by Bella Klaus
A cold November breeze swirled through my hair, pushing strands across my face, but the temperature barely registered. I was so cold that I’d lost feeling in my limbs and the outer layer of my skin. Valentine could have his fangs in my neck right now, and I would be too numb to even notice the bite. Exhaustion weighed down my limbs and I hung in his arms like a limp kitten. I was beyond fear, beyond worry, beyond everything but the need to sleep.
As he swooped down over a copse of trees, I perked up. Valentine crossed what appeared to be an overgrown garden with the white bark of birch trees reflecting in the moonlight. Up ahead was a derelict mansion that reminded me of an abandoned mental hospital. It was a U-shaped construction of pale stones, consisting of a rectangular main building with two four-story wings. Its bottom windows were boarded up, but none of that mattered when the upper windows were smashed. The left wing was blackened down one side, looking as though it had been the subject of several fires. On its right wing, a thick growth of moss extended all the way to its roof.
The only thing about it that didn’t look ready to collapse was the roof of its right wing. Pristine slate tiles reflected in the moonlight, but even that could have been an illusion.
As Valentine headed straight for the building, my sluggish heart kicked into action. “We’re not going inside there.”
Valentine stared ahead, his brows furrowing.
I raised a heavy arm and pushed at his shoulder. “We can’t stay in a place like this. Think of all the vermin and the diseases I’ll catch. This place is a tetanus trap.”
As soon as I heard the words, every nerve inside my body cringed. Of course I was going to die. Did the means of my death matter to Valentine?
A little voice in the back of my head told me to calm. Valentine had saved me from his brothers and probably wouldn’t want to kill me. But I’d watched more than a few episodes of Vampire Diaries and True Blood where the newly arisen member of the undead accidentally overfed and killed their victim. Even if he wanted to exercise restraint, I might still die.
We flew down over the building’s courtyard, where moss tried to consume two abandoned shipping containers. My breath came in shallow pants. There were a few more things I was forgetting about vampire lore. They were vulnerable to sunlight. When Valentine rushed out into the trees to save me from Lazarus, he had caught fire. So all I needed to do was stay alive until sunrise, wait for him to sleep, and make my escape.
The frantic beat of my heart calmed, and Valentine flew into the second-floor window of the mansion and over a vast chamber that might have once been a ballroom judging by the ornate pillars around its edges. Moonlight shone through the rafters of the roof and through the ceiling joists, down to a collapsed floor of boards that hung halfway to the level below.
I gulped. So much for trying to escape. I’d snap my neck trying to negotiate all this rotten wood. He continued through a vast hallway of marble floors with ivy growing over mossy walls. The scent of rotting wood filled my nostrils, making me shudder.
This was beyond creepy. Even more creepy than being carried away by a dead vampire. Valentine flew up a staircase that had probably once been grand judging by its width and the marble treads that hadn’t been smashed, but its entire middle was now a pile of rubble several levels below.
“Was this attacked in World War Two?” I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice and keep his mind off my blood.
The old Valentine would have given me a history of how he or one of his ancestors had acquired the land but this dead version remained tight-lipped.
He flew up another flight of stairs to the top floor, which looked like it had been refurbished in the past few decades. Solid floorboards stretched down the length of a fifty-foot hallway of crumbling plaster walls and high ceilings. The lingering scent of damp and wet and rot now gave way to dust.
He landed on his feet as soundlessly as a cat and turned right—the direction of the wing that had been covered in moss. At the end of the long corridor stood a huge black door that looked even newer than the floorboards.
“You can put me down.” I patted Valentine on the shoulder with a numb hand.
Ignoring me, he continued toward the end of the hallway. When we reached the door, he released his hold around my body, setting my bare feet on the rough floorboards. I stared up at his handsome profile. In the dim light streaming through the holes in the roof, Valentine looked like a statue come to life. Moonlight muted the grays in his skin, sharpened his cheekbones, and brought out the straightness of his perfect nose followed by the curve of his full lips. Right now, I couldn’t even tell that he was dead.
