CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ailsa
THE SUN HAD only just slipped beneath the horizon when I saw the house for the first time.
Dusk was closing in, holding the last traces of light, bruised purples and fading gold stretched across the distance, but the ground had already been surrendered to shadow.
I wrapped my arms tighter around my waist as I looked around.
The air felt cooler here and cleaner, carrying the faint scent of damp earth and distant tree sap.
We weren’t in the city anymore, that much was obvious. The house sat apart from everything else, no neighbouring lights or passing cars, no noise beyond the low rustle of hedgerows and the gravel that shifted beneath each of our steps.
It was… strangely peaceful. In a way that felt at odds with my situation.
I took it all in with a strange sense of detachment. This was where they had brought me. Where I had been—what? Held? Kept?
Unconscious on arrival and locked away since.
This was the first time I’d actually seen it, and somehow that just made everything worse. Because it didn't look like a prison and I was starting to think something was seriously off with these two.
A house like this didn’t belong to people like them.
Or maybe it did and I just didn’t know anything anymore.
Marlette—the female vampire in charge of my care… if you could call it that—allowed me a quick shower and provided me with some of my clothing. I didn’t like the thought of them rummaging through my belongings, but I was glad to get into something clean that actually belonged to me.
The last of the light faded a little further, shadows deepening around the edges of the property, creeping closer as the front door opened. I stiffened instinctively, my attention snapping toward the movement.
It was him. Of course it was.
But, he looked… different.
Not in any obvious, dramatic way. He was still unmistakingly the same man who had dragged me here, the same sharp features, the same controlled presence but something was different.
His dark hair was more dishevelled than before, cutting across his forehead in tousled waves.
And his clothing was far more casual, dark jeans and a t-shirt with a worn flannel shirt thrown over it, its sleeves pushed up his forearms. It shouldn’t have made a difference, but it did because without the edge of whatever role he’d been playing before, there was something far more distracting about him.
Something annoyingly… attractive. I hated that my brain even registered it.
Hated that despite everything, my first coherent thought was that—of course he looked good.
Frankly, it was unfair.
He straightened slightly as his gaze landed on me. Whatever brief ease had been there settled back into that more familiar closed off, controlled facade.
He looked at me, and for reasons I preferred not to overthink, I found myself looking right back.
The irises of his eyes appeared a warm brown, but upon closer inspection, there were indeed some silvery specs close to his pupils—I thought I must have imagined that part before, because it wasn’t just odd, I’d never seen eyes like that.
Ever. It must have been a vampire thing.
He noticed my attention on him and his mouth twitched—just slightly, not quite a smile. Worse, like he found me amusing. “See something you like?” he winked.
“No,” I spat out defensively, way too quickly. “I just… I’ve never seen someone with silver flecks in their brown eyes.” I folded my arms tighter, more out of instinct than anything else, forcing my expression into something that resembled indifference.
He hummed his response, still set on the idea that I was checking him out as he led the way out of the courtyard towards a garage.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I supposed I kind of was.
I wasn’t blind for fucks sake. The man was objectively hot.
Was I attracted to him?
Surely not, I laughed inwardly. The brute had quite literally chased me down, drugged me, kidnapped me and made me his prisoner.
Perhaps it was by design. He deliberately flirted to get my guard down. Either way, I needed to get answers more than he did, so even if I had a choice, I was keen to see this trip through.
Of course I had asked where the fuck we were going now.
Several times. And eventually, Marlette had told me that we’d be ‘looking for answers’, whatever that meant, as she manhandled me into the garage and towards a car.
Oh, and I’d learned that these answers would be coming from a witch.
An honest to shit, real witch, because of course those were real too.
At this point, I wasn’t sure anything would surprise me anymore.
I was probably deep in denial, but for some reason it all made sense to me.
“In,” Davien ordered, half shoving me into the back seat of a shiny black car. I might have been mildly impressed, had I not been so thoroughly annoyed.
