Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1)

by Jeanine Croft

  Mina retracted her claws and glanced fearfully at the library door whither she knew she was bound to follow.

  Again the glass clinked quietly beneath the black beak. What are you waiting for?

  What indeed? Only the mad durst trod upon the heels of Death… Mina gave an uneasy swish of her tail, her courage flagging. Finally, she padded out into the corridor, if only to escape her sister’s pertinacious black glares. Her small paws were preternaturally still over the flags. It behooved her to keep a safe distance as she bent her course to follow the dragon. She streaked from one shadow to the next, pausing to listen every few feet.

  He was on the stairhead now and headed back towards his bedchamber. All else was silent and there was no sign of the housekeeper or any of the other ghoulish servants. Most, if not all, the wights would be out hunting rats and guttersnipes on the wharves, or whatever vile things corpses were wont to slake their hunger on. But not for long. Darkness was even now ebbing from the east.

  Up the stairs she scurried, her ears pricked and her eyes darting over every shadow. She hadn’t heard his chamber door open, and yet the dragon’s footfalls had ceased. Mina held herself still to listen. The castle was so silent that she could hear the dying stars tremble before the stirring dawn, and sense the low sigh of the moon sinking behind the trees, and the grey hush of the world as it hovered between night and day.

  She pressed herself into the wall and waited, her cat eyes fixed, trained on the darkness beyond where she sensed his presence. She would not move until he did. At length, a door creaked open and the sound of fitful slumber issued from the dragon’s chamber. Ahh, so he had waited for his beloved’s sleep to deepen. Why?

  The door shut with a soft click, which allowed the cat to slink a little closer. But not too close. Not yet. She had only a few moments more to wait before she heard a latch turning—the window opening and closing again. Thereafter, the sound of great wings beat out across the moors.

  Gone at last. When she could hear him no more, Mina trembled with relief and then hurried to his chamber door. After a few bolstering breaths, she gathered her power and dispersed herself like wisps of smoke through the tight gap beneath the door. On the other side of it, the cat materialized, panting and shuddering until every last whisker and hair betook its place.

  Ana was already perched on the sill just outside the window, unable to enter. Only Boudicca, the cat, had been invited in with Milli’s possessions. The raven hopped about, anxious lest the master return betimes. Make haste!

  Mina nodded and leapt onto the bed where the sleeping girl lay pale and motionless. Beside her had been placed a letter and the signet ring of Markus Winterly. Mina snatched both up in her mouth and scurried to the window where she broke the seal.

  My dearest Emma—It will no doubt alarm you to know that I have ever loved to watch you sleep, and I did so often even in London, if only to guard you from the white spider, and to marvel at the peaceful repose of your features. In those precious moments, your peace was mine also. Such peace as I have not known in all my long life; for that I adore and thank you. In return, I have made of you a wilted prisoner here and stolen that peace you once possessed.

  I confess I am an old thief, a thief of life and freedom; a thief of peace. I sought to possess you completely. Ever a prideful being, this has never disturbed me until now. Your life has become far dearer to me than even my own. And if I must relinquish my pride to set you free, I shall, even at the cost of my own peace of mind. My heart, which I thought long dead, is, as it turns out, possessed by the very person I sought to possess.

  So here I stand—checkmated by the white queen after all—yours completely. Though I shall never be free of you, I offer you your freedom. Take it with all my love. And to this I add pecuniary freedom also, though, I suspect you may reject it. Nevertheless, I have left instructions with Skinner who will furnish you with the address of my solicitor in London. He will be expecting you. Provisions for you and your sister will have been made by the time you read this letter; it is my wish that your independence be absolute. Some small recompense for your sojourn into the Underworld. You are, whatever your feelings on the subject, now a very wealthy woman. And free.

  I desire you will live a long life and spend your days howsoever you choose. I shall do all in my power to keep Malach from you and your sister. It is my everlasting hope that you find it in your heart to return to me someday. Until then, keep my ring so that all will know you are to be protected and revered.

