Chapter Four #2
“Yes. Absentmindedly, she dragged her fingers through her hair, trying to tame the wild mess cascading over her chest, suddenly aware that she looked as if she had been dragged through a hedge backward.
“What makes you say that?”
“The witches lied to you, so you would hunt down and murder the only ones who could break your curse.”
Her gaze dropped to his fingers flexing at his side. When she flicked her gaze back to his, his nostrils flared. “You prevaricate.”
“I do not,” she said, cheeks aching. “I am telling you the truth. I am last in my line so I am the only one left who can help you.”
“Why would I believe you? You have every motivation to lie to me,” he said, his eyes flicking to the door. “Do not move. Someone is coming.”
Heavy shoes clomped against the floorboards in the corridor outside. After years of differentiating between footsteps, she knew those belonged to Edith. If her housekeeper walked in there, she had no doubt the vampire would kill her.
“It’s my housekeeper,” she whispered when he stepped forward, fangs protruding over his lips, nicking his skin with a kiss of blood. “Don’t hurt her.”
Her heart stammered when the sound stopped outside her door, followed by three loud knocks. “Miss Lovett, there is a detective here to see you.”
The vampire watched her with a fixed stare, as if he was intrigued by what she would do next. Charlotte was certain he’d love nothing more than to be given an excuse to feast on her staff.
“Oh, I see,” she called back, coughing out the croak in her voice. “I will be right down.”
“Do you need help dressing?”
“No,” she said, a little too quickly and adjusted her tone. “Please tell our guest that I shall be down in just a moment.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Once she was certain Edith had gone, she let out a heavy breath and pursed her lips.
“You did not ask for her help,” the grave voice taunted from beside her. “Or try to use her to distract me so you might escape.”
“That would not have worked and you would have killed her if I did.”
He tilted his head, his mouth slightly open as he lightly ran his tongue over a pair of sharp, glinting fangs. “In my experience, most people would have tried and you did not.”
“That cannot be true. No one wants to watch an innocent person get senselessly murdered.”
“Oh, but they do, Miss Lovett. People often relish violence and death. You are just kind.”
“Then your standards of kindness are extremely modest.”
“Because I have seen the world,” he added in a way that made her feel like a fool for believing otherwise. “Are you ready to go?” he asked, his expression shifting into a more formidable frown.
“Go where?”
“To my manor. I can protect you there.”
Her jaw slacked. He was jesting, surely. “I can’t just leave my home.”
The muscles in his jaw feathered. “You have no choice, unless you want to die. In which case, I estimate you have maybe five minutes before Beatrice Avery’s patience wears thin, and she comes looking for you herself.”
“I can’t leave.” She looked around her bedroom, at her mother’s perfume, Alice’s jewelry box and the writing desk that was filled with bound letters.
Everything in her bedroom was haunted, but it was hers nonetheless, and she wasn’t about to leave the only home she ever knew.
“There must be another way. All my belongings are here.”
“Which will mean nothing if you are dead,” he said.
She huffed out a sigh, knotting the fabric of her chemise in her fingers. Duke wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and she wasn’t even dressed.
“Why are you helping me?” she spluttered as the ticking from the clock grew louder. “You clearly don’t believe me. What’s stopping you from killing me when we arrive at your manor?”
“We share a common enemy,” he said, and touched the back of his neck. “Besides, if you are telling the truth, then I’ll need you alive.”
She wetted her lips. “I can’t go with you. If you want me alive to help you, then you’ll need to stop the Avery family from killing me. Unless you’re not strong enough to stop them.”
His nostrils flared as he straightened his posture, jaw clenching. “They have power unlike I have ever seen. I can take on a few, but together they are too strong and here, in a place steeped with so much death, their magic is amplified.”
Yes, because they were siphoning it from her dead ancestors.
“Someone else is coming,” he warned. “I can hear their labored breaths. We must go. Now.”
“But I only just got my home back,” she whispered.
“The witches want you, not your estate. Unless you want to be sacrificed tonight, along with your staff, you will come with me.”
Her stomach knotted into ribbons. Damned and Hell. What choice did she have?
“I need to find Duke first. He’s my cat,” she added when he shot her an incredulous look. “They will hurt him. Please.”
“We do not have time to search for your pet. Now, you can come willingly, or I will take you by force. The choice is yours, little lamb.”
She shuddered at the nickname. A sacrificial lamb indeed.
His eyes darkened momentarily before glancing at her necklace. Instinctively, she pulled her long waves around her neck. “Promise you’ll come back for him?”
“This is not a negotiation,” he stated. There was no amusement in his expression, just an eerie stillness. “Hold on tight.”
“Wait, what?”
Before she could grab her pelisse, he hooked his arm around her waist, pulling her up his body as if she weighed nothing.
He slipped his other arm behind her knees, knocking her off balance before lifting her in his arms and careening them both through the window and onto the stone balcony just as her bedroom door swung open and the amber-haired woman and Edith walked inside.
“Close your eyes.” His deep voice vibrated in her ears as she rested her head against his chest, her fingers crumpling the fabric of his shirt.