Chapter 12
Twelve
Isquinted at the writing underneath the candlelight, rubbing my tired eyes. Anxiety knotted through my stomach, and shame burned in my cheek.
I kissed him. In return, he had bitten me, partaking in my own blood. My fingers touched the bandage. Ebony patched me up after the stunt in the dining room, insisting I’d get blood all over the fine fabrics.
“This is not a hospital,” she said, her ghostly fingers applying the adhesive to the spot. “But this should do. Try not to get hurt too often here. We don’t have many medical supplies, seeing as the inhabitants are dead or undead.” She chuckled.
Ebony had been diligent in wrapping me up, being the only source of comfort.
“How did you ever become trapped here?” I said, trying to divert my attention away from the fading warmth and the faint ghostly touches not coming from the spirit dressing my wounds.
“I was a nurse sometime in the summer of 1806, taking care of down-and-out folks of the village. I am not sure what it is like where you are from, but those streets are not kind to those whose luck has run out.” She cut another strip of tape, cold fingers pressing down on the spot of my neck.
“There seemed to be a lot of mangled children that came in, blood in every which way. I lost a few of them to their injuries and a few others to infection.”
“So, when did you come to the castle? I thought that this place would be older than a few decades,” I asked in place of the question burning through my head.
She thought for a moment. “Silas picked me up from the back alley after I had been jumped by a patient I’d treated. Patched me up and everything, insisted I drink from him, but I refused. I came here when the fever set in from the infection and I knew I was on death’s doorstep.”
I contemplated for a moment, lost in thought, and held my tongue as questions swirled. “You died here?”
Ebony finished patching my neck, her dark eyes heavy with sorrow. “Master is kind and not the villain that you claim him to be, nor the bloodthirsty vampire the town believes. He is simply a man. A man who has lost everything.”
I gruffed, “He does not appear to have lost everything. He lives here as an immortal being watching the rest of us grow old.”
She gave a wryly smile. “But at what cost? A cost in which none of us will have to pay in this life or the next. He is alone, watching everyone around him move on.”
There was a time when I was not like this.
Ebony left me to ponder these words, to curse silence and solitude.
I flipped through the journal from the library.
The ferocious scribbled writing across the page gave me some indication of whoever it was may have been in distress, desperate to try and capture his words before something bad happened.
Before something got to him.
I rubbed at my face, eyelids drooping. I slid the book onto the nightstand and took the bit of the herbal remedy Ayla prescribed as directed, letting the icy chill settle into my chest to ease the ache.
I placed the satchel of herbs back onto the small table, picking up the knife from under my dress and held the blade into my hand.
I came so close, only to fail. The next time—the next time I needed to make sure I did not fail.
I tucked the knife under my pillow, blowing out the lights and succumbing to the dark.
Shadows lurked in the corner of the room, watching and waiting as a wolf does when on the hunt—for the opportunity to strike down vulnerable prey.
Terror seized my body and soul, chest tightening as a heavy weight pressed down.
Snarling teeth tore into my flesh, ripping muscles and sinew until I was but a bloodied corpse.
Whether a dream or reality, all there was is blood, splattered against the wall, the bed sheets, and staining my soul.
I’m held down, chest rushing and falling, becoming heavier as ragged gasps filled my ears as a plea for air.
Valeria. Oh, Valeria—such easy prey.
The shadows whispered to me, beckoning to follow into its twisted dark depth of the underworld. A sweet song pulsated, and my own body fought to retain control with the icy grip burning cold against flesh.
I wasn’t ready, not now.
The embrace was dark, cold, and familiar.
Its shadow threatened to consume or tear me apart.
I snapped my eyes open as snarling jaws crawled up the bed, snapping into a faceless grin accompanied by a distant, cruel laughter.
It flicked out a forked tongue, licking its maw intermittently, the metallic scent of blood clinging to its breath as a claw pinned me to the bed.
You’re mine.
