25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Konrad
I ’m not sure I’ve ever run so fast as a mortal or as a wolf. All I know is I blink and I’m back in the bedroom I started the evening in, which is a tower room with no clear exit.
When I thought Valda was going to be the death of me, I didn’t think it would be so literal.
“Son of a werw?lfe,” I mutter, but I don’t dare go back outside and risk an army of an estries tearing through me. “No— daughter of an estrie !”
Between curses, I push a chest in front of the door to seal it closed. Then I set a wooden chair on top of that chest, bracing it against the handle in lieu of a bolt.
I’m not sure it will help, but I put the tiny table holding the washbasin on top of that chair just in case.
This is what I get for going against the advice of my Guild master. I let myself be played the fool by the first pretty girl who batted her lashes at me and my emotions got involved. How could I know that when I handed her that flower girl’s bleeding heart blooms, I was actually handing her my own bleeding heart— both physically and metaphysically— in her eyes? Which is exactly what that advice was supposed to protect me against.
Not taking my eyes off the door, I take several steps back to where my coat is hanging by the hearth. Then I put it on. If I’m going to perish, I might as well ensure I’m buried in my most precious possession.
If there’s anything left of me to bury, that is. I might be one of the most powerful creatures in all of Constantinium, but there isn’t a single werw?lfe that can survive against twelve estries.
No, I can’t think like this. Eloise needs me to live. There’s no one else to take care of her. And her grandfather was there for me when I had no one. I’ll be there for her, which means I need to rely on what wits haven’t deserted me, so shifting will do me no good.
Turning, I scan the room. The four-poster bed is useless to me, but there is a door leading to the balcony. It can be useless, an escape, or an entrance for my enemies. I’ll only find out if I go outside.
I take my saber from my belt and step outside into the pelting rain.
The darkness from the storm makes it so difficult to see. But when I do, it looks like the balcony is overlooking a steep overhang. I will die if I fall straight down, past the foundation of the castle and down the cliff to the ravine below. But mayhap I can find some way to climb down—
“Creator,” I gasp. “I know that I was overzealous. That I trespassed your parameters. That I have incurred the bloodguilt I was trying to appease . . . but for Eloise’s sake, please have mercy—”
“I’m sure He’ll have mercy for your sake, too.”
I whirl around to find a phantom on the balcony before me. The wind tears through long black tresses, yanking them around a pale face with lips that are too full and eyes that aren’t dark enough to properly represent her soul.
I aim my saber at her, and she knocks it uselessly away. Because I’m the useless fool who can’t bring myself to attack a damsel, even though I now know that she is far more than that.
Unblessed steel won’t do any good anyway, so I turn back to the balcony. I’m ready to throw myself to the mercies of the ravine over the woman in red behind me.
“Konrad, wait!” Hands grip my collar and yank me backward. Then I’m thrown against a stone wall, Valda’s hands against my chest sealing me in place.
I quickly knock away the hand over my heartbeat. “I won’t let you eat my heart, Valda. That’s sick!” If Valda got up here, there must be a way for me to get down without passing the room of vampires.
“I’m not here about that!” she yells over the gale whipping around us and threatening to send us both into the ravine.
“Oh, is there another organ you’d prefer for the first course?”
“I don’t want to eat you!”
“That’s right; you don’t like to eat.” I jolt as thunder claps. “Wait, that’s why you didn’t eat my food?! Estries only drink blood. I wasted all that food for nothing!”
“That’s not important right now—”
My fingers slide over my itching neck. “Wait— did you drink my blood?”
“You said I could.”
“Just moments ago, as a bargain for my life. Certainly not before you began feeding on me!”
Valda huffs and throws up her hands. “Just forget about that and listen. I want to hire you!”
I stare at her, looking like a gyst rising from the moors in this storm. It really isn’t appropriate how beautiful she looks no matter what blood-tainted creature she is. “What?! ”
“I need a bodyguard to protect me during my adventures.”
Lightning flashes, and I wonder if I’m safer out here with the storm and a known estrie . . . or inside with all the estries I don’t know. “What?”
“Across Constantinium. I convinced Vater I needed your skills more than your heart, and he agreed.”
I stare at her, the feelings of betrayal still fresh in my soul. Not that I didn’t expect Valda to turn me over to her father— she had every right to. But for her to go from kissing me this morning to trying to eat my heart this evening is too much to bear. And now I’m supposed to just trust that those kisses were enough to change her mind toward me? “Did you forget that I’m the one who abducted you?”
“Only because I let you . . . as part of my hunt.”
“Y-you were hunting me while I was hunting you ?” I look down at the perfectly fitted outfit that seems to have been tailored to me.
If I wasn’t in such desperate need of new garments, I’d be horrified.
Valda’s full mouth twists upward. “Yes. The moment you killed on my father’s land, you put a target on your back.”
Sickness churns in my stomach. “Those men were killers.”
“Oh, Vater isn’t upset about that. He just wanted your werw?lfe heart.”
The sickness doesn’t leave.
And Valda just grins. “All this time you thought you were the villain in my story, I was actually the monster in yours.”
My jaw drops.
She cocks her head to one side. “Also, you mutter to yourself a lot when you’re tracking someone. Did you know that?”
I scowl. “And your father— how does he know I won’t use this as an opportunity to take my vengeance against him?”
“He doesn’t even know you have a bone to pick. And I think it’s best we kept it that way.”
“He turned a blind eye during the Night of Broken Walls!”
Valda sighs. “I’m sorry. It’s not that he turned a blind eye; he merely didn’t notice. He is more concerned with the underworld empire he’s built than his baronage.”
I clench my jaw. Losing my family is far more than an inconvenience that their Baron couldn’t be bothered with. “I should turn him in as an estrie.”
Valda quirks one eyebrow. “So we can report you as a werw?lfe? Which of us do you think the authorities are more likely to believe?” She sighs. “Stop being stubborn. Just take the money from him and call it even like was your original plan.”
“And if I want my vengeance against you ?”
She leans closer to me, and I hold my breath to steal a little space between our chests. “You’re not as consumed by vengeance as you’d like to think. Not as much as you are bound to fatherhood. And I know you won’t risk your daughter by endangering his . Because make no mistake— my father would retaliate cruelly.”
I narrow my eyes. “This is absolutely ludicrous. We are the villains in each other’s stories.”
She taps my chest. “But we can be so much more.”
“Like bodyguard and charge?” I narrow my eyes. “And how much is this alleged pay to be that could possibly be enough to lure me back down that den of bloodsuckers?” Surely, after all I’ve done, the Creator cannot be so willing to give me favor when I expected death.
“I was thinking we’d start by paying off the debt of your lost ship . . . and adding another five hundred guilders to cover the inconveniences of traveling with me.”
My jaw drops as all my money woes disappear in a moment .
Valda grins and then bats her eyes at me, like she expects me to say there is no inconvenience to traveling with her at all.
Instead, I grasp her shoulders and move her to the side. Then I walk back into my bedroom. “I’ll be right back. I have a job to accept.”