by Amy Richie
He scoffed and shook his head. “We both know it was only lust.”
I clamped down hard on my tongue and took a breath through my nose. He was only being cruel because he was so unhappy. I needed to figure out why he was unhappy so I could fix this.
“I’m going out.” He turned away from me until I grabbed his arm and forced him to face me again.
“What is it that you’re not telling me?” I demanded.
He laughed, a short unamused sound that contorted his face. “You,” he jabbed his finger into my chest, “do not want to know.”
My breathing almost stopped completely. I heard my heart pounding in my ears. He was finally admitting that there ,was something he was hiding. It was something big, too.
“I do want to know, Marcus.”
“Claudia…” he spoke like a man being tortured.
“I want to help you.”
“You can’t.” He ran his hand through his hair. “No one can.”
My heart ached for him in that moment. I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around him and promise that everything would be okay.
“When I was a little girl,” I began in a low voice, “and I had only been living with Aunt Dora and Uncle Philip for a short time, I felt like I would never be happy again. But Aunt Dora loved me and eventually I began to think of her as my mother.”
“What does that have to do with me?” He watched me cross and uncross my arms.
“I’m just saying,” I said forcefully, “that even when things seem hopeless and you think you’ll never be happy, all it takes is for someone to love you to make things better again.”
“Claudia,” he began to shake his head, but I wasn’t going to let him put me off again.
“I am the one who loves you, Marcus.” I crossed the small space between us to put my hand on his arm. “I can help if you would just trust me.”
He pulled his arm away from me as if I’d burned him. Would he leave now?
“You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
“All I’m asking is that you trust me enough to not hide things from me; to let me help you.” I wanted to go to him, but I stayed where I was.
He chuckled darkly. “It isn’t as simple as that.”
“Why?” I refused to let him just leave this time. I needed to know his secret; I wanted to help him–to get my husband back. He couldn’t just leave.
“There are other people involved in this, too.”
“Like Silango?”
He moved so quickly, I barely saw him get directly in my face. “Do not say his name,” he warned.
“How did you do that?” He moved his eyes to look at a spot above my shoulder. “What kind of hold does Silango have over you? Who is he?”
“I said not to talk about him.” His voice was louder than I’d ever heard it, but it didn’t come out as a screech yet.
He let his breath out in a huff and started to back away from me towards the door. “Are you leaving now?”
“I can’t… I have to… I mean, Claudia…” he stumbled over his words. I had never seen him like this before. “I can’t tell you,” he whispered, “I have to go.”
“You don’t have to go anywhere.” Tears streamed freely down my face. He was just going to leave again. This had been an almost perfect night and once again, Silango had come between us. “Where are you going?” He barely hesitated on his way to the exit. “Are you going to run back to Silango, then? Is he more important to you than me? Maybe you should have married him!”
His low laughter sent shrills down my back and goose bumps rose on my arms. He was still facing the door, but he had stopped walking. “I told you I didn’t want to marry anyone!”
“Too…t…too late,” I stammered. “We’re already m…married. And you owe me an explanation.”
His head tilted back until he was looking up at the ceiling. “Fine.”
“What?”
He whirled around in a flash of movement. His eyes were wide, giving him an insane look. “I said fine,” he smiled.
“So…” I paused, suddenly unsure. “So, you’ll tell me?”
“I’ll do better than that, Claudia.”
Faster than possible, he was behind me. “Yeah?” My eyes narrowed. I had wanted to know, I wasn’t going to be afraid of the truth. “How are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to show you.” His voice was low and close to my ear.
His hot breath on my ear made my pulse speed up, but it wasn’t the same as usual. He sounded so…evil. Despite my best attempts, my bottom lip began to shake.
“Okay.”
“You’re ready?”
“Yes.”
“So be it.”
I felt cold air at my back. When I turned around, he had moved. At first I didn’t see him, but then he pushed the curtain aside and he was standing there by the window.
I swallowed back my lump of fear and took a step towards him. Then he looked up and I froze where I stood. His eyes appeared almost red and his mouth was contorted.
But no, he wasn’t snarling. Hanging down from his mouth were two sharp two inch fangs.
I blinked several times, positive that my eyes were playing tricks on me. It was the way the moon played with the shadows on his face; that was how I was seeing fangs coming out of his mouth. None of this was real.
“I’m dreaming,” I muttered half to myself. I had been missing Marcus before I went to bed, so I conjured this whole night: The kiss, everything.
“You’re not dreaming.”
His voice even sounded different to my ears. “This is impossible.”
“I told you that you wouldn’t want to know.”
I pressed both hands over my mouth to stop from screaming. I heard the air whooshing in my lungs, but it still felt like I wasn’t breathing. As if in slow motion, I saw his feet move to take a step closer to me.
I ran to the other side of the bed, putting as much distance as possible between us. “What are you?” I screeched.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he sneered.
When he moved like a flash to put himself in front of the door, I bolted across the room to the sitting room door. I stumbled around in the dark room, trying to find my way out.