  Keep the ring and let me hope. I love you, my enduring rose.

  Yours in eternity,

  Markus

  The raven read the words from the window, scoffing at every line. Mina was inclined to agree. They’d seen enough. With the letter once again clutched between her fangs, Mina sprang onto the windowsill and flicked the latch open to join her sister on the ledge. Both the letter and the ring were then transferred to the raven’s waiting claws. With not a moment to waste, Ana flew from the window.

  Mina did not stay to watch her go but rushed under the bed to await her sister’s return. The letter required only a little…improvement, and Tanith was an excellent mimic. Once it was sealed in wax again, there would be no more need for the signet ring. And when Emma was done leading them to Milli, there would be little point in keeping the little trull alive. She was, after all, no longer a virgin, no longer useful. Only the heart was of value now, doubly so now that it was known she possessed the dragon’s heart as well. Malach would be pleased. The only way to kill the dragon was through the heart, and Emma would be his undoing. Markus would be easily dispatched once Emma was dead.

  Above Mina’s head, the girl shivered beneath the coverlet. The room was cold—it is always coldest on the edge of night, before sunlight erupts over the horizon. Markus had lit a fire in the hearth before he’d left, but the warmth it threw off was no match against the cold pouring in through the open window.

  Useless though the fire was to Emma, Mina was determined to put it to better use. After all, a nest of fire and ash was the perfect resting place for the Winterly signet ring, and the immolated hope of a once proud dragon.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Farewell

  Dawn saluted the room with blush hues through the open drapes. Emma awoke with a startled cry, but with no notion as to what had roused her so suddenly from slumber. The window was closed and the embers were seething dimly behind the grate. Nothing appeared amiss.

  She sank back onto the mattress, her morass of cold sheets a lonely place. The emptiness lay thick about her and proclaimed Markus was gone far away, having followed her wretched command exactly.

  She was still no closer to understanding what she was to do next or how she might help Milli. And how could she ever forgive Markus now? Hopeless and exhausted, she clenched the coverlet. The sound of paper rustling beneath her fingers stilled her. She sat up and retrieved the letter that had, until now, lain undetected by her side. It was addressed to her in Markus’s unmistakable hand.

  Dearest Emma—I confess I am an old thief; a thief of blood and freedom. I took from you even your virtue.

  I have left instructions with Skinner who will furnish you with the address of my solicitor in London. He will be expecting you. Provisions for you and your sister will have been made by the time you read this letter, to redress what is fallen and tainted beneath my touch. It is my wish that your independence be absolute. I offer you your freedom. Take it with all my best wishes, and live a long and happy life howsoever and wheresoever you choose. Nevermore will I trouble you or darken your doorstones.

  But go first to your sister, and go swiftly; my servants are at your disposal and the day is accordingly grey. Milli needs you, there may still be hope for her. Go before the wolves claim what is theirs.

  Good luck and farewell. Your thief,

  M.

  The cold ink began to shimmer dreadfully as her eyes clouded with disbelief. The stark and spidery script seemed almost foreign to he
r of a sudden. Wracking sobs tore from her throat, hot and stinging as she cradled the last words that Markus Winterly would ever address to her. How bitter freedom tasted this morning and how frigid this unforeseen farewell. When Emma had bade him leave her in the small hours, she had not expected to see the very last of him. He had ever been persistent and overbearing and unapologetic. Why now when she was so directionless and alone? How anticlimactic a swan song—the death of a romance.

  But what did she know of men, never mind an immortal of supernal provenance? He had used her ill indeed, and now that he’d had his fill of her flesh and blood, it was nothing to him where she went or what she did. How could he be so cold? Ahh, but he was a vampyre and she ought not seek to imbue such a creature as that with mortal sentiment. Oh, what a fool she’d been. She pressed her tears away with an angry palm and reread the letter. Now a wealthy fool, perhaps, but a fool nonetheless. Dared she even touch the dragon’s gold?