There in that small space, where for a moment it was just him and I, it hit me—his scent. Deeply masculine, like pine needles damp from lingering rain, layered with exhaust smoke and something darker beneath it.
Blood.
It rolled over me in a wave, thick and unmistakable, settling somewhere deep and instinctive. Every inch of this man—no, vampire—screamed danger, and every instinct told me to run.
But where? And how?
I lifted my shackled hands, giving them a pointed shake. “Are these really necessary?”
“Yes,” he said, already moving to close the car door.
“Actually…” he said, reaching in and, grabbing the chain between the cuffs, I breathed a sigh of relief, idiotically thinking he’d remove them.
Instead, he attached them to the car’s grab handle.
My arms were pulled up awkwardly, limiting my mobility even further.
“Wouldn’t want you running. Can’t take any chances,” he taunted, winking at me, actually fucking winking.
Then he slammed the door in my face before I could even voice my protest.
I kicked the seat in front of me in frustration just as he slid into the driver's seat. “Don’t make me shackle your ankles too,” he said without turning. “Because make no mistake, I would. Happily.”
I stilled. The threat wasn’t empty, and I wasn’t interested in testing him. So I bit my tongue and kept my limbs to myself.
“Good girl.”
The words were both patronising and deliberate. My jaw twitched with the urge to respond, but I refused to engage with him.
He started the ignition, one hand steady on the wheel as the engine turned over smoothly beneath his touch. He looked frustratingly competent, and I had a feeling he knew exactly what he was doing.
I threw dagger eyes at him through the review mirror where his gaze had briefly locked onto mine. I didn’t like how he had managed to get under my skin so quickly. He had disarmed me like it was nothing, like I was nothing.
I broke eye contact first, turning my attention to the window instead. I refused to let him see that he affected me.
We travelled in silence, my mind reeling with a million questions but I knew asking him would be fruitless.
Civilization slipped away gradually—streetlights thinned and buildings gave way to long stretches of darkened tarmac lined with hedgerows and open fields.
The further we drove, the fewer cars we passed.
The roads narrowed as we went, winding through the countryside, the car’s headlights cutting clean paths through the dark.
He had one large hand lazily hung over the steering wheel, the other tapping his thigh as he kept his focus on the winding country lanes.
I shifted slightly in my seat, the pull on the restraints a constant reminder of my current predicament. I tried to go over the events of the last forty-eight hours. Make sense of them and what they meant for my future.
Was I really a goddamn vampire?
The revelation meant that the woman who I’d believed was my mother all my life—wasn’t. I’d never known who my father was, so there was no loss there.
But I kept returning to the part where I wasn’t my mother’s daughter. Had she known? Is that why she’d despised me?
But the biggest question that dug the deepest was, why? Why did she raise me? How had I come to be with her? Why?
Was Claire the same as me?
No, I shook the thought from my mind. Claire actually looked like our mother, the same brown hair, same brown eyes.
Deep down I knew, I’d always felt like I didn’t belong, so this—as bizarre as it was—made perfect sense.
I was a vampire, and the family I thought was mine… wasn’t.
I sat in silence with my thoughts, going over every detail of my life. Every difference in how I’d been treated, and how I’d felt was analysed for clues but none of it helped. But one thing I was sure of was that all the ‘wrongness’ about me finally made sense.
After what must have been hours on the road in complete silence, the car eventually slowed as we rolled into what had to be the most unremarkable street of terraced houses I’d ever seen.
Davien parked without comment, and then—because apparently my current confinement wasn’t restrictive enough already—he unclipped the chain from the handle, and before I could even think to move, fastened it to himself.
My gaze dropped to where metal met metal.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“No chances,” he said simply, already stepping away from the car and tugging me along with him.
Right.
Of course.
Fuck my life.
Perhaps I could ask the witch for help.
The crisp November air filled my lungs as we arrived at an old red brick house after a short walk, right in the centre of a row of attached two up and two downs.
Neat little front gardens were walled off from the path and road.
Though this particular lot had a weird aura about it.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I guessed it had to do with its supernatural occupant.
