Chapter 37 A Silent Prayer #3
I glared at him. “Why? Because you have something you’d like to hide?”
He cast an angry, unyielding look across the car. I fought the urge to curl further away. “I did not have anything to do with their murders, which is all you need to know.”
I wondered what he’d done that he didn’t want to admit—sleep with Rebecca? Maybe. Did he drink her blood?
I turned my head back to the side. A couple walked hand in hand with their golden retriever down the street, happy, oblivious to a world around them that was much darker than their eyes would hopefully ever see.
How could a man who’d saved my life and held me so tenderly in his arms be a cold-blooded killer? I tried to reconcile it, to make some kind of sense out of it, but I couldn’t. I fought not to cry.
We’d driven out of town, the buildings had gradually dropped away, and the landscape switched between heavily wooded patches and long stretches of fields.
Overhead a solemn sky glowered. We traveled into a section where towering pines straddled both sides of the road, hooding the dark landscape and causing an oppressive feeling.
Or perhaps that was just the energy encasing the car.
There were no signs of other traffic, and no houses.
The car slowed, and we pulled to the left. A large black iron gate opened up. The property was surrounded by extra-high rendered-brick walls, blocking any view of the house. Walls built to keep people out.
Or people in.
We drove through the gates, down a long drive, and stopped in front of what I could only describe as a mansion.
It was a sprawling three-story brick house.
Rose bushes sat against its walls and little garden lights lit up their green leaves.
Yellow-and-white petals splashed heavily throughout.
Yellow roses were my mother’s favorite. She’d have loved this garden.
What a bitter irony. The wooden double doors were located mid-building.
On the level above, small balconies looked over the grounds, which were encased by thick forest.
I got out and took a few tentative steps toward the house as Karson moved like sweeping water up the stairs.
I paused at the bottom, feeling a little like a moth about to enter a bat’s den.
The pun didn’t escape me. It was silent, except for the ticking of the car engine.
Sweat sprung to the nape of my neck, and I fiddled with my burned fingers, wincing under a kick of pain.
Karson opened one of the huge wooden doors, flicked the outside and interior lights on, and turned back. The outside light highlighted his face.
He’s so beautiful, so captivating. And a fucking vampire. I’m about to enter a vampire’s house . . .
I inhaled a sharp breath, and then another, my heart thudding in my chest, and I began to feel lightheaded.
“Are you going to stand outside all night, or are you coming in?” he asked, as if I had any other option.
“What, no cave?” I clipped.
“Obviously,” he drawled.
With my whole body strung tight, I strode up the stairs.
The door clicked shut behind me, and the sound of it closing, trapping me inside, sent my heart beating even faster in alarm.
Inside was the most exquisite house I’d ever been in.
The foyer was huge, and a sweeping staircase curved up to the left, reaching the second floor, which flowed in both directions.
Perhaps the largest chandelier I’d ever seen hung above, its size relevant to the size of the home.
Beautiful paintings dotted the cream-colored walls, and rich, paneled timber spanned the bottom section.
The house was an old mansion renovated to its era, grand and luxurious, but it held a warm, welcoming, cozy feel.
I hovered in the hallway, tense, my hands curled into clammy balls, my awe overridden by a feeling of utter helplessness.
“Where’s the alcohol?” I asked, deliberately avoiding Karson’s gaze and trying not to think. Letting my mind dwell on everything would unravel the last remaining threads of my sanity.
He held his hand out, indicating a doorway to the left. “Please, go through. I’ll get you a drink,” he said, like I was just a regular guest in his house, and he was the pleasant host.
I went into an elegant sitting room. Two tan leather couches sat facing each other on either side of an open fireplace surrounded by an old, carved wooden mantel.
A large cream-and-burgundy patterned Persian rug and a black marble coffee table sat in between.
I lowered myself down onto one of the couches, running my hand over the leather. It was soft and expensive.
Karson sat a glass of wine on the coffee table and moved over to stand in front of the unlit fireplace.
“If your fangs come anywhere near me, you are going to be needing a tooth fairy tonight,” I warned.
His eyes danced with amusement. “There’s no such thing as the tooth fairy.”
“Two hours ago, I would have said there was no such thing as vampires either.” I took a sip of wine, my hands shaking.
I sucked in a deep breath and tried to settle them, but it didn’t work.
I took another sip, the liquid slopping against my lips.
I set the glass down, wiping my chin with the back of my hand.
He frowned watching my every move. “Amelia, there is no need to be afraid, I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you. Surely you should know that by now.”
I stood up and began to pace back and forth, my arms flapping like an angry bird. “I don’t know anything about you, Karson, not a nickel. And to think that I kissed you. I put my lips on the same lips that suck people’s blood!”
He looked somewhat offended. The audacity of him.
“And you . . . you should have told me.” My eyes filled with angry tears.
“Oh yes, Amelia.” He placed his drink down on the mantel, his voice sharp. “That’s the best idea, isn’t it—because you’ve reacted so well to the knowledge.”
“How the fuck did you expect me to react?” I snapped.
