Chapter 17
The days following my ordeal bled one into another.
A mix of dazed, sleep deprived moments, times where I ended up somewhere—the drawing room, the library, the dining room, various sitting rooms, the activities room, the garden—and couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there.
I picked up books and didn’t finish them.
The words seemed to slide off the pages without reaching my mind.
I pushed food around my plate, only to watch Vittorio frown when I didn’t eat everything the way I once had.
Each day was a battle against my mind, against memories that weren’t just mine. Which made it a thousand times worse, because they were Laurent’s. I’d gone from hating him to fearing him. Subjected to the events in his life—years and years of it.
Now I better understood what he truly was.
A cold hearted killer. He could bite into a throat, rip out a heart, or both, faster than I could blink. His decisions were made with precise calculation, void of emotion, to serve his own agenda.
“Blood is a person’s identity,” Zola had explained the day after I’d awoken. “It carries memories. The more you ingest, the more of that person you carry. Laurent gave you a lot of blood.”
A lot of blood. It made me feel…contaminated. I got nauseous whenever I considered it, despite the faint itch that also accompanied the thought.
“He didn’t have a choice, darling. You were…not well.” As she’d said it, her eyes darted to my fingers. Was she thinking of what they’d done? Wondering if I’d felt every single bone break. Because I had.
When I asked why none of the other vampires had given me blood, she pursed her lips and said, “He would not allow it.”
I knew why. It killed me to know. Killed me that he’d given enough of himself so I might better understand him, if only I cared to look.
I did my best not to. Did my best to ignore his memories, to steer clear of them.
But there were times when the silence stretched on, when the sound of my screams echoed too loudly in my own head, that I grew weak and turned to his memories for escape. Like a book I could slip into.
Nights were the worst. I’d wake gasping, sometimes screaming, my body paralyzed with fear, believing it had never ended.
I’d crawl to the bathroom to empty my guts.
I usually didn’t go back to sleep for hours.
There were times when I heard the faint sounds of a violin threading through my nightmares, but I was too emotionally drained to wonder if it was real.
I took to wandering the halls. I needn’t have worried, they were always empty.
The only vampires I saw on rare occasions were Hassan, Vittorio, and Zola.
Sometimes I called Ania, just to listen to her voice.
But trying to hide this from her, lying to her, making things up about my vacation, left an empty feeling in my belly.
At least she was having fun on her trip—that made one of us.
Occasionally I paused my wandering to stand in the drawing room and stare at the beautiful piano. I still hadn’t played it again. The desire that used to be there felt cracked and wounded.
Most days I found myself in the library.
The first few, I browsed the collections of books, nosying through each vampire’s section.
Except Laurent’s. Then I discovered a beautiful journal and fountain pen sitting on the draft table.
My name, Lily Winifred Shaw, was embossed into the leather of the cover.
A stack of brand new mathematics text books sat beside it.
Most of them were familiar to me, topics I’d taken during my undergraduate education.
Someone had been thoughtful. Was it Vittorio? Or Zola? Perhaps it was Hassan, who always seemed to notice things others didn’t in his quiet, watchful way. Something that might have been gratitude flickered through me, though it felt distant and muted.
I sat for hours, working through derivations in neat, compact writing, filling pages with numbers and variables.
Things that made so much more sense than the life I’d been thrown into.
There was order. I thrived on order. Whenever my hand cramped and I could no longer take the monotony of it, I’d close my journal, leaving it to venture out into the garden.
I visited the garden and grounds a lot in the days following. Vittorio always insisted I take a picnic basket. Sometimes I would also take a book, other times, I would simply sit, gazing over the landscape.
Zola had made a trip to my apartment for me, asking if I wanted to accompany her to gather my things.
I wasn’t quite ready to face that side of my life.
It would only remind me of my new reality.
I had enough reminders already. So I’d given her a list and she brought everything I asked for.
