“I’m simply concerned about his wellbeing. Someone has to be,” he said.
She stared at him incredulously.
“Dude,” Danny muttered, “it’s like you want her to stab you.”
Merrick glared at Danny only long enough to say, “The adults are speaking, boy.”
“No, he’s right,” Adalynn said, glaring at Merrick.
“Food and shelter for tonight,” Merrick continued, though part of him didn’t know why he was so adamant she stay; he’d certainly not made it an appealing choice. “Tomorrow you can swear at me as much as you like—despite my generosity—on your way out.”
Adalynn clenched her jaw, and her brows fell even lower. Her nostrils flared with a heavy inhalation. “Do you even know how to offer someone help without being a condescending prick about it?”
Merrick felt an echo of the headache that had developed after he’d fought back her sickness—a dull, distant pulsing between his temples and behind his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut and caught his lower lip between his teeth to prevent himself from snarling.
“I am not what you would consider a…people person,” he said in as measured a voice as he could manage.
“Obviously,” Danny said.
“Danny!” Adalynn growled.
Danny threw his hands up. “Okay, okay! I’m not the bad guy here, remember?”
Keeping her eyes locked with Merrick’s, Adalynn crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you want us to stay or not?”
More than I would’ve thought possible mere minutes ago. More than I even realize.
“It would be my pleasure to have you,” he grated through his teeth.
The corners of her mouth twitched, and her lush lips slowly stretched into a grin. Mirth sparkled in her eyes. “You need to practice sounding sincere, but was that so hard? It would be an honor to accept your invitation.”
Part of him wanted to be annoyed at her, annoyed that she could so quickly shift her mood, annoyed because he should’ve viewed her change in attitude as smugness, as arrogance, as her exerting power over him she did not possess. But he wasn’t annoyed.
Maybe she did have some inexplicable power over him.
Seeing her grin like that was nothing short of arousing. That hint of mischief, of wickedness, on her otherwise innocent face urged his imagination toward something much more titillating; he knew he could not allow himself to dwell on such lustful thoughts.
He raised a hand and waved toward the hallway. “After you, then. I trust you remember the way.”
Adalynn and Danny preceded Merrick into the hallway, and he followed them toward the kitchen on the other side of the manor. Danny, who remained in the lead, turned and walked backward, his gaze flicking between Adalynn and Merrick. His attention finally settled on Merrick.
“So, uh…what’s your name?” Danny asked.
“Merrick.”
“Cool. Mine’s Daniel, but most people call me Danny.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Adalynn released a dismissive huff.
Merrick sighed and shook his head as they crossed the foyer and entered the north hallway. “Your whispers carried well down the hallway while you were sneaking around my home. I overheard your names several times.”
Danny grinned, but his expression swiftly turned into startlement when he tripped, stumbling back a few steps with his arms wheeling.
“Danny, watch where you’re going,” Adalynn said.
“It was the rug,” Danny said. “Jumped up out of nowhere.”
“If you think I’m unpleasant already, wait until you break something else,” Merrick grumbled.
“We haven’t broken anything!” Danny said.
“So the window broke itself mere moments before you came inside?”
“I didn’t break that. Your window’s on her.”
“Wow, thanks, Danny,” Adalynn said.
Merrick couldn’t stop the corner of his mouth from tilting up. “Quite the dashing young gentleman you are.”
“I know, right?” The boy managed to match Merrick’s sarcasm, if not his dryness.
Danny turned into the kitchen. Adalynn and Merrick followed close behind.
Merrick walked toward the pantry. “Go sit down.”
The humans moved to the table positioned near the back corner of the kitchen. Adalynn set the flashlight atop it, pointed upwards to create a wide circle of light on the ceiling. Slipping their packs off their shoulders, they dropped them onto the floor, pulled out their chairs, and sat next to one another.
“Do you always wander around this place in the dark, Merrick?” Danny asked, drumming his fingers on the table’s surface.
Merrick paused in front of the pantry door and glanced back to see Adalynn reach out and place her hand over Danny’s to still his fingers. However poorly Merrick thought of humans, they were perceptive, and it was in his best interest to mask his true nature from them—to hide, just as he’d done for so many centuries.
“There are candles in most rooms, but I’ve lived here for many years. I’m quite familiar with the layout of my home. I find it wasteful to use candles when I don’t require additional light for navigation.” Merrick opened the pantry door. “And I don’t often make a habit of wandering the halls in the dead of night, young Daniel. Circumstances tonight have dictated otherwise.”
“Does anyone else live here?” Adalynn asked.
“No.” Merrick entered the pantry; he assumed it would’ve been black as pitch to their human eyes, but he could see the stores he’d built up over the last several years quite clearly. Whatever his qualms about interacting with humans, he couldn’t deny the convenience of the food preservation methods they’d innovated over the last century or so.
“So, you’re alone here?”
“Yes.”
Just as he preferred.
Merrick selected a few tomatoes and cucumbers from the baskets on the shelves—he preferred to hold onto his jars of preserve and canned goods for when the fresh crops ran low during the long winter months—and a sleeve of buttery crackers.
He carried the food into the kitchen.