I was sure a week ago I wouldn’t have noticed anything different about this house.
Now though, it stood out.
“The property is spelled,” Davien said flatly, as though plucking the thought straight from my head. “Supernatural creatures are hidden from the eyes of humans within five hundred metres of this property. For protection. To them it looks like an ordinary boring house. Like the rest.”
Of course it did.
“Reassuring,” I muttered.
He didn’t respond.
We quickly made our way to the front door and Davien pushed the unlocked door open, without so much as a knock. He pulled me along hesitantly as we entered the narrow hallway.
The air smelt overwhelmingly floral, and I glanced up instinctively and realised why.
The ceiling was lined with bundles of dried flowers and herbs.
It was… a nice surprise. For a fleeting moment, my guard slipped.
There was something about the place that felt inviting.
It was as though the house tried to enchant me and I didn’t trust that.
We moved through the house, the space opening slightly into a kitchen at the back that was worn, but lived-in. My eyes lifted to the ceiling as I took in the cloudy sky through the skylight at the centre of the room.
“Make yourself at home why don’t you?” A female voice, light and warm drifted in through the open back door.
Davien let out a quiet chuckle. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know we were coming.”
There was movement beyond the doorway, then she appeared. “Alright, darling?” She said to me, as though we’d been casually introduced rather than… whatever this was.
Before I could respond, she stepped forward and wrapped Davien in a familiar embrace.
I stilled.
They were friends.
Great.
There went any lingering idea that I might have had about finding help here.
I forced a small nod in her direction as my attention flickered briefly back to him, a bit taken aback at his change in demeanour. He was so friendly. Suddenly laid back.
It was… jarring. And, for reasons I didn’t care to examine too closely, deeply unsettling.
The two of them exchanged a few quiet words before their attention shifted back to me.
“Well then,” she said, eyes narrowing just a fraction as she took me in properly, curiosity threading through her voice. “What have we got here?”
“We’re hoping you can help us with that, Eve,” Davien replied. “She’s… a friend. We think she’s a true born, but aside from that we really don’t know anything.”
Friend, I couldn’t help the snort that escaped me at his use of the word. We definitely weren’t friends. Couldn’t be further from it. I didn’t even know him before yesterday and he sure as shit didn’t know me.
Were we friends? No, of course we weren't. I supposed perhaps he simply used the word friend to keep her name a secret. He did say they had to be careful. Ugh, I was overthinking again. I tried to calm my mind so I focused on the view beyond the kitchen window.
A truly beautiful garden, full of colourful shapes, of flowers that had lingered into the late autumn, stubbornly holding onto that last bit of summer.
Even in the dark of night, I could tell it was her pride and joy and I imagined the smell of it, trailing my hands though the different textures of the foliage until Eve’s touch suddenly whipped me back to the conversation at hand.
“Well that is interesting, let’s see….” She turned to me, gently lifting my hand, turning my wrist upward, as if inspecting me. Carefully.
“I’ll have to take some blood. I can try a blood marker spell. That should tell us what lineage she comes from.”
“Sounds good, but only take what you need,” Davien answered for me.
“That ok?” Eve asked me directly, ignoring Davien. She definitely wasn’t scared of him. They must have known each other well.
“Yes,” I responded softly. There was no point protesting.
As much as the thought of needles repelled me, I didn’t have much of a choice.
I needed to know who I was. What I was. Eve took three vials of blood while the two of them carried on their casual conversation, and I was once again enthralled by the garden beyond the backdoor.
Anything to distract myself from what was happening was a welcome reprieve.
Then the two of them froze.
Their heads tilted upward in unison, toward the ceiling.
I followed their gazes just as the sound of something came from above us.
They both stilled further, and their expressions fell blank.
Their reaction sent a shiver through me, and it was clear this was an unexpected development.
We all fell silent, carefully listening as a cluster of loud footsteps moved on the roof. None of us moved so much as an inch. Eve looked to Davien in concern and what I swore was a hint of fear.
Then, before I knew what to think there was a loud bang.