I wish to go to her, but after what she attempted last night, I don’t think I can bear to look at her. There is something about what she did last night that haunts me, though I cannot put the feeling to words in an accurate way.
So far, she has not sought me out as usual. Though if she did, I am not sure what I would say.
Pulling back from the woman whose name I don’t know, nor care to learn, I wipe away the drop of blood at the corner of my mouth.
“Go, and do not return,” I say, infusing power into my voice, compelling her to obey.
She straightens and turns to leave, walking out of the atrium's glass doors to the carriage waiting to take her back home. Once she has departed, I sit on a stone bench next to the water's raised pool in the middle of the room.
Roses grow all around, their petals beginning to close as the sun continues to lower. The sweet heady perfume of them is almost cloying. The warm light seeps in through all sides of the glass room, making the bronze arches that meet in the center of the domed ceiling glitter like gold.
Cherno flies into the room and hovers before me. “You must mark her.”
“She despises my very being to the extent that she would rather die than suffer my presence.”
Cherno flutters their wings, flying around me in nonsensical patterns. “Do you wish her to like you?”
“No,” I say, perhaps a little too quickly. I want Clara, but that is not the same as wanting her affections. Most importantly, there is the reason I brought her here in the first place. “I want her to pay for what she has done.”
A loud squeak fills the air as Cherno swoops and dives. The little beast is laughing.
“I’m glad one of us finds this amusing,” I say dryly.
“Strange,” they say, landing on the brick ledge of the pool. “You say you want her to pay, but her punishment is a kiss. Are you saying a kiss from you is punishment?”
“Silence, you little demon,” I snap. I don’t know why I allow this demon the freedom they have. No other vampire would tolerate such obstinance. “She cannot stand me any more than I can stand her. The kiss was never supposed to happen. It was intended to deter her from trying to kill me at all.”
“You could always refuse to follow through.”
“I could,” I say. “But then she’ll know the threat isn’t real, and I’d have to watch out for her attempts on my life even in my sleep.” I shake my head. “No, this is the most effective way.”
I rest my forearms on my knees and slump my shoulders, letting my head hang. She was never supposed to try… And now I am more certain than ever I'd be unable to kill her. I should let her go. There is no longer a reason to keep her here, the misery it causes her brings me no joy.
But pride and anger for the loss of Rosalie keeps me from freeing her yet. And I am left not sure what to do with Clara.
Cherno takes to the air and says, “Kill her or mark her, Alaric, you cannot have it any other way. You might have avoided the claiming in the past, but you know how this works.”
Then Cherno flies away.
In the quiet, my thoughts grow loud. I scrub my face with my hands. In my attempt to punish a murderess, I have unwittingly set myself up for a punishment of my own.
I make my way through the halls toward the third floor. I need to forget if only for a night.
It isn’t until I am rounding the corner to climb the stairs that I hear the softest footfalls. Reaching out, I grab Clara’s wrist, preventing her from skewering me with Rosalie’s dagger. The point of the blade rests against the material of my vest but does not pierce it.
Her eyes are wide as she looks from my face to where I stopped her. Pride swells on her face that she got closer to drawing blood than ever before.
It twists something inside of me.
Her face is flushed, her breathing a little too fast as if she’d been running through the manor.
“I see your hand has healed up nicely,” I say, we had not spent the past week avoiding each other between the two of us. “I half expected to find you asleep in the library again.”
I move her arm and pull her into me. As I lower my mouth to hers she rises up on her toes to meet me. There is nothing hesitant in her this time. Now she leans into it, deepening it as she presses the length of her body against mine.
Fuck. This woman will destroy me if she doesn’t learn how to attack a vampire soon.
I pull away and release her as I move to walk around her.
She strikes out, her arm swinging toward me, and I block the strike with little effort. “Come now, Clara, you can do far better than that. It’s like you weren’t even trying.”
Clara narrows her eyes at the accusation. “You know what I think? I think you’re regretting this bargain you made with me.”
Once more, I pull her to me and kiss her, cupping her face with both hands. She has more than enough time to stab me with the dagger, but instead, she wraps her arms around my neck, pushing up on her toes.
This is not enough. The small distance our clothes create feels like a chasm between us.
May the Otherworld destroy me where I stand—I should kill her for what she did, but right now all I can think about is how I want to feel every inch of her bare skin against mine, and bury myself deep inside her.
Her teeth scrape my lip, reminiscent of the time she bit me. My hands skim down the sides of her body. And then she groans into my mouth, and I want to devour her in every sense of the word… and it’s then I know I am about to lose myself to her.
I run one hand along her arm, then take the dagger from her hand in the same instant I step back. With a flick of my wrist, the blade embeds into the wall up to its hilt.
“Enough,” I say. Though my body aches to return to her. If I allow this to continue, I don’t think either of us will be able to stop at just a kiss.
Like a coward, I leave her standing there as I retreat to my sanctuary.