SERUN’S MANOR
CHAPTER TWENTY
SERUN’S MANOR
Saya Claymore
My new home. Cold and uninviting, the stone manor is untouched by light, and I find it difficult to see inside the blackened windows.
Raising the lantern, the orange glow stretches across the stone steps leading up to the entrance.
On either side grows vervain, tight clusters of flowers sprouting in a familiar dusty violet hue.
Home isn’t a place to me anymore. I thought I could make the feeding ground my home, but it was my prison. Home before that was a cage in a man’s embrace I never wanted.
“Where do you consider home to be, Serun?” I lift the oil lamp towards him to reveal red eyes watching, intense. I suppose I’m not afraid of them anymore.
“Home is an entity, not a place.”
I smile. “Then Cole is my home.”
He dips his head, hinting at a smile.
“What would yours be?”
“I’m offended that you have to ask,” he murmurs, voice soft and alluring as his focus lowers to my lips.
I bite down, sinking my fangs into the inside of my bottom lip, and I turn away from the feelings stuttering inside me. “Why does this place look like a lair? A little obvious, don’t you think?”
“A little,” he answers with a half-smile, his eyes squinting in humour.
I take a step up the stairs, then hear a sharp sigh from Serun. Olivia appears, crouched, as if ready to shrink back into the shadows. “Forgive me for disturbing you,” she starts, her eyes everywhere but on him. “Should I find somewhere else to…”
“There is an unused servant’s dwelling on the right side of the manor, in the garden.
You will stay there,” Serun says, his shadows clawing back to him.
“And when you enter my manor, make yourself known. If you do not, and you see me for who I am, I will bind you outside just as you did to your old master, and you will see your first sunrise since you began this journey.”
My frown deepens at Olivia’s wide eyes, her lip quivering at Serun’s low, precise words.
I step back down and grab Serun’s hand, squeezing tight until his gaze snaps to me. “Show me your home, nightwalker.”
He sighs. “Be on your way, Olivia. My consort will summon you when she needs you. Until then, find her some clothes to wear tomorrow night. For now, it is getting late.”
“Y-yes,” says Olivia. “I can barely keep my eyes open.” Her eyes are half-lidded, and she is moving as if to keep herself awake.
“Sleep well,” I say to Olivia with a small smile.
Moving up the stairs, I reach the landing and the doors open. Entering with Serun close behind, I stop in the middle of the foyer while shadows flow past and up the stairs with our suitcases. An ache flares around my heel, and I kick off my shoes as I take it all in.
Lamps hang on silver hooks around the room, providing more light than the rest of the Undercity.
But everything in here is bare bones. There is nothing on the walls aside from the lamps, and the only colour comes from the wallpaper—a deep red embossed with shimmering purple florals.
The dark stone flooring seems to have more dust than outside.
“Beautifully dark,” I murmur to Serun.
He looks away from me and says, “Let me show you to your room before the sun rises.” His focus stays on the stairs, pointedly not watching me. “I can show you the manor tomorrow.”
I follow him upstairs, my footsteps the only noise.
Serun’s movements are silent, and with every step, shadows peel away from him until they are a coat resting on his shoulders.
He turns left at the top of the bifurcated staircase, into a narrow corridor.
One painting between two doors stands out, with candlelight rising from a small oak table beneath it.
I smile at the lingering lemon scent coming from a vase filled with lemongrass nestled among the candles.
It reminds me of Cherry Bloom and days spent by the water, surrounded by the plants.
I stop to admire the painting, and Serun hovers beside me. An intense sunrise overlooks a valley, green with envy. In the centre of the frame, a man stands looking up, as if he is seeing the sun for the very first time.
“Is that you?” I ask.
“Possibly.” Serun tears his gaze away from the painting. “Your room is this way.”
He leaves, but I don’t follow right away, my heart twisting as I take in the scene a little longer. Serun said he was looking for Mother’s tear—a cure so he can walk in the sun again.
