6. Chapter 6 #3
“What else did they say?”
“That I should be scared of you.”
Her heart was scoring numbers in her chest. Testing the muscles to see just how much they could bear before bursting. “And are you scared of me?”
“I’m not.”
I hummed, nodding. “I can hear every single heartbeat in the entirety of the estate—farther back, too, if I concentrate long enough and filter through the noises of nature. Christof’s should be the most recognisable one since I’ve known him all my life.
Especially when it is at rest. Age is doing that to him.
Slowing him down, wearing it out. But that’s not the one I recognise the easiest if I were to close my eyes.
Yours is. Especially when it is locked in the same room as me.
Like a metronome switching from allegro to vivace.
And—” I raked my gaze down her shoulders, past her naked arm poking from the blanket, down to her delicate, long fingers grasping the material of her nightgown tightly.
“When I look at you, it hits presto. I’ve tortured men and they’ve been less scared of me than you are. ”
Every letter leaving her lips shivered. “You make me nervous.”
“Is that what Agnes told you to tell me?” I asked, my fangs burning the longer I stayed in here with her.
Every instinct in my body recognised her as prey, roused by the wide, trapped look in her eyes, the quick gulps of air she drew in, the shivers coating her skin, her pulse hitting her breastbone in staccato.
Maybe my trip to the Bloodhouse had been too short.
I took in enough blood to stay alive, never allowed myself to indulge—not that I could.
For the first time in a long, long while, I wished I’d indulged.
Whiskey tasted like poison down my throat as I went on, “What else did she teach you to do? Did she tell you to act submissive, make me happy, flatter me? Did she teach you how to get into my bed, how to please me so you could get what you want?”
She wasn’t a red maiden, but nothing could have stopped Agnes from preparing her like the others. A spy who’d do anything to get what Agnes had ordered her to. Maybe even more capable than her red maidens.
Blood trickled down her nose and she wiped it with the back of her hand as she sat up straight. “Is that what I’m supposed to be doing? Pleasing my vampire master? Servicing my vampire master?” She pushed up on shaking legs and gathered up her skirts as she climbed on my lap to straddle me.
Fuck.
I could feel the venom dripping from my fangs, souring the taste in my mouth. My gums were sore as I pressed my tongue to the back of my teeth, fighting every urge my nature had granted me.
Her arms wrapped around my neck, her warm skin near sizzling as it rested against mine.
“Tell me then, Lord Duncan. How do you like to be kissed?” she asked, pressing small, shivering kisses down my jawline, not even realising the situation she’d put herself in.
“Touched,” she went on as her trembling hand slid between us to grasp the buttons on my shirt and undo them.
I swallowed down a groan when her hips rocked against mine. “That’s enough.”
“That’s what I thought,” she whispered against my skin, and I felt something wet and warm hit my neck.
Limbs still shaking, she pulled back. Her dark eyes were swallowed by what I knew very well to be fear, watery and red.
“What am I doing here, Lord Duncan? Did you marry me to collect a witch as a trophy?”
“Why did you agree to this marriage?”
“I was made to. Like you were.”
“That’s a dirty fucking lie.”
Her pulse was about to hit prestissimo, and only inches away from my teeth. The tender pain was now radiating from my jaw down to the back of my head. “I had my reasons,” she said quietly. “Why did you accept it when you didn’t want this marriage?”
“I had my reasons,” I said. Namely one. “What have you been doing at the library?”
She climbed off my lap, standing on unsteady legs. “I have a feeling you might already know.” Slowly backing away, she said, “I like a fair game. If you’re allowed to have your secrets, I’m allowed to have mine.”
“I thought you didn’t like rules.”
“You set them, not me,” she said, stopping by the cellarette, picking out my finest whiskey bottle as she left.
My head rolled against the armchair rest. With a groan, I forced myself to my feet.
It didn’t matter that Willow wasn’t a red maiden.
Agnes had made sure I knew she’d sent her here with a mission.
She’d wanted me to kill my wife at the earliest opportunity.
And that pissed me off more than whatever Willow planned on doing here.
I brought the book to my nose as I went up the stairs. Notes of violet and jasmine had stuck to the pages, just like they’d stuck to everything else in my house. It was becoming harder to breathe in the air without my stomach rolling from hunger.
Gentle sobs filled the silent air, and I paused in front of her room, resting my brow against her door and listening until they faded into soft hiccups. When her pulse fell into a soft adagio, I peeled myself back and left.