  No! She wanted nothing from him; how dare he quantify her wilted virtue with money. Devil take him and his lucre. Milli was welcome to whatever of his riches she desired, her sister’s maltreatment by the hands of these creatures certainly qualified her for whatever reparations were to be had.

  Milli. Milli needed her. Good of the vampyre to break her heart and leave her with that small hope at least. She hurried from the bed, the sheer chill of its desolation stung and the softness of the bedding bellied the harshness of the morning’s truth. But there was still a little life left glowing blood red in the hearth. She flung the letter to the coals and let the flames dry her eyes as they shot up to devour his cold farewell.

  The carriage wheels rattled a plaintive adieu along the vaulted avenue of yews, the dour glow of the lamps doing little to chase the gloom from the road. In the branches overhead, the rooks took up their harsh threnodies, calling to the dusk. Every endeavor to leave before noon had been thwarted by Mrs. Skinner and the solar aversion observed by her vampiric underlings; not even the relative safety of a thick grey ceiling had induced them to accommodate her until now.

  Emma turned to catch a last glance of the castle and the housekeeper’s eerie silhouette before they were both engulfed by the ancient black boles and twisted boughs. The Domus Hadao of her books and secret fantasies; the very thing the wicked viscount had promised her back in London when she’d been naïve and gormless. How the place had excited her morbid fancies when first she’d arrived here. Would she have allowed her love of darkness to bud had she known the House of Hades was guarded by his faithful cerberean hellhounds. His wehr-wolves.

  She hated that she’d had to leave Boudicca here, but the cat had disappeared and despite searching all afternoon for her, Emma had been forced to leave without Milli’s pet. It had vanished as suddenly as it had come into their lives. And with those pestilent wehr-wolves about, God only knew what had become of her.

  Struck again by the force of her blue devils, Emma turned to gaze ahead—towards Hobkirk Priory. Towards her dear sister. She needed Milli perhaps more than Milli needed her, for what could she possibly do for Milli now? Her sister the she-wolf. How was such a thing to be borne? Well, they would figure it out together, wouldn’t they?

  A seat on the stagecoach had been arranged for her in York. Seeing as she was unable to conjure the coachman a thick fog to take her directly to the priory, she was resigned to public transport. After Durham, she was to go by mail coach. She had never travelled the Great North Road alone, and today she was not merely alone but entirely forsaken. She almost begged the coachman to take her back to Winterthurse when he handed her into the stagecoach with a brusque nod of farewell.

  What was the matter with her? She ought to be rejoicing in her freedom, not dreading her final sight of Winterly’s wordless servant. She pressed a small kerchief to her eyes as she watched her small portmanteau being transferred from the stately carriage to the coach. The rest of her traps were to be sent to Little Snoring; it might be easier to tame a wehr-wolf in a tame place like Little Snoring than to risk the teeming streets of London.

  She was interrupted from her plans of wehr-wolf rearing when the coach got underway and the red dragon emblazoned on the Winterly carriage disappeared into the darkness forever.

  Goodbye forevermore. She had never really considered what an eternity might be like. Had she, at some weak moment, imagined herself at Markus Winterly’s side forever? Perhaps she had whispered that secret wish in the quiet of her room in the dark of the night, with only the moon and the stars to overhear her.

  At the Coaching Inn in Durham, she awoke with tears still fresh upon her lashes. Even the weatherworn passengers that had been clinging to their seats on the outside of the coach looked far cheerier than she who had remained warm and dry within. The Red Dragon Inn (was she to be reminded of Markus at every turn?) was seething with patrons scrambling for a hasty meal before the coach departed.

