The Night Estate
There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.
~ Bram Stoker
My spine tingles the closer we come to the castle. Lily pulls the limo up to the front and Sebastian lets himself out before the car has hardly had a chance to park. As an afterthought he glances back at me. "Lily will take care of you." Then he leaves, rushing across the small bridge over the moat as if his pants are on fire.
I let myself out as well, and Lily rests her hands on her hips and frowns. "Hey, that's my job!"
"Sorry. I'm not used to people opening doors for me."
"You'd better get used to it in your position."
"What? As glorified secretary?" I ask with a not-so-subtle snark in my voice.
Her eyes widen. "You think you're a glorified secretary? Wow, they really haven't told you anything, have they? I'm surprised you took the job with what you know."
"You and me both," I say. "But I needed the money."
She nods. "I get it. Oh, your stuff arrived earlier today. It's all been taken to your suite."
"I have a suite?" I ask.
She giggles. "You have no idea what you have!"
The door opens as we approach and Matilda comes out to greet us, arms held open for an embrace. Tears burn my eyes when she wraps her surprisingly strong arms around me. I have to lean over to hug her, but it's worth it. Her hug makes me feel like I'm being hugged by the universe. Unconditional love flows through me and I instantly love this old woman I already knew I liked.
She wipes a tear from my cheek and pats my hand. "Don't worry, dear. You're home now. With family. I'm so glad you decided to trust yourself and come, despite everything."
Her words are layered with double meaning and I get a strong sense she knows more about my life than I realized, even factoring in the extensive background check. "I hope you and I can be friends," I say, surprising myself.
"We already are, and have always been," she says kindly. "I heard what happened on the way here. That's certainly not an ideal first day on the job, is it?"
I half laugh through brimming tears and shake my head.
Lily is glancing worriedly from me to Matilda, bouncing on her tip-toes. The girl can never seem to stay still for long. I put her in her mid-20s, though she looks younger.
"Lily, dear, you handled the situation perfectly. We're all very proud of you and grateful."
Lily beams, and her eyes practically glow with the joy the compliment inspires.
“Would you mind showing Eve to her room? I've got to meet with the boys," Matilda says to Lily, then she looks to me. "I suspect you'll want a few minutes to get settled and orient yourself. The boys are in a meeting but will speak with you when it ends. They wanted to be here to greet you themselves, but on top of discussing what happened on the way here, we're meeting with a big client tomorrow and they have a lot of work to do. So will you, once you familiarize yourself with your job."
"About that," I say. "When will I learn more about what my job entails?"
"Tonight. I promise many of your questions will be answered tonight. I hope you like your suite. I designed it myself just for you."
I thank her and follow Lily into an entryway that's larger than some apartments in New York. Two grand staircases wind up to a second floor, meeting in the middle. There's a door to the right, a door to the left, and a hall beneath the stairs that leads to another part of the castle. Lily leads me upstairs and down several hallways. I try to memorize the path, but quickly lose track. I feel like I should be leaving bread crumbs to find my way back.
We stop at a door that looks the same as several others we've passed. "This is your suite. Just ring the bell if you need help. It's a big place and easy to get lost in when you're new."
"Do you live here, too?" I ask.
She nods. "You’re going to love it."
She walks away, leaving me with my bags, but turns back to face me before I enter the room. "We're all really glad you're here, Eve. You're just who they need."
She leaves for real this time and I wipe my palms on my pants and turn the knob, letting myself in.
I expect to walk into a bedroom, but I actually step into a sitting room with a loveseat and chair positioned in front of a fire with a coffee table between them. There's a patio with a cream-colored silk curtain dancing in the wind coming in from the open glass door. There's a desk with my some of my books stacked on it and the rest are lined up on the shelves next to it. My personal items have been dispersed through the room just as I would have placed them, including a sketch I drew of my brother framed on the fireplace mantel, right next to my brother's urn.
Seeing it brings more tears to my eyes. I place my bags down and walk over to it, running a finger down the side of the urn, my heart contracting with the grief that daily threatens to overwhelm me. It still doesn't seem real, and yet it's altogether too real at the same time. Grief is like that, I've learned. It lives on the impossible edge between real and unreal. Between waking and dreaming. And that makes it all the more crushing. Not understanding what happened to the brother I knew. How his body, the fullness of his life, could be reduced to a handful of ashes.
I turn away from his remains and focus on exploring the rest of the room. The hand-painted tile flooring is partially covered by thick rugs to take the chill off, and the blazing fire in the hearth warms the space. A large bookshelf covers one wall and is filled with books, some of them mine, some new. Well, old, actually, but new to me. Mine stand out as the only ones without leather covers.
In another corner is a two-person table with a bowl of fruit and a jug of juice or wine atop it. There's another jug with water, and a bar with stronger drinks to the side. I step through a door and into my bedroom, which boasts another lit fire with two comfortable leather chairs in front of it, and a huge four-poster canopy bed carved from a beautiful light wood and decorated with cherry blossoms. A thick purple velvet comforter covers it and I push my hand into the bed and sigh at how luxurious it feels. Way better than the bed I just sold. There's a large wardrobe that reveals all my clothes unpacked when I open it, plus other clothes, very fancy dresses and suits, that I've never seen before but are all in my size with matching shoes. The new clothes are gothic and Renaissance in style, which is unusual, but beautiful and clearly expensively, made with the finest craftsmanship and fabrics.
