race.”
He paused, and the ache between them deepened into something almost holy.
“And yet… I swear to you, Penelope, I can feel it break. I can feel it shatter—this wretched, undead heart—when you look at me like I am a thing worthy of your shame. A creature. A blight. A monster. If that is how you love me… then no matter how fiercely I crave that cruel, impossible love, I do not deserve it.”
“Elias…”
But what could she say? What words could she string together from the canyon that existed between them in that moment?
What right did she have to his heart when she has done the exact thing as all humans did to him. To his people. To Eleanor and Osiris.
Elias watched her.
Then, stiff in the shoulders and trembling at the mouth, he slipped a hand into the breast of his coat. From within, he drew a small stack of weathered envelopes, bound together with fraying twine.
“The letters. I no longer wish to continue this arrangement. She wrote to you every day. They are yours now.”
Placing the letters in her hands, just as quickly as his touch ruined her with the realization of just how much she craved it, he was gone.
And as she stood there in the streets, accompanied only by her own shallow, broken breaths. Her tears silently fell onto the parchment, dampening it with traces of what she had done.
Her father’s hands were iron as he dragged her back inside, slamming the door behind them with a finality that stole her breath. The lock clicked.
“One day,” he said, his voice tight with conviction, throwing her into her bedroom as he held a single bronze skeleton key, “you will realize that I am doing this for you. You will forgive me eventually.”
Penelope’s heart pounded, equal parts fury and panic as he closed her door, locking her away. She rushed to the door and pressed her hands against it, fingers clawing at the wood.
No—no. No, no, no, no, no.
She was locked away again.
Trapped again.
Penelope clawed at her throat as her ragged breaths strangled her, falling to her knees as her sobs became trapped in her throat.
She was caught, confined, and helpless again.
“I’ll be good,” she whispered.
“I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I’ll be good!”
Penelope gasped for air as her heart seized in her chest. Her nails dug into neck sending grounding, sharp pricks through her.
“Father!” She screamed, “I’ll be good, please let me out!”