Chapter 15 #2
“Your blood whispers through my veins like a commandment.
The heart you gave me sets the rhythm of my breath, the discipline of my restraint, the shape of my devotion.
I did not choose this. It was etched and carved into my ivory bones when my eyes opened and found you standing before me, bare and radiant, marked in terrible, violent blood—my first vision, my true beginning.
Want rose in me then with a force that could have shattered stone, but I did not touch you.
I will not. To do so would be blasphemy.
You are not meant to be taken. You are meant to be revered, worshipped… coveted.
“Do not mistake this reverence for mercy. If you asked it of me, I would burn the world to ash and kneel in the ruin, knowing I would have done right by you. I would call it faith and believe it without doubt. I am capable of terrible, horrible things, and I would commit every one of them rapturously in your name.”
His voice grew somehow even lower. “Call this worship or damnation, but please understand this: I was not brought back to serve the world. I was not remade for forgiveness or absolution. I was brought back to serve you. And nothing short of your denial will ever unmake that truth.”
Her eyes flickered open at his words.
“You’ve cried with me,” he whispered, almost to himself.
Victoria watched as he examined her tear on his finger as if it were a sacred jewel.
Their eyes collided as the thunder cracked overhead.
She studied his face, unnerved by everything he was saying. There was no way he could remember her crying; he’d been dead. Nothing but battered flesh and broken bones. It was impossible.
But then again, so was he.
His expression softened and his arm moved out, slower this time, and grabbed Victoria’s hand. With a sharp inhale, she tried to pull it away, but his grip was already locked, not forceful or harsh, but steady and firm. With a slight tug, he pulled her to stand.
The hairs on Victoria’s arm rose. Without her father here, she would be the one forced to kill the creature now. And then she would be left all alone in the truest sense of the word—she wouldn’t even have this broken man, this stranger who she both knew so well and yet also not at all.
“Please.”
Her eyes snapped back to him as the soft sound of his plea startled her more than if he’d shouted.
She realized that he had never let go of her hand. He kept it in his grip and clasped his other hand over it carefully, as if it were a delicate butterfly that might escape as he kneeled before her.
The whites of Victoria’s eyes flashed, confused and worried as he dropped her hand and lightly—so lightly—wrapped his hands around her calves, pressing the cool, dusty fabric against her skin.
“You are all I know in this life. Please, I beg you.” His voice cracked as it adjusted to the soft words. “Do not run from me.” With warm, yellow eyes, he gazed up at Victoria with as much devotion as she had ever seen from a man of God as he prayed.
Her mouth fell open. He was out of his mind.
“I—I need to examine you again in the laboratory with my tools.” Her voice trembled, but the words had come out. “I just need to make sure that you are okay,” she added as she watched, puzzled by the way he looked at her.
No one had ever looked at her that way. Ever. She doubted any woman had ever been looked at with so much reverence. A thread of power laced the tapestry her mind wove as she struggled to understand what was happening.
“You want to check that I’m okay?” he asked with adoration in his gaze.
Victoria forced her gaping mouth closed, her jaw trembling as she did, but all she could manage was an unsteady nod.
The gesture felt useless, fragile, absurdly small.
How could this man, this thing so terrifying, so undeniably powerful, be at her feet, occupying the space like a penitent shadow, gazing up at her with the quiet devotion of something faithful and broken?
The sight twisted her insides. Though his mind was clearly gone, stripped hollow by whatever violence had unmade him, it was impossible to reconcile that absence with the sharpness of his eyes.
They followed her too precisely, too knowingly, dark and alert as if they understood everything she was and everything she feared.
It was that contradiction—the emptiness paired with such unnerving awareness—that chilled her most, as though something essential had been removed, yet something else had learned to watch in its place.
He stood to his full height and took a step back so that she could lead the way out.
Her foot trembled as she stepped forward, disbelief rooting itself in her ribs when he actually allowed her to pass him.
The space he gave felt unreal, almost ceremonial, as though he were granting her permission rather than simply moving aside.
At the top of the staircase, she stopped and looked back.
