“I need to speak with you,” he said.
Haven looked up at his face, and what she saw surprised her. Amongst his unnatural perfections, there were natural imperfections. Fine worry lines marked his otherwise smooth forehead and around his down-turned mouth. She hadn’t noticed any of it before. His russet hair that he usually kept tied back now hung loosely about his shoulders. His weighted eyes searched her face.
Avrum was one of the last people she wanted to talk to now. He wanted to take her back to Henri. Even if he did not know the truth about his lord before, he knew it now. He had seen it with his own eyes. Still he had followed her out here to take her back? Fury ran wild inside her. She tried to step around him, but he followed her movements. “I don’t want to talk to you or anyone else,” she snapped. “Just let me go, Avrum.”
His shoulders fell. “I… can’t.”
“Like hell you can’t!”
“Haven, please. You must listen to me,” Avrum begged. “I did not know what Henri was doing to you. I had no idea…”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You saw the truth, and you know it now. You left me there, tied to the bed like some kind of animal.”
“There was nothing I could do then,” he said, his voice wavering. He glanced away from her, ashamed. “I was frightened.”
When he looked back at her, there was such sadness in his eyes. She wanted to believe he was speaking the truth, but it was the soreness of her muscles and the throbbing of her wounds that told her not to. The anger was dissolving, and she tried desperately to hold on to it. Instead, her heart ached for him.
“I regret my fear,” Avrum muttered as if he was talking to himself more than to her. “I was so foolish. I cannot believe I didn’t see what was happening before this. I would have never brought you back here if I knew. Why didn't you tell me?”
“Forgive me for not jumping to trust your kind,” she shot.
Avrum sighed. “I understand. I do not trust my kind either. Not anymore, at least.” His fingers reached out to her. She winced as they lowered her hood. Avrum’s frown deepened. “Has he... touched you? Has he—the very thought of it turns my stomach―”
She glanced away, her cheeks aflame. “No, not yet...” she said, “but I am sure he will soon. Henri is mad... He calls me Linna. He thinks I am in love with him.”
Avrum’s brows rose. “What? Who is Linna?”
“I don’t know. He thinks I am her. This is why I have to leave Greystone. I have been fighting him, but he grows impatient. I know I don’t have much longer before he...before he...”
“Oh, Haven—”
“But he is your lord.”
His gaze locked with hers so tightly, she felt her very heart constricting with it. “Not anymore.”
“You don’t mean that.”
His head tilted to the side, but his golden-brown eyes never wandered from hers. “Believe what you want, Haven, but I cannot let you go to the city. Henri has appointed Keagan as your caretaker, and when he discovers you are gone…”
Any of the remaining hope she had left vanished with the mention of his name. “Keagan…” she breathed.
“Yes, and I can’t let you go knowing of the punishment that would await you.” Avrum’s throat worked to swallow, and he nodded. The grave look on his face told Haven he was trying to suppress the haunting memory from surfacing. “As we both witnessed at the lakeside, his intentions aren’t exactly pure of heart.”
A chill ran up Haven’s spine at the thought, making her shiver. She pulled the cloak tighter around her small frame.
“When I found you there in the corner of the room… heart barely beating, I…” He paused and pressed his lips together to stop himself from continuing. His sympathy and compassion made something inside her spark to life. It began at the bottom of her belly, and like a candle’s flame, the warmth grew in size and power, stretching upward into her chest and settling at the center. She wanted to reach out and touch him, tell him that she understood his fear.
Still unsure, she kept her hands tucked under the warmth of her cloak. She felt dizzy suddenly. Was it possible that Avrum actually had a heart, and that he did want to help her? If so, that meant that Emma had been right. Avrum did care about her.
What was she going to do now that Keagan had been assigned to her? She would rather die than be Henri’s pet forever.
Maybe I can’t do this on my own...
“Help me,” she told him, realizing it was her only real option. “Help me leave… You can help me now. Together, we can get to my father and we―”
His disheartened expression made her stop.
“You can never go back to your father,” he said. “It will be the first place Keagan and Henri will look for you.”
Terror made her mind race and her hands tremble. There had to be a way for her to get out. “You can bring me and my father somewhere safe,” she blurted out in desperation. “Please, there has to be some way. I can’t stay here.”
Avrum’s eyes drifted over her shoulder to where the manor laid quiet and still. He inhaled. “You have been bitten,” he said.
Haven took a slight step back.
“I saw the wounds when I found you,” he replied to her perplexed look. “Your blood is now entangled with Henri’s. For as long as they are together and flowing through his veins, you will be connected to him. He will know where you are, no matter how far.”
She gasped, her hand flying to the place on her chest where the two pierce wounds laid underneath. “How do you know this?”
“It is something we all learn when we are first changed.”
“Have you ever killed?” she asked but then hesitated. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer to that question.
“No,” he replied. “I have taken blood from humans before, when I was first turned, but I have made sure to never harm any of them. Now, I drink from a stock supply of human and animal blood in the manor cellar.”
The thought of consuming a person’s blood made Haven nauseous. “Can you ever stop? Never drink it again?”
