Chapter Five #2
Her heartbeat stuttered and she quickly averted her gaze. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I…don’t know.”
Because she was gullible and a fool? He likely thought so. No one understood why she did. How could she possibly explain that her father was not himself? They called her delusional, but she knew how far he was willing to go. At least, she thought she did. Coming to terms with that hurt.
“How did you find out about my existence?” she asked when he didn’t say anything else.
“A witch inadvertently told me that your line had not died out.”
“Inadvertently?” she repeated. “You mean you tortured them?”
“No,” he replied but did not seem offended by the accusation.
“I can taste memories, emotions too. I experience them through drinking blood. That’s how I found out about you, the great-great-granddaughter of the secret child born to a Lysanmore noblewoman.
” He gestured to her. “The Avery family must have discovered the truth not long before me. It is why they were coming for you, although I cannot understand why they want you dead other than to punish me.”
“Why do they want to punish you?”
His eyes darkened, but he did not answer.
“Keep your secrets,” she said. “I do not care. All I want is for you to believe me about the curse. If you kill me, you will be damning yourself.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“I have no way to prove it to you, but are you willing to take the chance that I’m lying and be wrong?”
He straightened his posture and shoved his hand into his pockets, glaring down at her. “No. I’m not. Tell me everything and spare no detail.”
She mulled over her next words carefully and reined back the bite in her tongue. “I spoke with the spirit of one of my ancestors.”
“What was her name?”
“I do not know, but she said she is the one who cursed you.” His jaw clenched, so she hurried on and tried not to trip over her words. “The spirits of my family are trapped in that graveyard with her, and you are the one that anchors the curse preventing them from moving on in death.”
A flicker of tension creased his lips. “How is that possible?”
“I do not know, but my ancestor told me that a woman called Gertrude cursed the Lysanmore bloodline centuries ago.”
His eyes flashed, lips twitching to the side. The expression was so fast that she questioned what she’d even seen. “Gertrude Avery, I assume.”
“Yes, and her descendants to this day continue to siphon the energy of the spirits in my bloodline, so they can grow in power, but holding so much energy in one place requires an anchor and Gertrude made you that anchor. You’re immortal, invincible, and unbreakable.
Perfect for ensuring a curse doesn’t break.
So, if you become human again, then my family will also be free. ”
“The Avery family will lose their source of power,” he finished, rubbing his fingers over his chin.
“Yes. That’s why they want me dead, because they know I’m the last one who can perform the ritual that can undo your curse.”
Ignoring the rest of the information, his brows knitted together when he responded, “Fear not. I am going to murder them all before they can try.”
Her nose scrunched at the thought of so much bloodshed. “Not the children I hope,” she stated.
“No,” he said, and her shoulders relaxed. “I don’t hurt kids, but the rest will die. They will never stop hunting me, even after I am mortal.”
“Why? They would have already lost. What would be the point?”
“We have a history. A blood one,” he said in a controlled tone, but she could sense the untamed power behind his eyes, ready to snap at any moment. “So, you would perform the ritual willingly then?”
“Yes,” she lied. “So, you believe me?”
“I want to, but you have every reason to lie to me.”
“I don’t know how else to prove it to you. I can take you to the graveyard and see if I can commune with my ancestors again.”
“That will not work. Vampires cannot see the dead.”
“That must be nice,” she quipped.
“It is one of the few perks of my curse. It would be a nuisance to be relentlessly haunted by my victims.”
Her stomach churned, and she tried not to look disgusted, but her expression told stories.
Victims. She felt ashamed for feeling anything when she looked at him, even though it was just physical attraction, which cannot be helped.
Nonetheless, his nature should have made him all the less appealing. So why didn’t it?
He was a murderer.
So was she.
The harsh truth niggled in her core, like a maggot trying to eat its way free.
“I’m going to try something,” Nathaniel intoned, his nostrils flaring when he glanced at her throat. Hesitantly, he took a step closer, and she winced.
“Try what?” she asked, her breath shaky.
“I’m going to drink from you, so I may access your memories and see for myself. I may not be able to see ghosts, but through your eyes, I can.”
“Wait…” her breath stammered. He couldn’t see the entire memory with her ancestor, at least not the part where she was told she’d need to sacrifice herself to complete the ritual to undo his curse.
Else he would know she was lying about willingly performing the ritual and would lock her away.
Any chance of escape would be gone. “I’m not comfortable with you going inside my head. ”
He stepped closer and ran his hand over the back of her neck, sliding her head to the side. “I need to trust you, and this is the only way.”