He followed a few steps behind, silent, his expression unreadable.
She turned forward again, the stone steps blurring as a knot cinched tight in her stomach, an image slamming into her without mercy: her father’s body tumbling down the steps of the basement.
The memory flashed so vividly it felt less like recollection and more like prophecy repeating itself, letting her know she would be next.
Go.
Go, she commanded herself.
But despite having not descended these stairs since the incident, her body rebelled. The absence of pursuit gave her mind too much space, too much time to circle the wound. Panic crept in through the cracks.
Her hand locked around the smooth railing, and she lifted her foot, holding it suspended over the second step.
The sound of her father’s fall roared inside her skull, echoing louder than the storm above.
She could feel the man behind her waiting.
Not rushing. Not retreating. Simply present.
She needed to move, get him into the manacles before he realized what she was doing.
She glanced back, almost hoping his gaze would frighten her into motion.
Instead, it remained impassive, nonthreatening. His thick black brows pinched together slightly, not in anger but in something closer to concern or confusion. Still, he did not shout. He did not advance. Did not touch her.
Only waited and watched.
Finally, she tried again, and no vision of her father froze her. Each movement sent the cold stone rushing past her, echoing like a drumbeat in her chest. Once at the bottom, she sprinted through the sitting room, fumbling until the door to the laboratory swung open with a metallic groan.
She was so close. So achingly close. If she could just get him onto the table, she could slip the cuffs over his wrists and lock them in place.
Her shoulders trembled at the thought of what would happen if he grew angry after only one manacle had clicked shut, but even a single tether would hopefully be enough to hold him against the wall long enough for her to decide what to do next.
The men who had built them had been certain they could not be picked, so surely she must have not closed them properly.
The familiar metallic tang of iron and chemicals hit her face as a rush of cold air swept into the room, making her lungs ache with each breath.
The dark stain at the bottom of the stairs seemed to pulse in rhythm with her own fear, a shadowed omen of what had happened.
Every nerve in her body recoiled at the sight.
A gust of wind swept past, brushing icy fingers across her skin, leaving her momentarily weightless, poised on the edge of collapse.
She braced herself for the impact—the sharp, crushing force of the stone steps pressing against her skull, the same unrelenting punishment that had claimed her father.
But instead of the expected agony, her body dipped into a surreal suspension.
Light pressure pressed behind her knees, along her back, and the world seemed to tilt as the man lifted her with fluid, predatory grace, careful to tuck the sheet around her body.
Halfway down the stairs, before she realized it, she was tucked safely against his chest, his head ducked low to avoid the ceiling, and she was carried as though she weighed nothing at all.
“What are you doing?” She struggled to breathe, feeling the closeness of his chest and face upon her.
The soft sound of her father’s heart pounded beneath his skin in a comforting lullaby.
Oakmoss, freshly dug soil, and petrichor.
That was what he smelled like. Not at all like a corpse, but earthy, like the branches of a hemlock after a heavy rain when the scent of the earth stretches up from the damp soil. She had expected him to smell like vinegar or decay, not like standing in the middle of a forest.
His eyes shifted to meet hers as she inspected the scar on his cheek.
She remembered how careful she had been repairing the patches of flesh on his face, how many hours she had spent with his face held in her hands.
Her eyes flicked off him quickly at the sudden intimacy she felt.
She’d felt it before with him, several times—only now his eyes were open and returned the look.
This was not the same man, she tried to remind herself.
This wasn’t even a man.
“What are you doing?” she repeated.
He didn’t respond. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, he moved a few feet into the lab, away from the staircase, watching her intently before he gently set her down.
Victoria grabbed a small oil lamp and lit it. Her heart slammed into her throat when the man leaped back with a small cry.
“The flame.” His eyes suddenly looked vacant and sad as he flinched away from it.
She replaced the glass around the lamp and turned the flame down. “It’s okay, look. It’s contained. It won’t hurt you. It’s just one small flame.” He nodded at her and relaxed slightly, remaining a good distance away.
“I don’t like fire.”