He pressed a hand against the door, and streams of white magic shot from its surface, snaked around his wrist, and travelled up his arm. When it reached his heart, the magic flinched as though shocked to find nothing beating within his chest. The door clicked open, and a stream of bright lights lit up the hallway.
Valentine stepped back and swept his arm out to the side, indicating for me to enter first. I stole a glance at his now-ghoulish features and glanced over my shoulder at the fifty-foot-long-hallway, imagining myself tripping over the broken staircase and falling to my death.
Perhaps if I could feel my limbs, I might have tried running. The effort would have been futile against Valentine’s vampire speed, but it would have been better than giving up, which was how I felt as I walked into this new space.
Maybe it was time to enact my plan to generate enough terror to burn Valentine into ashes.
A gust of warmth engulfed my body, making my nerve endings tingle with returning sensation. We were in some sort of penthouse eight times the size of my studio in Mayfair. Bright spotlights shone down from double-height ceilings, casting their light on a neutral decor of ivories and creams and shades of gray.
I stepped onto the warm parquet of what I guessed was a heated floor, taking in the ultra-modern surroundings. On the far left side was a kitchen area of white cabinets arranged around the corner in an L-shape. All the modern appliances were there, including a built-in, six-burner hob, a double oven recessed into the cupboards, and four huge freezers or refrigerators. There was even a kettle and a toaster and a rack filled with what appeared to be herbs and spices.
I wasn’t sure if it ran on electricity or magic, but the bowls of fruit on the surfaces said that it had been recently stocked. Within the L-shape was a round, marble-topped table and six chairs. I bit down on my lip. When Valentine had offered me the Notting Hill safe house, he had said there was an alternative. Was this it?
A living area took up the middle, consisting of gray sofas large enough to seat twelve. They were arranged around a huge ivory-colored rug and surrounded by low bookshelves. I turned to Valentine with my mouth gaping open.
“Is this my new safe house?”
He gave me the slightest nod, and I took in the space on the far right. Up on a four-foot-high podium was a four-poster bed even larger than the one I had shared in Notting Hill with Macavity. Unlike the paler color scheme of the rest of the penthouse, the four-poster was made of a wood so dark that it appeared black. Deep-gray curtains hung from a wooden canopy above the bed, obscuring its interior.
At the foot of the bed was a matching stool upholstered in the same fabric as the drapes. On both sides were low tables that housed bedside lights of black marble with gray lampshades.
I blew out a long breath. This place was incredible, but I still didn’t understand why I was here. Maybe I was overthinking things and Valentine had no intention of killing me. If he wanted to bite my neck, he would have done so already.
I raised a numb hand to my brow and yawned. Right now, I needed to sleep, but my legs felt so stiff from all the exposure to the wind that I took a step with one leg and then stumbled over the other.
Before I could fall, Valentine scooped me up into his arms and cradled me to his chest. I mumbled something about being able to walk on my own, but I couldn’t even muster enough energy to finish my sentence. Valentine
pulled back the curtain and deposited me on a mattress so soft it felt like lying on clouds. The sheets were probably silk, but with no feeling in my extremities, I couldn’t tell the difference.
As he stepped back, I raised a hand. “Wait.”
Valentine paused.
“Why have you brought me here?” I asked, expecting him to walk away.
“You belong to me.” His voice was deeper, smokier, more resonant than before, but also felt like it had traveled to me from a distance. Was this why he hadn’t talked until now?
I pushed myself up to sitting. “People aren’t property.”
“Your blood runs in my veins,” he replied in that eerie voice.
“Not by choice,” I snapped. “Besides, doesn’t that make me your master?”
Valentine’s brows rose, and something glimmered in his red eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was intrigue or irritation, but his recent bout of talkativeness gave me the courage to continue speaking.
“You attacked me, remember?” I pointed at his chest and then mine. “You took my blood and left me on the brink of death.”