I've been well off in the past, comfortable enough to live in a nice neighborhood in New York, buy nice clothes, and go to restaurants when I wanted. Granted I had to sell anything of value to help pay Adam’s medical expenses and relocate to a much cheaper apartment, but I still remember that life. But as I look around I realize this is a whole other level of wealth that most people can only dream about.
The bathroom is spacious, with a huge tub in the center of the room. One wall in the bathroom is made of stone and hides the shower behind it. There's no door, just stone walls and floor with a window overlooking the grounds, though I'm high enough up that I don't think anyone can see me from here. It's not immediately clear how to operate the shower or tub, and I make a mental note to ask someone how to work all of this.
I return to my bedroom and realize there's one box under the bed that hasn't been unpacked. I pull it out and find a note on it, written in formal writing. "I thought you might want to unpack this one yourself, so I had the movers leave it." It's signed Sebastian. I open the box and discover that it contains my brother's belongings. I pull out his old college hoodie. A sob chokes my throat as I put it on, hugging it around me. His scent has surely faded after all this time, but I can still smell him. Maybe it's in my mind, but I cling to it, nonetheless.
"Oh, Adam. You were too young. This shouldn't have happened."
There's another balcony door in my bedroom, and I step out and realize the balconies are connected into one large one, with a small table and two chairs outside, and several beautiful plants adding an earthiness to the
space. It's dark, but the sky is full of moonlight and the stars are bright. I take a deep breath of the crisp late fall air and close my eyes, listening to the sounds of the night creatures. I always loved the night, the darkness, the eye of the moon on me. It never occurred to me I would end up in a job that required me to live in the night, but I'm finding myself excited by the prospect. The moon holds the secrets the sun cannot see. But I want to see.
I want to know all the secrets the moon holds.
I want to see the wild woman again. I want to feel the power she held.
And, I realize, I also want to get to know my new home.
Slipping my phone into my pocket, and grabbing my sketchbook, I leave my room and hope I'll be able to find my way back. I keep track of where I'm going by drawing a map as I go. Most of the rooms I try are just guest suites or bedrooms, and I worry I will come across someone's lived in quarters but I always knock first, and so far they've all been empty.
The place is huge, and I use more and more pages of my sketchbook to map it, making notes when I find bedrooms, bathrooms, random meeting rooms, storage rooms. I'm sticking to upstairs at the moment, but I know there will be so much more to explore downstairs. The dark, windowless halls are lit by torches on the walls, though they are not flames but rather some kind of strange bulb. At least, I assume it's a bulb. There's no actual evidence of one. Just a ball of pale blue light that is cool rather than warm.
There's a flurry of activity happening near one suite. It sounds like several people are working, but when I glance in, I see only Matilda. "Is someone else coming?" I ask, since she is clearly preparing this suite for someone who doesn't already live here.
"He arrives tomorrow. We must prepare." She is distracted and looks around as if trying to find help.
"Who's he?"
"No time to explain. We'll talk later, dear." She rushes off, so I keep exploring, turning corners, studying portraits and paintings that line the walls, until I find myself in a hall that has no doors or windows, though it's very long. At the very end is one red door, intricately carved. I reach to turn the knob, forgetting my own rule about knocking, when a voice barks at me.
"Do not open that door! This wing isn't meant for you." I turn to face Liam, and his eyes are alight with simmering rage. Dude has issues.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to get my bearings here. What's in the room?" I ask.
"None of your business."
"Is it like your sex dungeon or something? The red room of pain?" I laugh, but he doesn't. Again. Tough crowd.
"That would be a different red door," another voice chimes in. Derek arrives, with Sebastian and Elijah following. "It seems our meeting has started without us."
"She has no business being here," Liam says harshly. "This is a mistake. She could ruin everything. She's a mundane."
"I've heard that twice. Mundane. What does that mean?"
Derek sighs. "We have to tell her sometime. It's not like we can keep this a secret for long. Not with him coming tomorrow."
Sebastian crosses his arms over his chest but says nothing.
Elijah nods. "The decision is made, now we must make the best of it."
Liam looks furious, but says nothing as Derek pulls a key out of his pocket and opens the door. "There's something you should know about us, and this company, Eve." He steps into the room, and I can't help but stare.
"Do you also run a funeral parlor?" I ask, because there are four beautiful coffins side by side in the darkened and windowless room. "Or this really is your sex room and y'all are super kinky? I mean, I'm not judging, to each their own, but I don't really think I need to know about this part of your life. We can have some secrets, don't you think?"
Sebastian laughs, but it's more of a disappointed sound as he shakes his head. "You don't get it, Eve. This isn't a funeral parlor. We weren't drinking wine at your job interview, and there's a reason we only work at night."
