“Alaric,” a soft voice whispers.
My eyes flutter open. Clara stands at my bedside, hands clasped in front of her. She looks down at me with a frown on her lips and a wrinkled brow.
“Clara?” I reach out to her as I sit up, but she side-steps just out of reach. “What are you doing here?”
She doesn’t answer. Her frown transforms into a scowl, her eyes accuse me of betrayal.
She makes a movement to leave and I am on my feet in an instant.
“Wait,” I say. The word comes out somewhere between a command and begging. It is the same thing I’ve said a thousand times before.
Clara looks over her shoulder at me. Black has swallowed her irises and the whites of her eyes. “You did this to me,” she whispers. “You’ve killed me.”
And then she’s gone.
I startle awake—truly awake this time. A sliver of red light pours through a thin opening of the curtains. The sun is setting.
I sit on the edge of the mattress, resting my elbows on my knees, and let my head hang. Cherno remains sleeping on the pillow next to mine.
It is the same dream each night, with variations. It started with just her voice in the dark, then her face started to appear. There are times when her eyes are covered in the milky white film of death, others times they are encircled with a thick line of red, or entirely human and brimming with unshed tears.
Sometimes I wake upon seeing her face, other times when I reach for her. Her face and voice haunt my nights.
She's gone, but I still cannot rid myself of her presence.
I cannot help but feel as though she is sending me a message. I have betrayed her in my attempt to save her.
There is no use in trying to go back to sleep now, the others will wake soon and I will be expected to play the part of the perfect host. I stand and take my time dressing before I head to my office for an hour.
At least I will have some time to myself before the others demand my attention.
“How long will you allow yourself to mope over that human?” Lawrence’s voice mutters from the doorway of my office.
I don’t look up from my desk, though I rearrange the papers, flipping the one I was writing on so that it’s faced down.
“I’m not moping,” I say dryly.
“I never thought I’d see the day where Alaric Devereaux claimed a human… why did you claim her? It is so unlike you.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to participate in these ‘festivities’ as you called them.”
He saunters over to me and rests a hip on the edge.
I set the quill down and cross my arms and lean back in my chair. A fire snaps and pops in the hearth. Above, Cherno hangs from one of the support beams, observing.
I sigh and rub the back of my neck, desperate to change the subject. “What do you make of Mr. Connors?”
Lawrence frowns. This is clearly not the conversation he intended to have when he sought me out.
He cocks his head and arches a single golden brow. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes the bait. “What about him?”
“The last time Elizabeth made a new vampire was almost a hundred years ago. Why him? Why now?”
Lawrence waves a hand dismissively. He stands, crossing to the window. He pushes the drapes aside to stare out on the manor’s grounds below. “Who knows why she does the things she does?”
I sneer at the drive leading passed the wrought iron fence at the edge of the property and the woods beyond. A view I had once enjoyed—a view I have kept covered for the last several days.
My fingertips graze the overturned papers.
“She must see something in Victor. She wouldn’t have turned him otherwise,” he adds after a moment.
“There are twelve of us all together… There have only ever been twelve of us made by her hand for almost a hundred years now.”
There is something about this new vampire and Elizabeth’s motives that bother me. It's one thing for her to create another vampire on a whim, it is yet another to send him to do her bidding when he is still learning to control his strength, needs, desires, and his very nature.
“We know all this,” Lawrence says as he studies me from the corner of his eye. “Why are you bringing this up? It won’t do any good. We can’t even begin to guess at her reasoning—and attempting to do so is a waste of time.”
I shake my head. “I am curious, though I suppose you are right—it doesn’t matter.”
“Good,” he says.
“Except…”
Lawrence throws his hands up, allowing the curtains to drop back into place over the window. “Except what, Alaric?”
“Elizabeth is a creature of habit and Victor struggles daily to control his bloodlust. He killed a young woman that first night after I explicitly forbade any of you from harming the humans in this area. And every time we feed in town, I am almost always forced to clean up his messes.”
Clara had been too nervous, too inebriated to notice that the poor girl at Victor’s feet was dying a slow death and begging him for it. I don’t want to think what her reaction would have been if she had realized the truth.