Avrum let out a short laugh. “I have asked the same questions,” he said. “I still have to be reminded that I am no longer like you. I cannot stop the drinking because I am no longer fully alive. The living blood replaces what I have lost during the change.”
“What are you, exactly?”
“We are called vampires.”
She couldn’t speak. She had never heard the name before, but for some reason, it made her voice freeze in the pit of her throat.
“With your blood still coursing through Henri’s veins, you can be tracked. I need to get you back to the manor before he wonders where you are and realizes you’re gone.” Avrum held out a hand to her. She stared at the open palm with wide, fearful eyes. The skin there glistened against the amber lights of the manor windows. It was marked with faint scars. Each one seemed to overlap the others.
“We keep the scars we have earned as humans,” he told her, as if reading her thoughts. “I have many of my own to bear.”
For some reason, his words made the warmth in her chest grow even more and the pains in her body ease. She stretched her own hand out, the raw and marred marks around her wrist standing out against the paleness of her skin.
Avrum offered her a tender smile―a smile that told her that this time she wasn’t alone. “Come back with me,” he told her. “I will protect you with everything I am. I swear it. Please…”
Haven hesitated for a moment, their hands hovering close. In the space between them, all her doubt and fears lingered. Could she really trust him? He was one of them after all. A vampire.
She sucked in icy night air and, taking a step forward, placed her shaking hand in his.
6
Henri opened the red wax seal and unfolded the thick paper. His eyes just touched the words when his senses told him to look up. Keagan strode across the floor toward him, his face twisted with a fierce determination. Henri
also noticed that Cornelius remained back, filling the library’s entrance way and watching them.
“Yes, Keagan?” he asked, unnerved by the inconvenient intrusion. “You have been looking for me?”
Keagan bowed a little too quickly before he dropped to a knee beside his chair. “My lord,” he began, his words short. “There is something I must tell you.”
Henri’s mind went first to Haven. What had she done this time? He heaved a sigh. “Is it about her?”
Keagan nodded.
“Has she run off again?” This was becoming too frequent for his liking.
“No, my lord. She hasn’t.”
Confused, Henri leaned closer to the Irishman. “What is this about then?” he said in a harsh whisper, growing more annoyed. The letter in his hand held the news he had been waiting three hundred years for. He didn’t want to wait a second more. “Out with it.”
He paused, as if debating whether or not he should continue. He glanced over his shoulder at his friend. Henri noticed Cornelius give him a reassuring nod.
“My lord,” Keagan went on, “I-I have my suspicions of Haven and... and Brenin...”
“Avrum?”
Keagan nodded.
“What about them?”
“We believe there is something happening between them,” he said.
“You and Cornelius believe this?” He prompted, “Something like what, exactly?”
Keagan lowered his voice and glanced at the other faces in the room. Henri followed his gaze. There were only a few others in the library with them, and they were trying too hard―in Henri’s opinion―to keep their eyes on their book pages.
“Something more than their relationship should be. Something... romantic,” he replied.
His heart seized in his chest. “Walk with me,” Henri said at once and shot up to his feet. He folded the letter and pushed it into his breast pocket. He passed Cornelius with Keagan in tow. The moment they entered the deserted hallway, he turned to them again.
“You believe my Haven and Avrum share something romantic?” He could hear his own voice shaking as he said it. His Haven? Fear gripped him. “Impossible.”
Keagan and Cornelius glanced at each other again.
“Do you have proof of this?” When they didn’t respond, the relief was instant. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and commanded his body to settle. Still, his temples pounded. “This is just a suspicion that you share, correct?”
“Right,” Cornelius answered before his friend could.
“But we have witnessed them talking―”
“Talking is nothing,” Henri snapped. He was beginning to wonder if this had anything to do with Haven at all, or if it was failed attempt to alter his opinion of Avrum. From his own observations, it was clear Keagan, Cornelius, and Avrum did not exactly agree.
Anger bubbled inside him. Of course Avrum would never betray him that way. He owed Henri everything. Keagan and Cornelius were trying to worry him for their own benefit. That’s all this was. Henri stepped forward, now standing over Keagan, and locked gazes with him. His hand shot out, grabbed Cornelius by the collar of his shirt and drew him close. A growl rumbled in Henri’s throat, and Keagan’s shoulders slumped in response.
“Do not come to me again with your suspicions,” he told them. “Do you understand me? I have no time for them.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Henri shoved Cornelius back, and the giant of a man stumbled, catching himself with the wall.
“Now, get out of my sight.” He pronounced each word on its own. “You both disgust me.”
The two scurried away like rats, disappearing into a neighboring hall. With them gone, Henri ran a hand over his mouth. For a moment, he thought he had lost it all, and it was a feeling he never wanted to experience again. Damn Keagan and Cornelius for their lies! Did they have any idea that they could have ripped out his heart and killed his very soul with their words? Haven was his. Everyone knew that, especially Avrum. It was amazing how deep their jealousy ran for his new second-in-command. They had tried to destroy him too.
