by Emma Glass
Just not the way I would have expected.
His footsteps led out from the room, and I couldn’t stop the rising flush in my cheeks.
After taking a minute to compose myself, I joined Elliott Craven in the dining area.
The table, large enough to comfortably seat six, proudly held the makings of a small feast. He was busy plucking the steam-catchers off of nearly half a dozen plates as I approached.
Elliott gestured nearby. “Here, take a seat.”
I followed his order. “What’s all this?”
“I wasn’t quite sure what you liked, so I had my kitchens whip up a variety of things. You’re not vegetarian or anything, are you?”
“Eh, I tried it. Wasn’t for me.”
“Oh?” He set the domes aside. “Didn’t take?”
“Hard to maintain that with my stepfather,” I glumly thought aloud. “He’s a greasy meat-eater and insists on forcing me to be one, too”
“Stepfather?” Elliott asked thoughtfully.
“Yeah…”
When I noticed that he was quietly watching, I hastily shook my head in mild embarrassment. “Doesn’t matter now. He’s not here. There’s no reason to think about that awful place anymore.”
In a bout of sudden shame, it dawned on me that I’d never texted Peter back. In the entire of my time here, I hadn’t even thought about him. Guilt seeped into my mind as I wondered what he must think, or how long it would take anyone to realize I was missing. Maybe they’d think I just ran away. Surely Harold would. Peter knows my life too, he might think that… but he’d be devastated that I didn’t let him know first.
At first, survival had taken precedence. But now, I was seated at the table of this castle’s ruler, and the single shining light in my old world had been completely lost to the wayside. But I struggled to find a point in dwelling on that now.
I was still in survival mode – all of my focus needed to be on learning, adapting, and keeping on my host’s better side. I’m so sorry, Peter. If only I could reach you… to let you know that I’m okay… at least, I think… It was painful to think of him. But it was even more painful to realize how easily I could push the thought of him away, along with the rest of my old world. I have to focus on what is right in front of me, at least for now…
When I finally snapped out of it, I realized Elliott’s gaze was studiously lingering on me. A frown had crept across his face in the meantime, but he thankfully didn’t pry into my head.
Instead, he turned his attention to the food.
“You’ll have to tell me sometime what you will or won’t eat,” he gestured over the steaming plates. “For tonight, we’ve got fresh fish, sautéed vegetables, chicken lasagna, and sampler dishes. I’ve asked the kitchen to provide examples of their best work.”
“It looks incredible,” I replied gratefully.
Glancing over the food, I wasn’t exaggerating. It all seemed mostly recognizable. Mostly. What was strange was that some of the veggies were the wrong color, and the baked fish looked to be a great deal more exotic than England’s finest.
Elliott had already begun forking dinner onto his plate, but he paused at my expression. “Clara, is something the matter?”
“Since when are carrots black?”
“Since forever.” His eyebrow rose. “Why?”
I laughed, stabbing a small one onto my plate. “It’s just… in my world, they’re mostly orange.”
“Orange?” Elliott looked funnily at the one I’d just taken. “On a carrot? That sounds ridiculous. Why would a carrot be orange?”
“Why would it be black?” I retorted.
When we met each other’s gazes, we laughed. It was crazy to think that we apparently came from two Earths that were so similar in so many ways… but these otherwise meaningless changes made our worlds so ultimately different.
“Carrots,” I shook my head and took a small bite. At least it tasted how I remembered. “I think Europeans were responsible for breeding our carrots that color. I want to say the Swedes? Maybe the Danes. Who bred these ones?”
“It’s just plain genetics,” Elliott shrugged. “Nature is chaos. Everything on this world, from the savage beasts to the deceptive flora, is wildly feral. Everything outside the settlements is all to the point of complete anarchy. Domestication was always a dead end for us, so we’ve relied on our scientists to provide other solutions instead.”
I loaded up on baked fish fillets and sautéed… broccoli? I was pretty sure that one was supposed to be broccoli. “So what’s vampire science like?”
Elliott swallowed his bite. “It’s like all sorts of things, I guess.” He began cutting up his lasagna. “That’s a very broad question. What do you want to know?”
“Well, for instance, all freaking afternoon I’ve been trying to figure out how exactly you’ve got a castle with electricity. I’ve been looking at all these weird lights here…” My eyes glanced up to the overhead stones, listening to their soft thrum. “It’s like… somehow, you keep the old with the new here.”
