Chapter V #2
She found herself in an octagonal supply room with no windows.
She turned on her phone’s flashlight and gasped when the beam lit rows of weapons.
Some of them Vic knew her way around—swords, knives, lengths of rope—and she recognized others, like Japanese throwing knives, a katar, a scimitar.
But many she could only guess the use of.
A long strip of thinly hammered silver, a whip without a handle.
She knelt in front of a cabinet full of dark, flat stones, tapping idly on the glass.
The stones glistened in the low light, all arranged in neat lines, and Vic noticed a wide array of colors and textures.
It looked more like a geology exhibit than a weapons case, and Vic was more interested in the blades.
Vic ran her finger along the pristine edge of a short sword at eye level. The metal sang as she touched it, slicing the skin too fast for her to notice. She sucked a drop of blood from her finger and marveled at the perfect condition of the blade. The upkeep required to maintain this many weapons—
Vic jumped at the sound of footsteps. Two sets of them, approaching from behind a door on the other side of the room. She fumbled to shut off her light and slid into the hallway. She sank into the shadows lining the wall and hoped whoever was in there wouldn’t walk her way.
Her heart leaped in her throat. She forced herself to breathe quiet, slow. She couldn’t afford to panic.
“I can keep putting them down easy enough,” a man said from the room Vic had left.
His voice had a roughness Vic associated with disuse, and it rumbled through her chest and landed behind her navel.
The skin on her arms prickled in instinctive awareness that the owner of that voice was a dangerous person.
She heard heavy footsteps, followed by the shuffling sounds of someone putting away their gear.
“But this is only going to get worse if we don’t address the source of the problem. ”
“I am quite familiar with your opinion on the subject,” came a clipped response. Vic recognized the second voice as Nathaniel’s.
At the unusual sound of scraping metal and a wet drip, curiosity got the better of Vic. Careful to step quietly, she eased forward until she could peer around the doorframe. The men had left the door behind them ajar, and a sliver of light lit the space enough for Vic to see.
Nathaniel’s appearance was as bland as Vic remembered, but the figure beside him could not possibly blend in anywhere.
He stood a head taller than Nathaniel, and he was filthy.
A layer of some grime Vic couldn’t identify covered his head and shoulders in the dim light.
Unruly brown hair fell in front of his face, concealing it from view.
He couldn’t be real. Broad-shouldered and dressed in black, he looked like he’d stepped out of another age. He was too big, too much for modern society. Someone of his stature would be more at home in a Roman temple, lording over worshippers and carved out of stone.
Rapt, Vic watched the giant remove a harness from between his shoulders.
It was hung with short blades, a few inches long and nestled along the length of leather.
His head still bent, the behemoth separated a single blade from the sheath.
Vic took an involuntary step back when she recognized the dark liquid that dripped from it.
Blood, black and thick like it had sat still too long.
At the sound of Vic’s foot hitting the stone floor, the giant’s eyes shot up.
His hair fell back as he straightened, revealing the most arresting man Vic had ever seen.
A short beard obscured a square jaw. He had the rough look of someone equally likely to have grown facial hair on purpose as to have grown it over the course of that day, and the beard—like the rest of him—lay under a layer of blood.
He had wide cheekbones and a prominent nose, a brow set heavy over eyes Vic caught and held.
His eyes were blue, pale but so bright they almost glowed in the darkness. Vic thought of ice and sky and coal. Broken glass on asphalt after a crash. The flashes remembered in the aftermath of something life-changing.
Vic’s breath stuck in her throat as she stared at him, caught like a fish on the end of a line.
Nathaniel fell silent when he followed the man’s gaze to Vic, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the man watching her.
“Who are you?” His voice skittered across her nerves like the bang of a drum, and Vic swallowed. She felt too aware of herself, like all the blood in her body had rushed to her skin, thrumming with tension.
“Victoria,” she answered in a voice she was glad did not waver.
Was that all she could think to say? Her name? But she was mesmerized, cold and hot and frightened and excited all at once.
The stranger raised his eyebrows, and the muck on his face split.
She felt him assessing her, his eyes roaming over her face like he was looking for something.
Vic chided herself to snap out of it, to think about the situation like the fighter she was.
The man could see Vic better than she could see him, which put her at a disadvantage.
But the hallway was to her back, and she was probably faster than he was.
She could run—if the castle let her—and find the apartment again.
Lock the door and hope he didn’t bang it down.
“Victoria,” he repeated, and the sound of her name in that deep voice sent a thrill through her. “Of course.” He turned to Nathaniel. “This is Victoria,” he said.
“Victoria Wood,” she added in a bolder tone. “My brother, Henry—”
“Her brother is here for training,” Nathaniel said, watching her with a stupefied scowl.
“And she just decided to tag along?” the stranger asked him.
“She was not invited.”
“I was told my presence here would not be a problem,” Vic said.
“Who told you that?” the stranger asked. Pale eyes watched Vic with such intensity she wanted to look away.
“Max,” Vic told him.
“Max must have warned you about creeping around the castle after dark,” he said in a low rumble, still expressionless.
“This is a big castle. Mostly empty. All sorts of things hide in the hallways at night, none of which would be very kind to you, Victoria.” He repeated her name in a mocking tone, and Vic scowled as the word ran down her spine.
“I can take care of myself,” Vic said.
“I’m sure you believe that,” he said with an almost imperceptible smile. “But things change fast here. You never know what will happen.”
“I’m fine.”
“For now,” he said, looking at Nathaniel. “But I recommend you be on your way back wherever you came from when the sun comes up.”
“Max told me I was welcome to stay in the castle.”
“Max lied.”
He turned his back to her and strode out the door.
Vic exhaled as she looked to Nathaniel, struck by the memory of finding him frightening only days ago. Compared to the behemoth, Nathaniel was almost comforting.
Nathaniel’s lip slipped into a sneer before he followed the other man’s path out of the room.
Vic stood rooted to the spot for the time it took her to draw two gasping breaths. Then she spun on her heel and ran.
This time, when Vic pulled open the door to the apartment, she fell forward into the living room and slammed the door behind her.