Hunger Pangs

by Joy Demorra

  “Then we will watch together,” Lady Riya replied, gliding to his side as the rest of the Collins girls joined another young woman, forming their own miniature quartet.

  Nathan observed them, reminded of his own sisters at that age; though he couldn’t imagine Elayne and Gwen peacefully deciding who got to lead.

  The remaining trio stood in amicable silence, with Mrs. Collins clapping along and beaming with maternal pride as the Viscount spun Lydia out into the midst of her sisters. He took off again with blonde, witty Sophie as one dance ended and another began without so much as a pause.

  “For all my brother maintains that he’s hopeless at dancing,” Lady Riya spoke over the sound of the clapping onlookers, “he really makes it look effortless.”

  “Quite!” Mrs. Collins waved to someone at the far end of the hall. “But then he’s had a long time to practice. I remember watching him and Miss Elizabeth when I was younger. They always make such a graceful couple.

  Lady Riya flinched minutely—not enough for a human to notice—when Mrs. Collins said Elizabeth’s name. “And how do you like island life so far, Captain?” she said, changing the subject. “I trust you’re not ready to flee home just yet?”

  Nathan chuckled and shook his head. “Far from it, Lady Viktoriya.”

  “Good, I am so glad to hear that.” Lady Riya’s cheeks dimpled sweetly when she smiled. “And you really must call me Riya.”

  Nathan was about to reply when an abrupt spike of pain burst through his left side, rendering him momentarily speechless. He breathed through the pain and reached up without thinking to press his hand against his shoulder where the wound had never quite healed. It might have been his imagination, but it almost felt warm to the touch.

  “Oh, my dear Captain, are you all right?” Mrs. Collins radiated maternal alarm.

  “Fine,” Nathan lied, forcing himself to straighten up even though it made the room spin.

  “You really do not look well.” Lady Riya peered up at him with concern. “Is it the humidity?” She glanced at his arm and then to the giant arched window behind them that spanned from ceiling to floor, affording them a view of the night sky and the expanse of the black sea below. As though on cue, lightning flickered in the distance. “I know Vlad says storms play havoc with old injuries.”

  “Yes, that must be it.” Nathan gratefully accepted a glass of fruit punch from Mrs. Collins, who was next to the drinks table. “But I’m all right, I assure you.”

  Lady Riya hummed thoughtfully. “Well, if it keeps up, I highly recommend the infirmary down by the square. They might be able to help.”

  “Oh yes, what a wonderful idea.” Mrs. Collins brightened. “The Viscount has done wonderful work there. Hardly anyone dies anymore.”

  “A ringing endorsement to be sure, Mrs. Collins.” Unable to help himself, Nathan laughed. “I shall give the matter due consideration.”

  Nathan would not consider it. He’d spent the better half of a year cloistered inside the white walls of the Ingleton Royal Infirmary, where learned men in white coats had prodded and poked at him and called him ‘fascinating’—as though he were an exhibit rather than a person. He had no desire to repeat the experience. He’d probably just overexerted himself. Between all the work setting the guardhouse to rights and now depriving himself of much-needed sleep to attend a soiree in full frippery-ed regalia, it was little wonder his body was protesting. The sooner he got to slink away to his nice quiet room next to the dungeons and lie down, the better.

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Collins murmured.

  Nathan looked up in time to see Kitty neatly inserting herself in front of her older siblings, a mischievous grin on her face. With an amused look, the Viscount pulled her out onto the floor in time for a lively two-step to start.

  “I’m afraid she’s got a bold will of her own, that one,” Mrs. Collins lamented.

  “I find it admirable.” Lady Riya clapped along with the rhythm of the song, laughing when it became apparent that Miss Kitty not only planned to keep up with her vampire partner but to outmaneuver him as well. “Anyone who can keep Vlad on his toes is to be commended.”

  “I suppose they are only having fun. Though I’m afraid Miss Elizabeth doesn’t look too pleased…”

  Lady Riya’s head whipped around in alarm.