His lips parted, revealing those oversized fangs. My heart flip-flopped into the back of my throat, choking out a gasp. Valentine’s fangs seemed to be permanently extended, which meant he had a hunger he needed to sate. He advanced toward me with the kind of stalking gait I’d seen on Macavity when advancing on a toy. Slow, deliberate movements so as not to upset his prey.
I raised my palms. “Wait there.”
Valentine stopped.
“Listen.” My tongue darted out of my mouth to lick my lips, and Valentine’s red eyes tracked the movement. I couldn’t stop swallowing, waiting for him to change his mind and use his superior strength and speed to pounce, but I managed to stutter out, “You might have brought me here against my will but don’t get any funny ideas.”
His right ear twitched, reminding me of how Macavity used to indicate that he was listening.
“You cannot bite me, lick me, smell me, taste me, or do anything to me unless I say you can.”
As Valentine nodded and the tiniest of smiles crossed his lips, I realized the implication in my words. I’d just told him that he could do all those things and more as soon as he persuaded me to let him.
His gaze skimmed over the white nightgown that had ridden up my thighs, and lingered on its gaping neckline that exposed the tops of my breasts. Valentine’s nostrils flared, and something else burned in his eyes. Something deeper than a hunger for my blood.
Chapter Five
My heartbeat kicked up several notches, beating as fast as the pulse fluttering in my throat. Valentine advanced toward me, his features radiating hunger. Had I just issued him a challenge? Remembering how he had once mesmerized me to get at my blood, I dropped my gaze to the beauty spot on his left cheekbone.
“Valentine?” I whispered.
A low rumble was his reply, and the edge of the bed dipped.
I stared at his lips, which were now parted in a wide grin. If I had to guess, he was about to do something that would make me beg him for that bite. “Please don’t come any closer.”
“Inamorata.” His deep voice echoed through my ears.
Pleasant shudders ran across my skin and settled between my legs, and sensation flooded my tiny bundle of nerves. What the hell? I scooted back several steps away from the approaching preternatural. Since when did I get turned on in the face of a preternatural?
“Mera.” My voice trembled.
“Morata.”
A shuddering sigh slipped from my lips as I tried to escape the confines of this squishy mattress. Right now, anything would be better than that term of endearment. I wasn’t quite ready to get down and dirty with a man who had just risen from the dead. And when he used that seductive voice on me, it awakened something that needed to stay dormant.
Valentine edged toward me, taking his time like this was a leisurely hunt. Beneath the alarm bells ringing through my ears, I swore I could hear him purr. This was another newly learned feature of a preternatural vampire. I wasn’t about to stick around and discover another.
Placing my hands on the mattress, I scrambled backward to the other side of the bed. In the blink of an eye, Valentine disappeared from the bed, only to reappear at my back.
I bumped into his cool, hard chest and shrieked. “Step away.”
A second later, he stood at the bottom of the podium, staring up. That was… unexpected.
All the tension escaped my lungs in a relieved breath. I pulled myself off my hands and knees to sit on the mattress, this time arranging the fabric of my borrowed nightgown so it showed the minimum of flesh. “Thank you.” My words came out deliberate and clipped. “I misspoke earlier. What I really wanted to say was to please leave me alone.”
Valentine inclined his head but didn’t leave the spot.
“What are you doing?” I made a tiny shooing motion with my hand toward the bank of huge sofas.
When Valentine continued staring at me through those red eyes and didn’t answer, my shoulders sagged. I’d probably offended him and now he was sulking.
A bout of common sense grabbed me by the shoulders and shook some sense into my skull. Was this some sort of supernatural Stockholm syndrome? Hours ago, I was minding my own business and settling into bed in Beatrice’s spare room.
Valentine’s corpse escaped its mausoleum in Logris, tracked me down, and kidnapped me against my will. Since when did the kidnappee worry about the feelings of her kidnapper?
