Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 42637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 213(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 142(@300wpm)
“I’m—” My throat worked around the word. I stared down, sifting for something solid, telling myself over and over I would not be a prisoner, I would not be a victim. I was disgusted. Terrified. And yet, I felt something else deep down in my soul.
I was hypnotized by the sight of him. Horrified by the heat crawling through my veins.
And then it hit me so fast I thought I’d lost my balance. A memory. Not whole. Not clear. It was just a fragment. It was like cold air slapping against me. The smell of iron and wood smoke. A hand—Ivan’s hand—smoothing my hair back as he whispered against my ear. The tone was low and desperate. I knew the words were spoken out of love.
As fast as the memory came, it was gone.
“I don’t know why,” I said finally, my voice thin, “but part of me feels like I’ve seen this before. Like I’ve been here before. I don’t understand it. I just… knew something was coming.”
“I should be grateful,” he finally said, voice low enough to echo off the stone. “That a part of you remembers some things.”
“Don’t twist this,” I snapped, breath shaking. “I’m not—”
“Accepting this,” he finished softly. “No. You aren’t. But you came here anyway. This door isn’t on the main corridor. Your feet—your memory—found it.” His head tilted slightly, studying me in that unsettling way of his, as if he could hear my thoughts before I formed them.
A shiver rippled through me as an image rose. A lantern swung from a hook where the basin now stood, the undercroft lit not by moonlight but by flickering gold. My fingers curled against my palms as another memory—no, a feeling—bloomed. Laughter echoed off these same stones. Warm bread shared on the steps. His hand steadying mine as we traced the carvings on a pillar, reading their meaning aloud like we were telling bedtime stories.
The ghost of it passed through me as sharp as the first rays of sun touching the land for the first time. It left me dizzy. This was not just a crypt or a hiding place where he fed. Once, it had been a refuge. A place we’d come to escape the world, where just the two of us could speak freely with no one hearing.
My skin prickled at those memories. Ones I didn’t understand. Ones that confused and terrified me.
“I know what you are.” My throat burned. “I see it clearly. I see everything.”
“Yes,” he said. “And you’re still here.”
The words cut deep. I wasn’t still here because I wanted to be. I was here because he kept me, because stone walls and locked doors made sure of it. Yet, something traitorous inside me twisted, whispering that there was more to it than chains or corridors.
I realized I’d felt almost safe—in the bedchamber, the library, the glass-lit solarium. But down here… there was no softness. The undercroft was raw, stained with decades of blood, smelling of death that was so thick it was an unmistakable odor.
“I won’t pretend,” he said, almost lightly, “that I didn’t enjoy it. Feeding. There is pleasure in surviving. But it’s a necessity. I won’t dress it in finer clothes to make you more comfortable. This is what I am.”
I shook my head because it gave me something to do. My palms ached from digging my nails into them. I forced them to loosen, then wrapped my arms tight around myself. “You wanted me to see this,” I said, my voice breaking smaller than I intended.
“Eventually, yes, you needed to see what I am. But I didn’t bring you here,” he said. “You came of your own accord.”
Heat flushed through me so fast I thought I’d be sick. Shame burned, and I clutched it because it was easier than facing the other thing clawing through me. He noticed. Of course he noticed.
We stood in silence long enough for the bite on my neck to throb, a reminder that he’d fed from me, too. My fingers went there on instinct. The heat that answered my touch made me furious.
At him, and especially at my body for betraying me. “I should go back,” I whispered. “I—”
“You should.” He stepped back a single inch, enough to shift the air between us. “Get some rest. Tomorrow”—the word sounded like both a promise and threat—“we’ll talk.”
I swallowed hard, wanting to argue, to demand answers. My gaze caught on the clean line of his jaw, the faint smear of blood at the corner of his mouth.
The woman I had been before all this would have recoiled.
The woman I was now wanted to reach up and wipe the blood away with her thumb.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CLARA
The castle breathed like a living thing. If I closed my eyes and focused, I could almost hear it speaking to me. There was an endless hush of stone and memories… ones that felt familiar but foreign all in the same breath.