  Nathan followed her gaze to the ripple of movement on the opposite end of the dance floor. It wasn’t so much a shuffle as a collective shiver; like the tremor of tall grass that heralded the prowl of the tiger before it leaped. But Nathan had never seen a tiger that looked like this.

  A raven-haired beauty emerged from the gathered assembly. Tall and impossibly slender, she moved through the crowd like a marble statue that had decided to get down off her plinth and take a stroll. She was also inhumanly angry. Dread filled Nathan as she swept forward, a metal goblet raised in her hand.

  And tipped the contents over the top of Kitty Collins’s head.

  *

  The scent of blood filled the air, slamming into Vlad’s olfactory system like a mallet.

  Time slowed.

  The color drained from the world as Kitty raised her hands in a macabre display of shock. Too stunned to even scream, the viscous fluid soaked her pretty white dress, dripping onto the floor.

  Elizabeth stood behind her, her smile viciously triumphant.

  Another drop of blood splashed onto the floor, staining the polished wood. Lady Margarete would have a fit. Someone should do something about that.

  His gaze landed on Elizabeth, then back to Kitty. That someone should probably be him.

  Reality snapped back in on itself.

  Before any of the onlookers could draw a breath to gasp, Vlad moved, whisking Kitty away from the center of the floor.

  “Riya.” He deposited Kitty safely in front of his sister and the stunned Captain Northland. “Please take Miss Kitty and see that she gets cleaned up.”

  Riya stared at Kitty, her expression still frozen in absolute horror as though she couldn’t quite believe what she’d just seen. And then she shook herself, taking Kitty’s hand from his and wrapping her arm around the poor girl’s shoulders, ruining her own dress in the process. “Yes. Right this way, my dear. You too, Mrs. Collins. I’m so sorry. What a horrible accident. Not to worry, I’m sure I have something in your size—”

  Vlad waited until they were out of sight before facing Elizabeth. She regarded him calmly, a sardonic twist to her mouth as she let the goblet hanging from her fingertips clatter to the floor. “Oops.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” His voice echoed in the deathly silence of the room, the walls caving inward under the weight of so many people holding their breath. “What in the Gods’ names possessed you?”

  “I thought you looked hungry,” Elizabeth spat as she planted her hands firmly on her hips. “Was I wrong?”

  “She’s a child!” Vlad gestured in the direction Riya had taken Kitty and her frantic mother. “I was being kind.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you were.” The words were biting.

  Vlad shook his head and gazed up at the glass dome of the ceiling where lightning flashed dangerously close. “You can hurt me all you want, Lizzy, you know that. I don’t care what you do to me. Gods alive and undead forgive me, I even ignored your cruelty to Riya. But I will not abide this. You assaulted one of our guests in our home—”

  “Oh please, spare me the lecture.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes dramatically. “It’s not like I hurt anyone that matters.”

  But she had. His jaw worked as he sought to come up with an appropriate response. He could only think of one. “Get out.”

  Folding her arms over her chest, Elizabeth scoffed. “You don’t mean that.”

  “You poured blood over one of our guests! How dare you? How dare you!” Incensed, he knotted his hands into fists, his nails carving little half-moons into his flesh.

  “It was just a joke…” Elizabeth looked around the room for support and found none. The room was dea
thly silent. “Really, Vlad. You’re making too much of this.”

  “Get out!” Vlad shouted, stabbing a finger at the double doors over her shoulder. “Leave. Take your cronies—” he gestured to Lottie and Jaunty, who did their utmost to hide in plain sight “—and go.”

  “I—” An anxious bubble of laughter escaped Elizabeth’s lips. “Uladzimir, be serious; where would I go, what will I do?” She stared at him intently, pleading.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Vlad replied quietly, rubbing at his eyes. He was suddenly so very exhausted. Of everything. And his head hurt. It hurt so much. Gods, it would be so much easier to forgive her…

  “And what about my money?”

  Vlad dropped his hands from his face, his anger reigniting like a supernova. “I don’t know. Why don’t you try Lord Foxley or another of your playthings? Or does your access to their pockets not extend to their purses too?”