Henri began his walk to his study. Despite his certainty of Avrum’s loyalty, his hand still shook as he reached for the door handle and turned it. The thought of losing Haven was too great. It made his insides tremble and his stomach twist. Henri forced himself to sit behind the desk. He leaned back with his arms on the wooden rests and waited until his mind ceased its race. His thoughts finally rested on Haven and a smile tugged at his mouth. She truly did look radiant on his arm during his party. In her silver dress designed with his instructions to match midnight stars, he thought her to be the most beautiful woman in existence.
Henri pulled out the letter he had received from Lord Favian and unfolded it. His eyes scanned the words, and when he finished, he went over it again, just in case. Malcolm, it said, had been seen in London just the week before. Could it really be true? Was he finally close to finding his maker again after searching for so long?
Malcolm the Divine. The title, he assumed, had been bestowed upon himself out of his own vanity. As time passed, Henri realized the ancient creature was not as divine and as great as his name claimed. He had made the wrong choice in turning Henri almost three centuries ago. He was not guilty of any of the crimes Malcolm accused him of. He had only loved Linna. He would have done anything to be with her, even kill his birth father.
Henri could not remember much of the night his human life died. He knew of the thick rope he had placed around his father’s throat as he slept and his last gasp of air. He remembered Malcolm’s commanding voice, thick with an unknown accent, as he declared Henri full of sin and a monster of greed. He had also never seen the man’s true face. The brown hooded robe he wore had obscured it.
That was the night Malcolm had cursed him, ripped a gaping hole in Henri’s neck, and forced his own blood down his throat. Henri could never forget the feeling of his inner organs halting, his body dying, and the fire of new life forcing its way back through his veins. Because of his sins, he had to live forever with the guilt and the memory of what he had done. He was supposed to learn from it.
Malcolm had been wrong! Henri saw nothing criminal with saving the woman he loved from another man. Malcolm, though, had given Henri no chance to explain himself or to hear the truth. It was because of Malcolm that he never saw Linna again. She was lost to him.
Henri rubbed the back of his neck. It ached at the memory of the man who took away all he had worked so had to gain.
Since the moment he had awakened into his new life, Henri searched for Malcolm. The man was nowhere to be found, yet Henri could feel him everywhere. His presence lingered with him, but he managed to stay just out of Henri’s reach.
Not anymore, though. Malcolm had been spotted in England, in a city not too far from Greystone Manor. Henri brought the letter closer to his eye. As his gaze swooped from Favian’s signature to Malcolm’s name bold in the black ink, an idea struck him. He would invite his fellow lords here for another gathering. He would extend the same invitation to Malcolm, wherever he resided in London.
Henri would be civil and poised. Inviting him was the noble thing to do, but would his father come? After all this time, Malcolm must have wondered how things had changed with him. Henri would show Malcolm the Divine all the good he had done, all those he had helped. He would be able to show them all, the other lords too.
Henri opened his topmost desk drawer and pulled out four fresh pieces of letter paper. With a dip of his pen in ink, he was ready to reclaim all he had lost that late night in 1550.
* * *
Avrum lingered near the bedroom door, watching as Haven moved from the armoire to the slender iron-cast bed. She dragged her feet as she made her way across the room and sat on the edge of the blanket. Even though she fought to keep her expression as smooth as marble stone, Avrum could see the pain and regret lying underneath. She had been given a chance to return to her father, and she had come
back with him.
The urge to smile prickled the ends of his lips. Was she beginning to trust him?
When her eyes lifted up to meet his, his breath caught in his chest. Even in the darkness of the room, they sparkled like a starry night.
“Are you going to bring me back to Henri’s bedroom?” she asked, her words heavy with fear, “and tie me there? That is how he left me after all.”
Hot bile rose to Avrum’s throat at the very thought. He was not going to wrap ropes around her wrists and leave her there for Henri to finish off like some sort of meal. If he didn’t, Henri would know she had escaped. The punishment would then be just as terrible, if not worse, for her.
He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t.
“No,” he replied. “You can stay here and get some rest.”
Her brow furrowed. “But Henri―”
“I’ll take care of Henri,” he said, grounding his teeth. How he was going to do that exactly was another thing. He would have to figure that out later. For now, he had to take care of Haven. “If you like, I will send for Emma and have a bath drawn for you. Your wounds should be cleaned to prevent infection, and the warm water should help the pains you are feeling.”
Haven glanced at the room’s only window. The drapes there had been pulled back to reveal thick metal bars. The opaque glass was sealed closed. It was something he had never noticed before. It was sickening.
When she looked back at him again, he couldn’t help but think how beautiful and frail she looked, so innocent and so incredibly…human.
The thought shook him. Was it true that he could never look that way again? Like Lysander had said, they were no longer human, but were they truly so different, even now? He refused to think it to be true.
“I know you are probably regretting your choice to come back with me,” said Avrum as he stepped away from the door and stood in front of her. He held his hands behind his back and waited.
She said nothing, only watched him with curious eyes. Her silence made him shift uncomfortably on his feet.
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