Danny stared at Merrick with huge, excited eyes. “I knew it! I told you there was food here, Addy.”
Adalynn’s eyes widened when they settled on the food in Merrick’s arms. “You have fresh produce?”
Merrick leaned forward to place the food atop the table, letting the produce roll gently from his arms. “Yes. And you, apparently, have an endless supply of questions.”
A flash of irritation crossed her face, and she pressed her lips together.
“A jest, Adalynn,” Merrick hurried to say; he wanted her to stay, so why was he pushing her away? “Forgive the dryness of my tone.”
I suppose the years have made me somewhat cantankerous, haven’t they?
Her expression softened, and she nodded.
He tore open the package of crackers and placed it on the table between the two humans. “I’ve always kept a bountiful garden, even before the world changed.”
Danny tore into the crackers the moment they touched the table, shoving two into his mouth and chewing noisily. He released a satisfied groan.
Adalynn looked at the vegetables. “It’s a good idea, but a lot of people, especially in the cities, didn’t have the space to grow anything. These days…it’s more a matter of not being able to stay in one place long enough.”
Merrick moved to the counter, taking two plates out of the cupboard and a knife from the block. “I imagine its more difficult now to maintain one than ever. Things are…bad out there?”
“Real bad,” Danny said before stuffing another cracker into his already full mouth.
When Merrick returned to the table, he frowned; it was already covered with crumbs around Danny. Merrick slid one of the plates directly in front of the boy, catching a few of the falling crumbs. This was going to be harder to tolerate than he’d thought.
Merrick set the other plate in front of Adalyn
n and settled the knife atop it.
“Thanks.” Adalynn picked up the knife, grabbed a tomato, and began cutting it.
“My only expeditions into this altered world were made soon after the moon split,” said Merrick, “and I imagine the small towns in this region are not exemplary of the wider world. Real bad how?”
Danny swallowed audibly. “You haven’t seen? The cities are pretty much just hunting grounds for monsters.”
Merrick had been aware of monsters throughout his life—he was one of them, after all—but his encounters with other supernatural beings had been limited. His few treks into the nearby towns after the Sundering had been enough to confirm his suspicions—just as the moon breaking had amplified Merrick’s magic beyond his imaginings, it had brought about a resurgence of inhuman beings. But his experience was with a tiny portion of the country; he found himself eager to hear more, to know more. His isolation hadn’t been kind to his ravenous appetite for information.
“Monsters of what sort?” Merrick asked.
Adalynn paused in slicing a cucumber and looked at him curiously, head tilted to one side. “You really haven’t heard anything?”
Danny snatched a slice of cucumber off her plate and popped it in his mouth.
“I’ve been self-sufficient since well before all this happened, but there were a few supplies I deemed important enough to warrant a couple of trips. I saw many strange things during those journeys, but it was some months ago, and I deemed it best to remain here in security. Any other means I possessed of obtaining information from beyond my walls lasted only as long as the electricity. I’d like to know what you have seen.”
“Lucky,” Danny muttered.
Adalynn frowned, her gaze shifting from her brother to the sleeve of crackers. She took five of them before placing the remainder on his plate.
Merrick’s mouth fell into a frown of his own. Though he had no intention of eating with the humans, he pulled out a chair opposite them and eased onto it. “That isn’t necessary, Adalynn.”
She turned her gaze to him. “What?”
“There is plenty of food for both of you. You do not need to split your portion for your brother tonight.”
A blush colored her cheeks. “We’ve already taken from you, and you’ve made your stance on that pretty clear.”
He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “After all the arguing that brought us to this point, you are going to eat a fair portion. Isn’t she, young Daniel?”
Danny had stopped eating to look at Adalynn. He glanced at his plate and seemed only in that moment to realize how much he’d eaten—despite his sister having taken only five crackers, the sleeve was better than halfway depleted. His brows lowered, and he frowned. The guilt that flickered across his face was accompanied by a deep sadness.
“It’s okay, Addy. You can eat more,” Danny said, returning the sleeve of crackers to the table between them.
When Adalynn looked at Merrick questioningly, he dipped his chin toward the food. “Eat—and talk. Consider the information payment; a fair exchange for food and lodging.”
“You talk funny,” Danny said.
Adalynn elbowed her brother before slipping a wedge of tomato into her mouth.
Merrick arched a brow and returned his attention to the boy. “And you don’t?”
“Nope,” Danny said, popping his lips when he made the P sound.
Merrick took a slow, deep breath, and paused for a moment to assess his motivations. He wanted isolation, wanted to be alone. But he wanted Adalynn to stay, wanted her close, wanted to touch her and hear her voice and see her happy, wanted to feel her mana song. Getting her to eat was part of that. Obviously, those were conflicting desires…but his want of isolation had dropped to a distant third, now behind his craving for information in addition to his inexplicable craving for Adalynn.
And her eyes were on him, so big and dark, full of curiosity and wariness, so different from those fleeting moments in the ballroom when they’d brimmed with fire and lust.
“I’m not originally from the area,” he finally said. He had little desire to delve into his origins; lying to humans had been necessary for survival, but he’d always felt degraded by having to do so.