  Though she was ushered into a private sitting room to take her supper, her appetite was as cold as the soup and she partook of neither the ale or the undercooked beef. While the hostlers exchanged the tired horses for a fresh team of four, Emma brooded over a tapestry of a long red dragon hanging over the broad mantelshelf in the main hall. She much preferred the clatter of hooves and wheels on the cobbled courtyard, the blaring horns of new arrivals, and the raucous chatter of the main thoroughfare to the quiet of the sitting room that Winterly’s reputation and money had secured her. But it was there, in the crowded hall, that she first perceived the glancing touch of an intrusive gaze. Whence it came, however, and to which of the many faces it belonged, she could not make out. Overtired she likely was, but she was determined to keep vigilant lest the obtrusive stare prove malignant.

  At length, the departure call was sounded and she repaired to the coach and to the reprieve of darkened anonymity found within. They set off with a jolt. The noise of the undercarriage reverberated through and all around her until her very eyelids were rattled shut again and again. The carriage was not but a half hour north of Durham when her eyelids proved too heavy to remain open. Even if there had been light enough to read by, she was without her spectacles and the effort of straining over each word was more trouble than it was worth. She was resigned to a long and monotonous journey wherein slumber was her only escape.

  But she was soon disturbed from her sleep, not by the deep ruts in the road or perilous jostling of the coach, but by something more sinister. That gaze again, so persistent that it had roused her with its intensity. It was too dark to see beneath the hats and bonnets of her fellow passengers, but she was certain the feeling stemmed from the gentleman across from her. Indeed, it was he—the rest of the passengers, she soon discovered, were all fast asleep. Every primal cell within her flesh stiffened in alarm, somehow recognizing him for the supernatural he was.

  She concentrated her glare in his direction, specifically at the shadowy smile only just discernible in the meager lamp light. What if this was a vampyre—or something worse—come to sport with her now that Winterly had relinquished his claim? Mindful of her sleeping companions, she leaned forward, addressing the stranger in an angry whisper. “Who are you?” She was unable to keep the quaver from betraying her fear.

  “You wound me, Miss Rose. I should hate to think myself so unremarkable as not to warrant remembering.”

  “Mr Valko?” She gasped to see the eerie flash of viridian that incandesced below the underside of his hat brim. And then it was gone.

  “Ahh, I see I am not forgot.” He tipped his hat and nodded.

  Emma peered hard through the gloom that separated them. Her eyesight was bad enough even in good light. But she recognized his voice at least. Emma’s shock was instantly displaced by keen revulsion. “I know what you are. I know what you did to Milli.”

  He lifted his index finger and placed it against his lips, shaking his head.

  “Why are you following me?” She quickly lowered her voice at the sound of a cough nearby. “What do you want?”

  �
��I want only to protect you.”

  “Like you did my sister?” If she’d possessed strength enough to rip him apart, she’d have done it right then and there.

  “We never meant to harm your sister,” he said.

  But the regret in his voice did nothing to quell the rabid hate boiling in Emma’s belly. “At the next coaching inn, I want you gone from my sight.”

  “As you wish,” he replied with equal vehemence. “Though my staying hidden won’t change the fact that you shall still be followed. You require guarding whether you will it or no.”

  “And on whose authority is my guard dog employed?”

  He bristled palpably, his eyes aglow again. “You may consider it a favor to Markus that I continue my…employment.”

  She gave a stiff lift of her chin, wishing he’d snuff that frightening gleam from his eyes. If one of the other passengers were to see it… “If Markus fears for my safety, why does he not come himself?”

  “Did you not commit his letter to the fire?” His preternatural eyes became menacing slits in the dark. “You have made your feelings quite clear, Miss Rose, so here I am in his stead. And,” he added in begrudging accents, “because my family owe it to the sister of Milli.”

  Of course! It was Milli they really cared to protect. Emma sat back, suddenly drained. It was not in her nature to be hostile, exhausting effort that it was. She wanted to hate him, truly, but it was difficult to correlate this man with the creature that had bitten her poor sister. “Where is he?” Her whispered query would not have reached a mortal ear above the din of the coach and hooves, but she had no doubt Valko could hear her. And he did not need to ask to whom she referred.

  “Markus did not say and I did not ask.”

  “Why did you bite my sister?”