"Are you… ?" I swallow, thinking through the ramifications of it all. Realization finally sets in, but it's a hard pill to swallow. "Okay, I get it. You're really deep into the lifestyle. I mean clearly, solidly committed. Structuring your law firm around it is pretty intense, but it's cool. I've met some people with vampire and bite kinks. None who took it quite this far, but enough that I know it's pretty serious for some. Is this why you need me? Because you want to stick to your role? No going out in daylight and all that? I'm down with going along, to an extent. I don't want to, like, participate though. If you catch my drift." I show my teeth. "No bitey bitey on me and we're all good."
Sebastian throws his hands in the air and turns away, sighing. Elijah presses his lips together, and Derek frowns.
But not Liam. He clenches his fist, and what happens next is too fast for me to do anything to prevent.
Before I realize what's happening, my body slams into the wall, knocking the breath out of my lungs, and Liam is pressed against me, his rock-hard form crushing my breasts, his hands gripping my wrists tightly, pushing them against the wall. A guttural growl, inhumane in its sound, emanates from him, and I see his teeth are elongated far beyond what's normal or natural. Then his mouth is at my neck.
I feel pain, fire burning in me, through me, as his teeth sink into my flesh, then a kind of strange bliss washes through me, even as fear leeches into me, trying to find purchase in all the confusion.
There's no time for panic to take me. My heart slows as my blood is drained, my head spins, and my body feels disconnected from my mind, unable to support itself. Liam is holding me up at this point. If he pulls away, I will crumble to the ground, a pale, bloodless ghost.
My thoughts flicker to random moments in my life. My last fight with Jerry. My last hug from my father. My last long talk with my brother. So many lasts. We seldom know what moment will be the last of something. We celebrate the firsts, but we don't think of the lasts. They are the memories that stick when all else is gone. Those final footprints in the snow, covering all others. The last words, last laughs, last tears. It's only in hindsight that we see how precious those moments were.
I close my eyes and give into this moment. Savoring it. Savoring my life, what little is left. Will I see my brother soon? My parents? That won't be so bad. Death is the ultimate last and first, all at once. It encompasses it all.
Someone shouts, and Liam is pulled away amidst argument and fights. My body crumbles to the ground, but strong arms catch me and lift me. My head rests against a muscular chest. His breathing is heavy, his anger solid and intense.
Sebastian.
"Why?" I ask, with the airy breathlessness reserved for those whose life is leaking out of them. "Why are you always angry at me?"
I pry my eyes open to meet his, staring at me, his jaw clenched, his face conflicted.
I hear more arguing, and someone shouts, "Get her out of here. Take care of her. We'll handle Liam."
Sebastian grunts and we begin to move. My body is limp, like carrying noodles, but Sebastian doesn't seem to have any trouble managing it.
He takes me to a room with a fire and lays me on a bed. It's not my room or my bed, but I'm too out of it to care.
I feel his hands on my body, on my neck. Water, something cold, then something that stings. Then his wrist is at my mouth, and he forces thick, viscous liquid down my throat. I gag and try to spit it out but he doesn't let me.
"Drink. You need this. Trust me. Drink."
My eyes flicker open and closed, the world swirling in a confusing array of light and color.
A cool cloth on my forehead.
A gentle hand brushing away my hair from my face.
A body next to mine in the bed.
"It's not you I'm always angry at," I hear, as my mind drifts away and my thoughts scatter into dreams.
The Night Brothers
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"She needs to learn. Do you think he will be as gentle if she mocks him the way she mocked us?"
The voice wakes me from my sleep, but I don't stir or open my eyes. I don't want anyone to know I'm conscious. I hope to glean more feigning sleep than I've managed to learn thus far while awake. Though pieces of the mystery are starting to fall into place, I still can't make sense of any of it. Nothing I've experienced with this family makes sense, actually.
"She wasn't mocking." That's Derek. I appreciate how he always defends me. He seems to be the only one really on my side since I was interviewed and subsequently hired to this job I'm beginning to regret.
There's a deep ache in my neck, and my brain is still trying to put it all together in a way that doesn't make me sound crazy.
"It's to be expected," Derek continues, "that she would have trouble embracing the truth immediately. We have to give her time, not attack her and make her fear us. You nearly killed her!"
"That's nonsense," says the first voice. Liam.
Flashes penetrate the fog in my brain and cut through the pain in my throat.
Liam, his teeth unnaturally long.
Liam pinning me against the wall with superhuman strength.
Liam's teeth sinking into my neck.
Blood.
I feel nauseous and quickly sit up, afraid of choking should I vomit. I see a water basin on the dresser by the bedside and grab it, leaning over it to retch, though there's little in my stomach to empty. Still, my body convulses, and I feel bad for whoever has to deal with my mess.
My head spins, my throat burns and aches, like my muscles are tearing, and I close my eyes, moaning in pain as the hell continues.
Cool hands touch my face, and I open my eyes to find Sebastian standing beside the bed.
"Eve," he says, gently, but I recoil from his touch, scrambling away from him until I'm pushed up against the headboard, as far from him as I can get without leaving the bed.
I Am the Wild (The Night Firm Book 1) Page 6