  The slap rocked his head to the side, and a gasp rippled through the room. Cheek still stinging from the blow, Vlad slowly turned his head back around.

  Elizabeth’s eyes were wide, her hands clasped over her mouth. “Vlad, I’m…”

  “Get out.” His tone was grave.

  “You don’t mean that.” Elizabeth reached for him. “I know you don’t. You love me—”

  Vlad caught her hand by the wrist, leaning in close enough to see her pupils contract in the black depths of her eyes. “Not enough.”

  Her expression flickered, and for one moment, Vlad truly thought he’d hurt her. And then she snatched her hand away, her lips pulling back in a hateful sneer as she bared her fangs. “You can’t do this to me. The Count won’t stand for it!”

  “The Count isn’t here,” Vlad bit back, allowing himself a toothy smile. “And in his absence, this is my domain. And you are not welcome here anymore. I uninvite you from this place.” Vlad snapped his fingers.

  The double doors behind her banged open.

  “Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

  “No, wait! Wait!” Elizabeth clawed to keep hold of him even as the ancient magic embedded in the castle walls picked her up and flung her backward.

  She scrabbled for what she could—her nails gouging marks into the floor as she fought against the castle wards. But the castle would have none of it. Dragging her inexorably back, invisible bonds whipped around her. Her wig fell from her head, revealing her short blonde hair. Instinctively, she grabbed for it but ended up losing her grip on the floor. Lottie and Jaunty were next, swept up in Elizabeth’s wake as she was hurled bodily out of the castle and into the chilly spring night.

  The doors slammed shut, echoing in the cavernous silence.

  Vlad turned to face the stunned congregation. “Now then.” He clapped his hands together, causing the room to jump as a manic grin split his face. “Who wants fireworks?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Early Summer, 1888

  “T’isn’t right.” Fiddildy eyed the blue, cloudless sky with profound distrust. “Monsoon season ought to be here by now.”

  “I rather like it,” Hobbes replied. “It’s nice to see the sun for a change.”

  Fiddildy grunted sourly. “Change is trouble,” he muttered, but his heart wasn’t in it. He looked around the tidy guardhouse. It wasn’t the gleaming shine of the first few days when Captain Northland had ordered them to turn the place upside down and shake loose whatever fell out, but it was still substantially better than it had been.

  “Sometimes a change is as good as a rest,” Hobbes chirped from his position on the floor, where he was working on his hands and knees to blacken the stove while Fiddildy supervised. Which was to say Fiddildy sat writing reports at the wobbly desk in the center of the room and helpfully pointed out whenever the lad missed a spot.

  Fiddildy sighed and resumed his sullen stare out the offensively bright window. He still didn’t know what to make of the new Captain, but the man wasn’t work-shy, Fiddildy would give him that. He’d scoured the floorboards with soap and sand, same as everyone else, and he hadn’t been too proud to get on his hands and knees to do it neither. Fiddildy had never known a senior officer—especially one with a chest full of medals—to do anything like that. And he found himself conflicted by it.

  On the one hand, Northland was an outsider; one of the top brass and a bloody werewolf to boot. On the other, he didn’t ask them to do things he wasn’t willing to do himself, and he’d been bloody decent about the incident in the yard that first day he’d arrived. In fact, he’d been downright amicable toward Fiddildy, trusting even. Eyes and ears, he’d said. Fiddildy had never been anyone’s eyes and ears before. He’d never been important enough. And then there was the elephant in the room. Or rather, the injured werewolf doing his utmost to hide it.