Sensation returned to my hands and legs and feet, no doubt brought on by this fresh bout of panic. There was no bloody way I would lie dressed like Mina Harker in a four-poster bed with a preternatural vampire watching me as I slept. I shuffled to the edge of the bed and swung my legs off the side.
Valentine appeared a foot away from where I stood on the podium.
A jolt of shock had me stepping back and hitting my ass on the soft mattress. “Can’t a girl use the bathroom?”
He stepped aside, letting me place my feet on the podium’s marble floor. A cool hand rested on the small of my back—his attempt at being a gentleman—but I twisted around and pushed at his forearm.
“It’s alright,” I said, trying to get my words right. “If you point me in the direction of the bathroom, I can go there by myself.”
Valentine descended the podium’s steps and walked to the penthouse’s far left wall, where two ivory-colored doors stood side by side. He reached for the handle of the one on the right and pushed it open, revealing a bathroom as large and magnificent as the one in his palace. Recessed light bulbs illuminated a space about twenty feet wide and thirty feet long, with two thick counters of marble running down both sides for the first ten feet. Both sides housed sinks, mirrors and towel rails beneath the surfaces.
The lock was one of those sliding metal contraptions designed to offer enough resistance to let people know the bathroom was occupied. Anyone determined or supernatural enough could push it open, and the lock would snap.
I continued past the counters, where the bathroom widened to accommodate an oval tub large enough for four. On the left side of the tub stood glass sliders that concealed a walk-in shower the size of my studio’s bathroom, and behind the shower was a smaller alcove with the toilet and a European-style bidet and sink.
A pair of white, fluffy bathrobes hung on the wall to the right of the bath, looking like they were made of silk velvet. After using the toilet and flushing, I washed my hands, enjoying how heat radiated from my hands and up my forearms from the warm spray. Steam rose from the tap and settled on the window. I splashed my tingling face with water and exhaled a long sigh. Maybe I could run a bath and stay here all night.
Valentine knocked on the door, making me cringe. He’d probably heard that I had finished and wanted to know what I was doing. I glared over my shoulder and scowled. This was just like King Kong—worse, because that oversized gorilla never wanted to eat the girl.
I turned back a
nd continued splashing water over my face, this time humming a senseless tune to drown out the sound of his knocking.
“Inamorata.” His voice whispered into my ear.
Flinching, I spun to find the bathroom empty. What the hell was he, a ventriloquist? I turned off the hot water and stormed across the bathroom, ready to tell Valentine to back off. I paused to shoulder on the dressing gown, which really did feel like silk velvet.
When I flung the door open and bumped into his statue-like body, I staggered back several steps, but he caught me before my ass hit the marble floor.
“Why were you standing so close to the door?”
“I must keep you safe.” His deep voice filled my ears.
The irritation drained away, leaving me transfixed by his red eyes. “Thanks.”
My throat dried, and I tried to make myself look away, but a force held me in place. Valentine stared at me as though I was the only thing keeping him tethered to this plane of existence, and my heart ached. This wasn’t his fault. Valentine’s dying wish had been my protection and maybe that desire had etched itself into his corpse.
He continued staring into my eyes, drawing me toward him until a few inches separated our bodies. A cool draft made the bathroom door slam shut behind me, loosening his spell. While this wasn’t mesmerism, it was certainly some sort of vampire power. Perhaps it was allure?
“I’m safe,” I murmured. “You can let go now.”
Valentine released my arm but didn’t step back, leaving me sandwiched between his broad body and the bathroom door. I edged to the side, making sure not to touch him, and hurried back across the parquet floor to the podium steps, taking them two at a time. When I reached the four-poster, I pulled back the covers, and slipped between ivory silk sheets.
I fell back onto the soft mattress, letting myself sink into the even softer pillows. My eyelids fluttered shut, and I inhaled the scent of rose petals and freshly laundered sheets. This felt like the human fairy tale The Princess and the Pea. Since I wasn’t even remotely royal, it looked like I would have a pleasant night.