Somewhere in the darkness, a low laugh started. I stopped where I was and stood very still, trying hard not to breathe. “Claudia,” his voice sing songed through the dark, making my blood run cold. “I can hear you breath. I can smell your fear. I’m your husband,” he taunted, “you don’t have to be afraid of me.”
I squeezed my eyes tight together, hoping I would just wake up in bed. This had to be all a bad dream.
I sank down to one knee and covered my ears with my hands. I tried not to breathe too loudly, but it just came out in gasping sobs. It seemed so loud in the too quiet room.
“Claudia,” my name zipped through the room in drawn out syllables.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and bit down on my bottom lip to keep from crying out. He was still only Marcus. I tried to remind myself; he wouldn’t hurt me. But the only thing I could see when I tried to picture him was those sharp fangs. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Just leave me alone! Why are you doing this to me?”
“You wanted to know my secret. I told you it was too much.” A loud crash made me jump to my feet.
“You’re a monster!”
“And now you know the truth.”
Cold arms encircled my waist tightly, but not too tightly. “Let me go,” I squealed. I turned around quickly in an attempt to get out of his grip, but only managed to put myself face to face with him.
“Claudia.” His teeth were almost back to normal, but I could still see the two places where his fangs used to be.
“Let me go, just let me go.” I pounded my fist uselessly into his rock hard chest. He may not have even felt it, but he let me go anyways.
As soon as I was free of him, I tore
off back through the door and into the bedroom. I stopped in front of the fireplace to arm myself with the only weapon I could think of–the poker stick. I ripped it sloppily from its place and continued out the door.
I skidded to a stop at the bottom of the steps, almost sliding into David. Sylvia stood just behind him, keeping her face hidden behind his shoulder. Threy must have heard all the commotion upstairs and came out to investigate.
“We have to get out of here,” my shill voice echoed in the empty house. Where was everyone else? Why hadn’t the servants woken up?
“Claudia, what’s going on?” David didn’t sound scared, only worried about me.
“It’s Marcus!”
His eyes darted to the stairs and then back to me. “What about him?”
“He’s a monster!”
“What?” He shook his head, but I saw that it wasn’t real; he wasn’t surprised at all.
“I saw it. David, I saw it.”
“You saw what?”
“He had fangs!” As soon as I said it, I knew I sounded like a crazy person.
Sylvia stepped forward then. Her face was filled with that ancient sadness. It wasn’t what I expected–horror and fear–it was only sadness. Her eyes were bright with tears and they held me captive.
I didn’t understand why they weren’t screaming and running. At the very least, they should have been laughing at me for sounding like a crazy person. Instead, they were just standing there staring at me.
Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. It felt like someone was holding me under the water and I was slowly drowning. David was still talking, but he sounded so far away and his words were muffled. I kept my eyes on Sylvia.
Everything she had ever told me came into sickeningly clear focus. All the times she had tried to tell me, but I refused to see the truth.
My rapid breathing echoed all around us. Marcus had followed me, but he still stood on the steps, staring down at me with wide horror filled eyes. He took a hesitant step down.
“Did you guys know about him?” I turned back to Sylvia and David.
“We…”
“You did!” Tears sprang to my eyes, but they didn’t fall down my face.
“Claudia…” Marcus said my name, but I refused to look at him again.
“Don’t talk to me,” I screeched. “None of you talk to me.” My breathing heaved violently in and out of my chest. I couldn’t trust any of these people now. Sylvia and David knew about Marcus–they knew he was a monster. What if they were monsters, too?
My eyes widened at the thought. “Claudia,” Sylvia reached her arm out to me.
“Are you a monster, too?” My voice would barely come out in anything audible.
Her soft sigh said more than any words would–it said everything. I pressed my hand over my mouth to hold my sobs in, but some of them escaped anyways.
“What kind of creatures are you?” My voice broke, but it came out.
“Vampires.” I wasn’t sure who said the word; it seemed to come from every room and every corner of the entire house.
Vampires? My shoulders rose and fell silently. Soon I would be in full-blown hysterics. I needed to get out of that house and away from the people I had thought I knew. But they had all lied to me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I heard the sound of a strangled cry echoing back to my ears–it may have been my own. I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs had quit working properly. This couldn’t be real; none of this was real.
I covered my face with my one free hand. The fire poker had dropped to a less threatening position at my side. I couldn’t cry. I needed to get out of there, but my tears wouldn’t be held back.
“Claudia,” Sylvia spoke up first.
I responded to her voice, but when I saw her take a step toward me, I began to panic. “No!” I backed up until I was pressed against the door. “You stay away from me.”
“You said you wanted to know,” Marcus had joined us by the door. I hadn’t even seen him come down the steps.
“I wanted to know your secret,” I agreed with him, “but not this. I thought maybe you had another wife.”
“Another wife? I would never…”
“Don’t tell me what you would never do! You’re not even human. You’re a monster!”