My favorite clothes, shoes, laptop, school bag, and a few nicknacks from my bedroom, like framed photos of me and Ania, which I put up around my room. It felt more my own after that.
The clothes from our shopping spree arrived. Zola sat with me as we tried everything on. Most of it had been for me, so I did the majority of the modeling. I spent hours hanging everything in the closet, meticulously organizing it by color and type.
Sometimes Vittorio let me help him in the kitchen.
He would come up with things for us to cook or bake, then coach me through it.
He was patient, always keeping his voice low and calm.
There hadn’t been another family dinner, so it was usually stuff I’d end up eating myself.
However, I didn’t miss the way plates of cookies, chocolate cupcakes, muffins, and other goodies disappeared from the island overnight.
Obviously someone was enjoying our efforts.
I didn’t have it in me to wonder who, or even care.
Hassan often sat with me in the drawing room.
He usually remained silent. We’d just sit with a book, or stare out the window, lost in our own thoughts.
I couldn’t help but think he was like me—recovering from an ordeal that left behind more than flesh wounds.
I even asked him about it, how he managed to deal with the weight of it.
“It gets better in time, as with all things, Miss Shaw. But you must allow yourself permission to heal. The patience to work through what you feel. The acceptance required to move forward.”
I filed his words away, hoping someday they might mean something.
He never overstepped, never asked for the details of what I’d been through.
I didn’t ask him, either. It’s like we knew, from one wounded person to another.
We both gave each other space, but we did it together.
His quiet presence became something I could tolerate, even found oddly comforting in my current state.
The manor became a place of...not healing, exactly, but existing. Surviving day by day.
There were a few occasions that Zola suggested we take a trip into the city.
Each time, my body locked up, perspiration tickling my skin.
I always declined. Part of it was fear, yes.
And part of it was simply too overwhelming.
It would be too much to handle, too soon.
I didn’t want to see evidence of normality outside these doors.
I didn’t want to know that despite what had happened, despite this monumental thing that had changed me forever, the world still turned and people still carried on.
I was left behind.
Is that what becoming a vampire felt like? You froze yourself in a certain time, and you were forever stuck? Forever forced to watch time race past you? Forever forced to watch people grow and change, move forward, move on?
Perhaps only metaphorically speaking. These vampires had not stopped. They adapted. Used new technology, changed their manner of dress, the way they spoke.
Worrisome things were happening within their sphere.
I mostly knew due to Zola’s information.
More and more vampires had disappeared. Not just from House Sarkas, but others.
There were rumors that another vampire house was attempting to rise to power, a sixth.
There were also rumors that the demons were behind everything.
Rumors that the shifters might be involved, and that the witches definitely were.
But that’s all they were, rumors.
Zola was absent more than she was here. She never forgot to check on me.
We’d spend brief stretches of time together, and then she’d disappear again.
Those moments provided brief respite from the emptiness.
A strange and unlikely bond was forming: she was becoming something that toed the line between friend and mother.
I didn’t see the master of the house for an entire week after waking up.
He hadn’t left the manor entirely. I knew, because I’d hear his voice from down the hall, or from the entry, or hear Vittorio mention him to Zola in passing.
But we never crossed paths. I counted it as a blessing.
Especially because I looked around every corner, glanced into every room, ensuring that I avoided him.
When he finally did appear, I knew it was intentional.
I sat in the library working through a particularly long proof, already three pages in, when the library doors opened. The back of my neck prickled and I knew without moving, who it was.
I went rigid, a response I could no more control than my need for air.
“Forgive me, Miss Shaw. I came in search of a book.” His voice was calmer, quieter than I had ever heard it. Even calmer than those first moments, when I thought I had died, only to open my eyes and find him next to my bed.
“Please, do not let me disturb you,” he added.
A wave of dizziness crashed over me. I didn’t turn to look at him, because I couldn’t. I barely managed a nod, my eyes unfocused, the variables blurring on my page.