A scream erupted from my lips, rubbing my throat dry and raw with the taste of blood. It was too much, the overwhelming agony tearing to pieces upon the chamber bed.
“Stop, stop!” I screamed, sobbing.
“Valeria! Valeria, open your eyes.”
It was still dark, a candle burning softly on the nightstand illuminating enough to see the shadows and the void receding from my mind and the bed. Body shaking, I wrapped the blanket tight around myself, darting to the rest of the room.
In my panic, I nearly missed him.
Silas was holding my shoulders, face hard set as the candle licked at his features.
Silver hair draped over his shoulder and tickled my nose.
The other item I missed was he was bare from the waist up, pale scars etched across dark skin in the same grotesque manner as the one upon his face.
Lean muscles in his arm tensed as he continued to restrain me to the bed, breathing in tandem with me.
I shook his body off, the terror still fresh as the taste of blood and death coated dryly in my throat. “Let me go,” I said, gritting my teeth. I glanced toward the armoire and found it hadn’t moved. “How the hell did you get in?”
Silas frowned, sliding his hands from the blanket and barricading me to the bed as I attempted to flee. “That is what you’re concerned about! You woke up screaming bloody murder, and that is what you are concerned with?”
“Of course that is what I am concerned about! The fact that you got in here without having to use the door is a cause for alarm!” I pushed against the headboard, determined to get away from the weight of his body. I kept my eyes glued to the wall, hoping that if I acted indifferent, he’d leave.
Silas paced about the room and ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know how they got in. None of the barriers were breached, and yet they were able to get this close.”
I huddled in the blanket, and the icy chill tingled against my skin, heart still racing. Chest heaving, I groused, “Are these your minions? Did you send them simply because I upset you with the truth? Is that it?”
In quick movements, he climbed onto the bed, cornering me. His face leveled with mine as he growled out, taking a hold of my body, dragging me down the bed. “If you want me to be the monster that I am, so be it. I will be the beast that so many people fear.”
I thrashed against him, grabbing at his hair and beating his chest. He pinned me down, his head and mouth dropping to the space between my neck.
“It would be so easy,” Silas hissed. “It would be so easy to take your life—to swallow it whole and feel no regret. Isn’t that what a true beast is—a monster that feels no pain—no regret that takes and takes and takes.”
“Stop . . . don’t. I—” I pounded at his chest, and a cough let loose before blood spilled from my lips onto the sheer nightgown—and his bare chest. I took hollow gasps, groping for as much air as I could. Each rile cough brought forth more blood that glistened crudely under candlelight.
Silas released me, and I fumbled my way to the nightstand.
The satchel hue blurred as the coughing worsened.
I knocked over the items on the side table, herbs flying to the floor.
The heavy book alongside the scattered pieces.
I collapsed, clutching my abdomen. Blood splattered across the floor as a pool formed over the spilled herbs.
I can’t breathe—I can’t breathe.
Was this to be the night I would finally die?
Body weightless, I was cradled by soft skin nestled among black fabric draped over my rattling limbs.
Eyes prickled with tears, I fisted the fabric, the coughing relinquishing itself at last. I dipped my head to my chest, and the taste of blood heavy and exhaustion wavered with each breath.
Silas’s body braced mine. He shifted, muttering a soft groan as he held out his wrist, the sheen of dark blood dripping onto his pants. “Drink.”
I pushed his hand away, the effort taxing, as it did not budge. “No, I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t? Drink.”
“I can’t.”
“Why do you insist on being so stubborn?” Silas sighed, and the cut on his wrist closed. He took my hand in his, admiring them, squeezing softly. “Do you want to be a walking corpse, is that it? A beautiful walking corpse.”
“That’s not it.” I tucked my head into my knees, recalling Miriam’s last words. “It means I have to keep a promise. If I drink and become like you—it means keeping a promise that’ll kill me either way.”
The thought of going back to the crumbling home, to Mama’s judging eyes and Miriam’s sweet innocence to the world was a noose I was not ready to tighten.