His shoulders rose and fell, but he didn’t respond to my verbal attack. His eyes pleaded with me for understanding, the same eyes I had thought I knew so well. This was beyond what I could understand, though.
“Is Silango…?” I couldn’t even finish the half-formed thought.
“He made us.”
“You…and Sylvia and David?”
“No. Me and my brothers.”
“Your…brothers.” My voice dropped to barely a whisper.
“Claudia,” Sylvia took a step forward, “in the morning, things will look better. They’ll seem normal again.”
“I’m not staying here.” Was she insane? I couldn’t stay here with them. I reached behind me for the door handle.
“Where will you go?”
“Back to Hamel,” I said before I even had time to think. Where else could I go?
I threw my makeshift weapon at Marcus, who easily avoided it, and then darted through the front door and out into the dark night. It was cold and I hadn’t even had time to grab a robe, but I didn’t stop running. I had to get as far away as possible. I was glad there weren’t any people out on the street.
Marcus had once told me that he would never marry anyone–now I knew why. He should have stuck to his vows. If I had never married him, I would now be in Bath with Edmund. I might have had some regrets, a few nights of painful what ifs, but at least with Edmund, there was a hope of some form of happiness.
With Marcus, there was nothing. He was a monster–a despicable, disgusting…
My steps slowed until I was barely even walking. I had always known there was something different about Marcus. I had known that he wasn’t like other people.
But I still loved him. It didn’t matter what he was–I loved him.
If I had never married Marcus, I would have never known what it felt like to love and be loved in return. I couldn’t go back from that. There was no going back now. I stopped there in the street, my breath coming out in white little puffs.
I had to go back. I needed to get back to Marcus before he left. I needed to tell him how much I loved him and that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he was a vampire– did it?
I had heard stories when I was a child about the creatures of the night. They lived on the blood of small children. They went into their bedrooms while they were sleeping and drained them of blood.
Is that why he had come to my room? But I was no child. Ryan…
My thoughts swirled around in my head, confusing me and leaving me dizzy. One thing I was sure of–the only thing I was really sure of–I loved Marcus. He loved me, too, I just knew it.
Big, fluffy snowflakes began to fall. They landed in my hair and wet my eyelashes. I turned in slow circles, trying to decide if I could run fast enough to get back to him in time. My bare feet were so cold. My chest ached from the frigid air.
When I turned in the direction of the house, a familiar figure was standing there. His dark curls glistened from the pool of light he was standing under, and snowflakes rested on the sleeves of his overcoat.
He just stood there so still, not making any move to come closer. He wasn’t glaring at me, or smiling either; he just stood there watching what I would do. I stared back, tears already pricking at my eyes.
“Marcus,” I whispered.
He was too far away for me to hear what he was saying, but I saw his lips moving. His eyes widened just before I heard the carriage.
It was too late to move out of the way. I barely even realized what I was seeing before the horse reared up to two legs. The hooves made contact with my head and I heard the crack as it came down again on my shoulder. There was nothing I could do to stop the way my b
ody was pulled under the large wheels.
Then it was over and everything was silent. I couldn’t hear anything but my own breathing. Was I dead? Where was Marcus? Was he okay?
In a rush, all the sound that had been sucked out of the world came back to me. There was a man screaming something and a horse was making loud noises way too close to my head. “Get that horse out of there!” someone yelled.
“Claudia.” Marcus was there, right next to me. “Are you okay? Talk to me.” He was so worried.
“I think so.” Why did my voice sound so strange?
“Where does it hurt?”
“What happened?”
“The horse, the carriage.” His words came out in a rush. “It hit you.”
“I was coming back to talk to you. I’m s…”
“Shh,” he cut me off.
“Claudia,” Sylvia was suddenly there with us.
Sylvia. I wanted to tell her I was okay and that I was sorry, but it was too hard to get the words to come out.
“Where are you hurt?”
“My legs. They hurt.”
“There is so much blood,” her voice rose in panic.
“You’re going to be okay,” Marcus murmured close to my face.
“I know,” I croaked.
“I’m going to take you home,” I heard him say.
I tried to tell him that it was okay. I wanted him to take me home. Even after all that happened, I knew I only wanted to be with him. Now that I was going to die, there was even more reason to be with him.
“Should I call for the doctor?” Sylvia asked quietly.
“It’s too late,” David answered.
I kept my eyes only on Marcus, so afraid that if I looked away, even for a second, that he would disappear. He pushed my hair away from my eyes so he could press his lips to my forehead.
“I’ll take you home, and I’ll fix this,” he whispered fiercely.
I raised my hand to wipe the tears from his face, but I couldn’t reach him. He seemed so close to me, but I couldn’t touch him. He was like the stars in the night sky, oh so long ago–another lifetime.
I felt like I could reach out to him and yet…
His shoulders shook with his sobs. I hated to see him so sad and broken. “I’m fine,” I wanted to say to him. There were so many things I needed to tell him and he was right here in front of me, but no words would come out.