“Did you say, ‘oh by the way, I’m a vampire, so kissing me is not the best idea’—no!
I saw a woman dead on the floor with the blood sucked out of her!
Christ, she was probably no older than me.
She won’t go home to her family tonight.
And you, you ripped the head off a vampire with your bare hands, with complete disregard for his life. ”
“That vampire was going to kill you. I killed him to save you,” he bellowed with such intensity that my heart beat like a terrified rabbit’s.
The speed with which he switched gears in his emotions was startling.
One moment he was a small ember, gently glowing, and the next he roared into a raging inferno.
I was too furious to heed it. “Well, maybe you damn well shouldn’t have. Now what? I have to live with this, knowing what they do and being able to do absolutely fucking nothing about it.”
He turned his body away from me toward the window, picking up his glass, and his demeanor retreated back to the ember. “Mind your language, Amelia. It’s not becoming.”
I laughed a bitter, hollow laugh. “Yes, because language—how we speak to each other—is important. Killing people is fine though. God, you are so un-fucking-believable.”
“I kill with reason, and I have to feed or I die,” he said, his voice casual and dismissive.
I didn’t want to argue anymore. I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t. I wanted to escape; I wished I could just go home. “Where’s my room? I’m going to bed.”
I wouldn’t sleep, I knew that, but I needed to be alone to process my thoughts, calm my spiraling mind. I feared I might burst into a flood of tears at any minute.
“Any room on the second floor,” he answered, sounding almost defeated.
I looked back as I left the room. He lowered himself onto the couch I’d just left and stared, as if upset, at the floor.
I walked up the stairs, turning left down a ridiculously long, cream-colored hallway. The floor was covered with a long, beige-patterned rug. I scanned for blood stains, relieved to find none. I walked to the very end room because it was the furthest away from him.
The first thing I noticed was the door. Like the rest of the house, it was really old, wooden, excessively thick, and heavy like the front door—it had been crafted to keep people out. Once again, I thought, Or in.
I turned the black antique-looking handle and stepped inside, flicking on the lights.
It was a huge room. It had a king-size four-poster bed covered in sage-green silk covers and four perfectly arranged pillows.
A fireplace adorned the side wall, and straight ahead, a glass door led out to a balcony.
Opposite the bed sat an antique dressing table in excellent condition.
Beside that was an open door leading to a bathroom.
There was two other doors on the wall a few feet either side from the bed.
Probably walk in robes. Could also be sterile rooms with concrete floors that he took his victims to before he sliced their arteries open and drained their blood.
I threw my handbag on the bed and looked around for something to block the main door with, and my eyes landed on the wooden bedside tables.
I moved over to the closest one to the door, taking the night lamp off and sitting it on the floor.
I heaved and dragged it across the floorboards.
It was heavy, and it grunted, screeched, and growled its way, leaving long claw marks in the floorboards behind it.
Lastly, I went to the glass door. The black glass pane reflected my ghostly image.
I shivered and made sure it was locked. It was.
I yanked the heavy burgundy drapes closed and moved back to the bed.
I thought about calling Tom, just to hear the comfort of his voice.
Some sort of normality. I missed him badly, and I needed to speak to him.
I pulled my phone out of my bag and dialed his number.
My heart leaped into my mouth, and the ring seemed to sound in slow motion.
I waited for him to answer. He wouldn’t know this number.
He might be at work; he might be in bed with—
“Hello?”
His voice brought a painful pang to my chest. My eyes stung.
My throat burned. God, how I missed him.
It was silent in the background. He wasn’t at work.
I wanted to speak, but my throat seemed to have frozen.
He would tell me everything was going to be okay; he was sensible, caring and kind. He would know what to do.
“Hello?”
Speak. Open your mouth and speak!
“Amy,” he whispered, “is that you?”
What could I possibly say?
“Hi, Tom. How are you? How’s Kelly? Me . . .? I’m in a bit of a pickle, actually. I’m staying at a vampire’s house.”
I hung up, breathing deeply, settling the phone on the bed.
I wiped at the tears in my eyes, clicked on the lamp, and moved to the main light, turning it off.
I climbed into bed, sure I could smell Karson on the sheets.
His scent was sweet, musky, and distinctive.
I thought about opening the drawers of the large dresser to check, and then decided even if it was his room, too bad, he could sleep in the lounge for all I cared.
Then again, maybe he didn’t sleep at all.
But Ethan did—well, he retired to his room at night.
Did he sneak out, feed, and sneak back in?
“I killed him to save you.”
His words echoed through my head. He had saved me, the man had died—awfully—and it was my fault.
I tossed and turned, drifting in and out of sleep.
My dreams were hideous nightmares filled with vampires.
The girl’s face, and Karson’s demonic, twisted image, teeth bared, flying at my neck.
My startled cries woke me over and over again.
Once when I woke, Karson’s shadowed image remained for a moment before it seemingly faded into oblivion.
Whether it was a dream or real, I couldn’t be certain.
The only thing I did know for certain was the veils of the world had dropped.
The dawn of innocence was over, and in its place a nefarious reality had risen.
And life as I knew it was unequivocally forever altered.