I envied Miriam for Mama’s favoritism, the control she had over her own life.
She had a choice in what she did. Even away from Endovier, I did not have choices—I was more of a pawn in freeing people from a monster who showed more kindness than I had seen in the last year.
I wetted my lips. “I can’t go back to being a pawn, to having my life lived for me.”
Since I’ve met this man, I’ve been open to a world of contradictions of what should and shouldn’t be. Nothing about him made any sense, and it terrified me.
I traced the lines of his callous hand, the warmth of his scent and body melding with mine.
Heat burned in the pit of my stomach and threatened to explode in beautifully disastrous ways. The intense desire drove me to the brink of madness to where dream and reality mashed against each other in horrifying beauty.
Silas stroked my back, easing the ache from the cough as exhaustion plunged me further into wandering thoughts.
I wanted to be selfish. To let this man—this beast ruin me and sully the last bit of innocence I had left to offer. Be the last thing I’d experience on the Earth before death swept me away in their cool embrace. I’d accepted my ruination at this man’s hand.
Silas’s arm crossed my body, nails slicing into his wrist. Blood welled from the wound as he offered it once more.
“Then, drink and live on your own terms. Not because you owe a debt or a promise but because you want to live. To visit places you have never seen, to do things you haven’t done and everything else in between. Drink and live, Valeria. Live.”
I stared at the blood, and it dripped into my lap as dark red stained the white nightgown. “I won’t turn into what you are if I drink this?”
I was childish to ask, taking his wrist with shaky hands. I marveled at how the wound slowly closed, stitching itself back together and, in moments, disappeared.
Silas shook his head. “No, it’ll just heal, but I will caution you to be wary for a few hours. With my blood in your system, I don’t want you to do anything that may risk causing death.”
I met his gaze, and questions swirled about in my head as blood coated us both.
I didn’t speak them aloud as I brought his wrist to my lips.
I licked the wound. It tasted nothing like the blood I have been coughing up for the last year.
It tasted of dreams, of hope, and of sweet warmth, as if I’d been basking in the summer sun.
I took slow, greedy sips—the world fell away into nothingness, fire surging combusting.
He groaned as his other hand stroked my cheek. “That’s it. Gently now.”
Silas’s voice was a million miles away, flooded by other images—visions of the boy.
In a rose garden under the cover of darkness, a halo of moonlight crowned him, face drawn in seriousness as he reached a hand out, grasping it.
They mean to hurt you.
Hurt me?
I fear for your life, Cecilia. They mean to kill you. This, I am sure.
His eyes dimmed with sadness. In this vision, he wore the same suit, with the white mask nowhere to be found. The scene played out from another perspective as if I was in their head, watching these scenes play out, their hands intertwining with his.
A spectator to the past.
Find the truth, no matter the cost. Save him, Valeria.
Blood splattered the lover’s hand, shock written across the boy’s face. A guttural, soul-wrenching scream echoed in my head. Crimson dotted the vision.
“Valeria, that’s enough. Valeria.”
When I’m back in my own body, Silas’s arm was wrapped around me, the taste of him on my lips. He was holding me still, chest rising and falling in tandem, and my nails were dug into his arm, tiny half crescent indents mar his skin.
“I-I there was—”
His face nuzzled into my neck as he stroked my hair, a calming touch as my mind shattered to what I witnessed. Blood. So much blood with someone in this vision murdered in front of his—her—my eyes.
Silas whispered, seductive and relaxing, “Shhh, you’re safe. Just sleep. I’ll be here for you to kill tomorrow morning. Just sleep, Little Dove.”
My eyelids fluttered, exhaustion calling as the strength from earlier faded quickly. I tried grasping on to stay conscious enough to dissect these visions. I drifted slowly and then, all at once, I fell limp in his arms to be greeted in sleep by a woman’s voice in the depths.
Save him, Valeria. You are almost out of time.