“Huh,” Danny said. “Cool.” Apparently bored with the subject, he dove back into his food.
Merrick’s relief at the boy’s sudden disinterest was ridiculous in its strength—but it was short-lived.
“Where are you from?” Adalynn asked.
Damn it.
“Europe,” Merrick replied dismissively, “but I emigrated a long time ago. You were speaking about monsters?”
She took a bite out of a cucumber slice. “It’s basically a bunch of monsters you might’ve seen in horror movies or heard about in old legends. They kind of appeared after the moon broke, and there were rumors early on that some people actually…well, turned into them.”
“I haven’t watched many movies. Would you mind elaborating?” Merrick had seen walking corpses and a plethora of spirit-like entities when he’d left his estate; he needed to know what else was out there, needed to know how many of the ancient texts he’d spent so long studying were accurate in what they described.
“The werewolves are scary as shit,” Danny said.
“Danny,” Adalynn warned.
“What? They are! We saw one when we were trying to get out of the city. The only reason it didn’t come after us was because someone else shot at it. The thing didn’t even flinch!”
“We’ve heard them a few times after that,” Adalynn said, frowning. “They sound like howling wolves, but much deeper. It’s…I don’t know, otherworldly. And it’s terrifying, especially when you realize they’re communicating with each other.”
“And there are revenants everywhere,” Danny said.
“Revenants?” Merrick asked.
“Walking corpses,” Adalynn replied. “The wolves are scary because they’re so monstrous, but the dead…a lot of them still look human, but they’re not. They go after anything that’s living, almost like they can sniff out life, and they’re vicious. Like rabid animals. You can damage their bodies, slow them down, even incapacitate them with enough damage—or just the right kind of damage, I guess—but the only way to make sure you stop them is by burning them.”
“What do you mean by the right kind of damage?”
Adalynn’s brow furrowed, and she lowered her gaze. There was a mild strain on her features now, and Merrick’s heart thumped restlessly in response; he didn’t like causing her distress.
“Injuries affect them sort of like they would a living person. Not that they seem to feel pain, but…you hack into their leg, and their leg doesn’t work right. You know what I mean?”
“Addy had to hit one with the car before we got here so it wouldn’t follow us,” Danny said.
“And it just dragged itself down the road behind us anyway,” Adalyn added. “I was driving almost fifty miles an hour when I hit it. That would’ve killed a normal person instantly.”
Merrick raised a hand and brushed his fingers over his short beard. Their testimony only served as more proof in support of what he’d suspected based on his research—the moon had served as a balance of some sort, as a mystical lock on the forces of magic, on the forces of life and death. Its destruction had disrupted what had previously been the natural laws of Earth.
Adalynn worried her lower lip for a moment. “After the moon broke, Mother Nature went nuts. There were earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, crazy lightning storms…we even think the coasts got hit by tsunamis. Power went out right away in a lot of places, and it was out everywhere else within a few weeks. No internet, no cell service, no radio or TV. And as if all those disasters weren’t enough, everyone who died just…got back up and tried to rip the survivors to pieces.
“Me and Danny saw that werewolf, but we’ve seen other things, too. There was an impossibly beautiful man who was glowing all golden, and he had wings, but
his eyes were cold. Once we saw these demonic-looking things perched on a roof—I swear, they looked like gargoyles come to life. We’ve seen some…spirits at night, too. And other survivors have told us about all kinds of other things.”
Irritation and alarm flared in Merrick’s chest; he did his best to suppress them, but the sudden worry was justified. “Other survivors? You don’t have companions out there you’ve not told me about, do you?”
Eyes rounding, Adalynn shook her head. “No, we’ve been alone for months. When it all started, we got out of the city as fast as we could. A lot of people had the same idea. We kept in groups for a while, but as time went on, and resources got scarce, and more and more scary stuff crawled out of the darkness…people got desperate. They got mean.
“The last group we were with ended badly. A couple of the guys got into an argument over food, and it turned into a shootout. Three people died, and a lot of people were hurt. It only got worse when the dead people got back up. So, we grabbed whatever supplies we could and took off on our own. I kept us away from major cities, using as many country roads as I could find, and we’ve avoided people as much as possible.”
Such was the nature of humanity—even when confronted with inhuman terrors and widescale disaster, they still couldn’t avoid conflict with one another. Her story wasn’t surprising, at least in that regard, and Merrick shouldn’t have felt anything over it…but he did. He felt the immense weight Adalynn carried on her shoulders, felt the fear, the sorrow, the utter weariness in her heart, felt her pain.
And he felt her spirit, her willpower, her protectiveness. Despite her sickness, she’d kept herself and her brother alive through all that. Merrick had some understanding of what it meant to be mortal, of the struggles she must’ve faced, of the fear she must’ve felt, and he was impressed with her for having overcome them.
He was proud of her.
“How long have the two of you been on your own?” Merrick asked.
Lowering her gaze, Adalynn used her fingertip to push a crumb around in a small circle atop the table. “One hundred and three days.”
The ease with which she’d offered that number suggested she’d kept careful track.
The Warlock's Kiss Page 6