When we reach the end of the hallway, Serun opens the last door to reveal an office. Bookshelves line the walls, leaving little room for anything else. There’s a desk in the centre, a single candle burning near the scattered papers, softly illuminating the map spread open on top.
“What’s this?” I move around the desk, my pointed fingernails dragging over the areas crossed out in red. “The silver tear?”
He smirks. “Possibly.”
“Is that your favourite word tonight, nightwalker?” My brow twitches. “At least you aren’t using your liar’s tongue.”
With his ears pulled back, he gestures to the map and says, “Yes, I was looking for a lead.”
I nod, accepting his answer. “Is this the room I will be sleeping in?”
Serun smiles and points to a door I hadn’t noticed. “Through there.”
My eyes catch on a phone on the desk, and I stop. Observing my interest, Serun takes the phone and presses it to his ear. I lean over the desk, the wood groaning as I wait with bated breath.
After the second ring, a grumbling voice emerges. “Brother, it is near daylight. Can this wait?”
Serun keeps his gaze on me. “Yes, well, I have a worried consort. Have you caught his scent?”
I’m never going to get used to the word consort.
“Faint, but there. We passed Olivyan. They must have stopped there, for the scent lingered by the settlement before I picked it up again near the split in the ocean.
Serun looks down at the map, and there is a pause that sends a shrill hit of anxiety to my heart.
“Do you know if he’s still alive? Is that something you can sense?” I ask, leaning even further over the desk so my voice carries to the phone.
“He is, Lady Consort,” Reyes reassures me.
A pained look crosses Serun’s face for the briefest of moments. “Keep us updated.” He ends the call, his face relaxing, smoothing over and becoming hard for me to read once again.
“Thank you,” I say in a small, breathy voice.
“It is the least I can do after all I have put you through, kamai.”
Running my hand down my face, I push away from the desk and make my way to the door.
“In all honesty, I wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for you.
If you had let me leave when I asked to, I’d likely have died before night fell.
This has been the best path to finding Cole and getting him away from those slayers. ”
Serun tweaks an eye, and as he scratches at his chest, he nudges his head towards the door.
“I won’t enter your room without an invitation.
You should sleep. Tomorrow, I will teach you how to bring back your glamour.
If you are to leave here with your brother, having it will help hide you from humans and slayers who don’t know your face. ”
I move towards the door with a laugh, but it is a weak and pathetic attempt to save face. “Funny how I don’t want it, but will need it because of the world we live in. How easy it is to hate someone without even knowing them.”
“You hate me.”
My smile falls, and my arm stills on the door handle. “I don’t hate you. If anything, I like the idea of you, Serun. Far more than Jax and what I thought I had with him.”
I settle my gaze on his, and his ears pull back at my sudden declaration. His clenched fists slacken, and the man behind the shadows comes alive. It reminds me of the time he panicked when he thought he was mind-manipulating me before we kissed in the private room.
“Before you, Kepler had no colour. Everything I saw was bleak, greyed out—devastating. Then you looked at me with no fear. Nothing to indicate that you were repulsed by this creature,” he says, gesturing to himself with blackened claws.
My hand lowers from the door handle, and I pick at the skin around my fingernail.
“Instead, you were curious, excited. Understanding. And since then, the red in those vibrant eyes of yours has become my favourite colour.”
He makes it hard to stand here at a distance. What would it feel like to be truly loved by someone who’s not afraid of me?
“Then stop hesitating,” I breathe, but before he can respond, I open the door and close it behind me.
Pressing my back against the rough wooden surface, I slide down like wet paint until I hit the carpet.
With my eyes closed, head tipped back, and chest tightening, warm tears slip down my cheeks.
I cry for everything I’ve lost when I was too weak to do something.
I’ve let others act for me, and here I am, asking Serun to do it again.
The man who made me his consort.
Am I ready to forgive him for that if I can’t forgive myself?