“It was only one—”
The excusatory behavior sets my teeth on edge. “These humans volunteer their blood and they do so with the understanding that their lives will not be in jeopardy at the hands of any vampire.”
“Who cares if a human dies every once in a while?”
“I care,” I grind out. “Do you know how many humans I had to compel into forgetting that she volunteered? I made her family think she ran away with some boy, and then compel enough of them into believing this boy existed.”
I sigh and rub my forehead, using so much power to compel so many of the villagers took its toll.
“You care so much for these humans… you and your sister. I will never understand.”
I scoff. “Is there a single one of you who would? I’m surprised Elizabeth hasn’t forced my hand before now to participate in her ridiculous claiming.”
Lawrence swivels around so fast, the rug under his boots twists from the force of it. He stomps toward the desk and splays his palms flat on the surface of the desk, looming over me. “You know why she hasn’t.”
My nostrils flare, but I say nothing.
“If you were anyone else, she would have.” Red encircles his irises. On the opposite end of the room, Arinah lets out a series of high-pitched squeaks at the sudden pull of power he draws from them. “She wants you. It's the only reason she allowed you to sire Rosalie and allowed her to lower herself to feed on animals without killing her for the insult,” he spits the words. “It is the only reason why she has never forced you to act like what you are. You are her—”
“Don’t,” I say lowly, but there is a threat in that single word. Enough for him to understand and bow to my authority.
Lawrence straightens and looks down on me with pity. “You will give in to her one of these days, and it will be sooner than you think, now that you have claimed a human.”
He turns away and walks to the fireplace, Arinah skitters over to him, crossing the mantel. He coos an apology for taking power without warning.
I lay my hand on top of the paper I had flipped over. The hidden side bares my secret—Clara’s name written across the top, followed by line after line of words I wrote and crossed out… over and over. Unable to figure out what I want, or should, say.
Nothing. I should say nothing. Writing would be pointless. I doubt she would waste her time writing a response, let alone read it.
I claimed Clara knowing neither of us had wanted it, and she had made it clear from the start that she did not want to be here.
She left, and all I had to do was say the words that granted her the freedom she desired.
I crumple the paper in my fist and fling it into the flames. It catches immediately. Lawrence and I watch it burn until there is no trace of it left.
“You let her go,” he says as he continues to stare into the flames.
It isn’t a question but a statement. One I know better than to confirm or deny.
“She will not return.” He faces me again. Arinah moves from one of his shoulders to the other, their little pink nose and long white whiskers twitching. “You know it as well as I do.”
“That remains to be seen,” I say.
He is right. I was a fool to think otherwise, to think no one would notice. Cold resolve settles in my veins. It numbs my mind, my body, my heart.
I should have compelled that command upon her, but I didn’t want my last act to be one of control. Besides, compelling her would have been pointless. Clara made it no secret in the six weeks she spent here that she wanted nothing more than to leave and return home to her sister.
She would never choose to be here.
“So, you think she will come back… even without your mark?” Lawrence asks derisively.
I nearly flinch at the question. The truth is that… no, I know Clara will not return. Though to admit that aloud—even to Lawrence—would mean a fate worse than death for her.
I remain silent for several long minutes.
“Vampires cannot simply claim a human and then release them. That isn’t how this works. She might be the first you’ve bothered to claim, but even you know Elizabeth would never allow such a thing. If not by your hand, then by another’s… that human will die, and it will not be a good death.”
If Clara lives, then she will be hunted by vampires and punished. They won't care that I set her free, only that she was claimed.
She is better off if I put her out of her misery.
I meet his gaze, unflinching. “Then perhaps I will hunt her down before we leave and kill her. I will bring Clara’s lifeless body to Nightwich and lay her at Elizabeth’s feet. Do you think that will satisfy her?”
I gave Clara back her freedom, and now I mean to take her life.
It is silent for a minute. And then Lawrence laughs, throwing his head back.
“You do not mean that, my friend,” he says when he finally calms.
My blood pulses at the notion of hunting her down, finding her… feeding on her. Even if I must deceive her in the end.
If death must come for her, then I can at least give her peace in her final moments. I can give her a clean death—one without pain or fear.
I place my palms flat on the desk, push myself up to stand, and look him dead in the eye. “Oh, my friend, but I do.”