“Electricity?” Elliott tilted his head curiously, chewing on a bit of meat. “I swear, it sounds like you make up half these words on the fly…”
This was going to be harder than I thought.
“On Earth–” I paused at the sight of his smirk. “Okay, on Human Earth, we discovered electricity a few centuries ago. It’s a natural energy source sort of based off of lightning. Every technological advance since then has basically relied on it in one shape or another. So, electrical charges run across our bodies and send messages from our brains to our, well, everything else, and back again. On a bigger scale, natural electricity is used to power basically the whole world – machines, lighting, air conditioning, transportation…”
Elliott looked fascinated.
“What?” I was mystified. “How do you insane vampires seriously not have electricity here?”
“Biologically, yes,” he agreed. “We have what you’re talking about. But these other things you mention sound a lot different from the kind of industrial advances we’ve made.”
Elliott poked his fork prongs towards the lighting panels above us, and I tried to forget how much that reminded me of the stepfather I was so desperately trying to forget.
“Take those, for instance. Until we figured out a solution, there was no way we could run any kind of power through all this thick stone. There was no way to get cost-efficient lighting across the castle. The best we could do was burn through every torch and candle we could get our hands on.” He took another bite. “But we found a way.”
“Oh yeah?” I chomped down on some fish.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “We call it chrysm.”
“Chrysm?” I paused to chew. “What’s that?”
Elliott lightly twirled his fork, lost in thought. “Chrysm is a vibrant red ore. We found it buried deep within the earth. The vast majority of the stuff actually comes from right here in Stonehold, carved out of our mines on the mainland. It was first discovered over a thousand years ago, unlike anything anyone had ever seen…”
“That sounds pretty cool,” I admitted.
“It was cool. The problem was that it looked pretty, and that was about it. Beyond jewelry and decoration, nobody could find any practical uses for the stuff…”
He gave a small, proud smile.
“Well, not until Lorelei’s time on the throne. Early in her reign, our scientists underwent a major breakthrough and realized that chrysm had a lot of incredible potential. All along, the answers to our resource scarcity problems had been right beneath our feet! For a century, our best scientific minds toiled away, trying to figure out how to utilize the vast power of the chrysm – but without destroying most of it in the process, like usual.”
I waited until my mouth wasn’t full of food. “Gonna go out on a limb here. They solved it?
“They did. Overnight, we were at the brink of a new dawn. Once we cracked the key, this simple red mineral revolutionized our global
society in a matter of decades…” Elliott pensively glanced up at the lights again. “Now, chrysm is the definitive power source of all vampire civilization.”
With all this awesome food, I was starting to get full. “So how does chrysm work?”
“It’s… complicated.”
I grinned. “Then give me the simple version.”
Elliott set his plate aside. Apparently, he was done too. “Chrysm can be converted into energy. Certain types of material conduct it – like most of the stones in this castle. All you really have to do is set up a way of regulating the charge and attach anything compatible you want, so long as they’re designed to work with the power source.”
“So, it isn’t harmful or anything?”
“Nope. Doesn’t affect the physiology.”
I was awed at what I was hearing. It sounded like the kind of revolutionary energy source that my world so desperately needed… What if we have something like this on the human Earth? And we just don’t realize what we’re looking at?
Elliott rose from his chair. “We can talk about this stuff more later. But for now, I’m tired.”
“Doesn’t look like you’ve exhausted yourself today,” I teased him playfully. “I guess brooding on a throne really takes it out of you, doesn’t it? Wait. Do you even have a throne?”
“Of course I’ve got a throne! It’s an amazing throne. A tad uncomfortable, though…” Elliott stretched wide, glancing briefly at the leftovers. Half the food was still here. “Leave it all. I’ll have servants take care of it in the morning.”
I planned on at least cleaning up. It’s not like I don’t have a ton of experience at that. He might be used to being waited on hand and foot, but I saw no reason to not make their jobs a little easier.
“As for all my exhausting ‘brooding’…” Elliott vaguely sauntered down towards his bedroom. “You know, you might be surprised how tiring it can be to take in a chatty little stowaway from another world…”
Scraping the food into containers and washing up the plates, I tried to ignore that Elliott left without setting up sleeping arrangements for me.
It didn’t take long to finish. When it was over, I found a bathroom and washed my face, too. This time, when I stared at the girl facing back across the mirror, she wasn’t trying to convince me that I was strong enough to face my nightmares.
The fact that I’d literally just had dinner with the savior from all my dreams these last three weeks unsurprisingly helped with that.