“Have you never taken someone at their word?” she asked, leaning away from him.
“Yes, which is precisely why I don’t anymore.
I do not do this lightly,” he said, grazing his finger over her freckled cheek.
“We never allow our victims to live, but come what may of that, I must know for certain how to break my curse. Now, don’t scream.
I don’t want to kill you, but if you act like prey, I might not be able to stop. ”
She flinched, leaning away from his touch, but his words echoed in her mind. Do not act like prey.
He sat beside her, drawing her near with one arm around her waist and with the other, brushed a stray strand of hair from her neck.
A shudder wracked her body as his fangs scraped her throat. Squeezing her eyes shut, she braced herself for the pain.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he murmured against her, his fingers gliding over the crease of her waist.
Several loud pops sounded from his jaw, and the horrifying realization washed through her—his jaw was dislocating. The sharp edges of his fangs sunk into her throat with reckless abandon and she realized there were more than just two sets of fangs. No, there were several.
A whimper caressed the back of her throat, but she didn’t dare let it out. Biting down on her lip, she suppressed the scream vibrating her chest, and only a small, guttural groan escaped her mouth.
His warning circled her mind repeatedly.
A sharp pain sliced through flesh and muscle, drawing deeper until a rush of heat enveloped her from head to toe. His fingers tightened in her hair as he pulled it back from her scalp, angling her better.
So this was how it felt to be food.
Her entire body stiffened, her vision vignetting with wave after wave of dizziness until the world was spinning. There was relief in surrendering. Her body collapsed into him, her senses dimming until all she could focus on was the dark behind her eyes.
The world seemed to tilt on its axis as she began to lose consciousness, and that’s when she felt his presence inside her. It started with a spark blooming in her stomach, slowly pulsing outward until all she could feel was tingles all over her body.
A heavy weight crept into her mind, and she just knew it was him. It was as if his soul was inside of her, pressing against her mental barricades until they broke open and her memories flooded through.
The first memory Charlotte was plunged into washed over her like an icy splash of water. Mist surrounded her. She was back in the graveyard of her ancestors on the night she’d stolen the bones.
Watching from behind her eyes, she saw the conversation unfold between her and her ancestor about the curse.
Nathaniel was there too, but not physically.
He was a parasite in her head, observing with a sharpness that ached her skull.
Yet, his harsh edges were softened inside her.
She felt him squirm a little, a sense of unease surrounding his presence.
She was just glad she could make him feel a little uncomfortable too considering the violation. His tongue continued to glide over her wound, her blood pumping into his waiting mouth.
The words spilled from the ghost’s mouth about the curse, the Avery family, and Gertude.
As soon as she’d decided he’d heard enough, she forced herself to feel the pain she normally numbed, allowing into to take her in waves of agony, forcing them out of the memory and into another.
His consciousness toppled with her, into scenes that spiraling when her emotions shifted along with the visuals. They were falling through darkness before landing at Lovett Manor on the eve of the massacre.
“Not this.”
Her whisper echoed around her as she watched helplessly.
She pretended to be dead on the floor, her fingers twitching against the floorboards.
She watched through cracked eyelids as her father’s grip on her sister’s throat tightened.
The man she loved, the father who’d held her as a child and kissed her forehead every night before bed, was gone.
His face was twisted into something demonic, and the blue of his eyes were rimmed with black, veining out from his pupils until darkness consumed his irises.
With a groan, she forced her way out of the memory, refusing to think about her father or that night again.
Hope drowned out the dark thoughts Nathaniel was guiding her toward, and she reminded herself that the world was not that bad.
While it was filled with suffering and bad people, there were also so many beautiful things.
Flashes of simpler days swept away the pain.
In her mind’s eye, she watched herself dancing with her sister, of Alice’s hair cascading around like spun silk, golden under the candlelight.
Another snippet of her holding Duke close at night, him purring against her, filled her up, then another, of the days where she dug her fingers deep into the soil of her garden, planting seeds and watching life grow around her.
Each dark memory was edged with a faint, ethereal light, and for a moment she wondered if she was dying.
The creature was still feasting upon her like a wild animal.
She could still feel him suckling on her throat, yet, now and then, she felt a hint of his emotion pulse through her, as if they were melding into one.
In the last memory, she felt a jolt of panic, and it was not her own.
Fortunately, the abyss snatched her away before she could feel anything else, but not before she heard a rush of whispers sound into her ears, welcoming her as the next victim to join the ghosts haunting Sallow Manor.