  Fiddildy had seen the brass stripes pinned to Northland’s sleeve, and he knew what they meant. But just what on this Gods’ green earth could maim a werewolf but not also kill them, Fiddildy didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. There was more to this than just a buggered shoulder, and it wasn’t battle sickness either. The lad was ill, that much was clear just from looking at him. He never ate from what Fiddildy saw, and the dark circles under his eyes were becoming noticeably more pronounced. More worrying still, he had a sickly grayness to his pallor that didn’t go away no matter how many sugars Fiddildy heaped into his tea—and Fiddildy had it on good authority that his tea was strong enough to wake the dead. No, there was something wrong there, but Fiddildy wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  Not my place, said the voice at the back of his head. You ignored Captain Hammond, said another, and look where it got him. Which was technically nowhere, because officially Captain Hammond had abandoned his post. But Fiddildy still stared out over the parapets some nights, wondering just how much a man had to drink before he thought he could fly and went for a swim instead…

  “You missed a spot,” he informed Hobbes gruffly, pointing with the end of his chewed-up pencil, and returned to the half-written patrol rota in front of him. After a while, he erased the name at the top and penciled in another.

  *

  “Fiddildy,” Nathan said patiently as the short man stopped to re-tie his laces. “Is there something you wish to say to me?”

  “Sir?” Fiddildy asked, tilting his head up to face Nathan, as meek and mild as a field mouse. And just as twitchy. “I dunno what you mean, sir.”

  “Only we’ve walked this same route five times this week already, and every time we get to this building you need to stop and tie your boots. So, either your laces have an affinity for what appears to be the local infirmary, or you are being about as subtle as a mallet to the back of the head.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Fiddildy stood up, clasping his hands behind his back and doing a suitable job of looking contrite. “It’s just, well, with your arm back in the sling I thought you’d want to have it looked at…”

  Nathan glared at his arm. The damn thing kept giving out on him. He’d even broken down and stopped by the apothecary to pick up willow bark to dull the pain enough so he could sleep.

  It hadn’t worked.

  Still, Nathan had no desire to subject himself to the ordeal of being told there was nothing they could do. Or worse, the humiliation of being told there was nothing wrong. “I appreciate the gesture, Fiddildy. But I’ve seen enough sawbones to last me a lifetime.”

  “An’ I understand that, I do, sir. It was field surgeons what fu—buggered up my leg back at Walsfurt. But the infirmary is different here. It really is. The Viscount puts a lot of work in here to make sure people get better—”

  “Yes, so I’ve heard.” Nathan eyed the outside of the building with wary interest. All the buildings here looked vaguely the same, the slate roofs and neat brick walls eerily uniform apart from small changes here and there, as though the architect had spent hundreds of years tinkering with his design. But there was no doubt as to what this building was—the giant red cross above the door proclaimed to everyone, whether they co
uld read or not, that aid could be found within.

  “All I’m asking is you think about it, sir. No point sufferin’ when there’s something to be done about it.” Fiddildy’s whole demeanor was shockingly sincere in his worry.

  But what if there isn’t… what if… “Fine,” Nathan ground out, grumbling low in his chest.

  “That’s the spirit, sir!” Fiddildy trotted up the stone steps and held the door open.

  Nathan glowered at his enthusiasm. “What, right now?”

  “No time like the present, sir.”

  Nathan took a faltering step forward, his good hand clenching and unclenching at his side. He wasn’t sure when he’d turned into such a coward, but he hated it. He hated it like he hated the damn sling, the constant pain in his shoulder, and the dull ache behind his eyes. And he used that hatred to drive him forward, putting one boot in front of the other until he crossed over the threshold into the cool interior of the clinic.

  Stark white walls and the tang of iodine closed in on him. Nathan nearly turned tail and ran—and would have done, were it not for the sight of the Viscount sitting at a low desk at the center of the room, poring over paperwork. Nathan hadn’t seen the vampire in over a month, not since that fateful night at the party. No one had, according to Fiddildy, who kept his finger on the pulse of island gossip, and yet there he was, dressed in plain, serviceable clothes with a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose.

  He glanced up as if sensing Nathan’s gaze, and abruptly snatched the spectacles from his face. “Captain,” he said, a hesitant smile flickering over his face. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “Uh.” Nathan looked around the room, seeking out some form of reassurance, before landing on the vampire again. He barely noticed Fiddildy slipping away. “Your sister mentioned…” he trailed off, gesturing vaguely to his arm in the sling. “I might find some help with this. Here.”