So, what happens now?
I briefly considered cleaning myself up, but my host didn’t have a monopoly on exhaustion. That, and I just couldn’t make heads or tails of the contraption that faintly resembled a shower.
At least the toilet was normal enough.
When there was no more stalling to be done, I found Elliott’s bedroom door wide open with the lights off. Slipping nervously into the room, I was at a complete loss of what to do.
“Uh, Elliott? Are you still awake?”
His voice was impatient. “Duh.”
“I don’t… know where I’m supposed to sleep,” I admitted meekly. “Could you show me where to find blankets and a pillow?”
“Don’t be foolish,” his voice replied.
“I don’t understand.”
“Just sleep here.”
My mind panicked. “…Oh.”
I heard a rustling in the bed. The lights slowly dimmed back to life, at least enough for me to see him sitting upright.
“Human eyes must not be as good as vampire ones,” he observed tiredly. “I could see you clearly, but you’re obviously having some trouble with the dark. Anyway, the bed’s right here.”
“It’s not just that,” I replied fearfully. “It’s just that I’ve never, well…”
The realization slid across his face.
“Oh. That’s not what I was trying to imply.” Elliott slid over, out from the middle. “There, just take the other side. There’s plenty of room here. We won’t even have to brush against each other.” Without another word, the vampire rolled over, silently offering me privacy.
Swallowing down my rampant nervousness, I silently disrobed to my underwear. After a quick glance to confirm that he was still facing away, I carefully climbed into his bed on the other side.
The vampire hadn’t lied; there was enough room between us to fit at least two other people.
I rolled the other way, pulling the duvet over my shoulder and settling into the bedding. Deep down, traitorous thoughts wanted nothing more than the feeling of his hard back up against mine. I pushed them away, trying to bury the ridiculous impulses as far down into the cracks of my mind as I could reach.
The chrysm lights darkened slowly; we were soon bathed in darkness again, with only the light from under the doorway for slight visibility.
Both my head and my heart were racing.
Never had I even considered that my dream could cross into the real world – yet, here I was, curled up in the comfortable sheets of my knight in shadowy armor.
That’s when I heard Elliott darkly whisper my name from across the bed, with the slightest predatory hint in his handsome voice…
A tingle shot down my skin.
“Welcome to Stonehold, Clara.”
10
Clara
My eyes parted slowly and peacefully.
There was no sudden, sweaty burst that woke me in choking fear, nor any sharp, blaring alarm to violently yank me back to consciousness.
No, I’d awoken from the most restful sleep I’d had in weeks; I was so happy that I quietly cried.
I beat the nightmare, I realized.
But that wasn’t the only change. In my rising comprehension, I started to sleepily clutch at the luxurious bedding that surrounded me. Backing up slowly against the headboard, I gazed around the unfamiliar room in mounting terror.
“Wait,” I spoke aloud. “Wait a second…” No, I did remember this. This was the bed of…
“Elliott Craven,” I spoke in a hushed whisper, barely aware that I was alone in the bedroom. Brief flashes of the previous day slipped into my head as I realized, to my astonishment, that the dream I did have was not a dream at all.
“It was real,” I gasped in awe. “All of it…” Both hands bunched up the thick, comfortable duvet as I tugged it up towards me. I buried my face in it, savoring the feeling against my skin.
“It was all real…”
Setting away my hysteria in case he returned, I rose up from Elliott’s bed and looked around for my outer clothes. The discarded garments waited for me by my side of the bed, scattered along the floor where I’d left them before.
Wait, I thought to myself. Where is he?
My host had fallen asleep beside me, staying that way for the night; I’d briefly awoken a couple of times to hear his light snores across the bed.
But it seemed that he truly was gone, at least for the time being. Elliott had left me alone and asleep in his quarters, leaving for… well, whatever he did as a vampire lord.
Wanting to be completely certain that I really was alone, I quietly pranced over to the bedroom door. Pressing my cheek up beside the doorframe, I gingerly pulled the door ajar and peered through the crack.
Listening for any evidence that he was here, I hesitated briefly; when there came no sound at all, I forced the door fully open and dared to gaze out from the gothic bedroom into the expensively lavish suite of Elliott Craven.
He really wasn’t here.
So comfortable was I with that conclusion that I willingly waltzed out in my underwear, just to take another quick look around the place. That being said, part of me enjoyed the thrill of it – knowing that he could come back at any moment.
God, I groaned. What’s gotten into me?
It wasn’t enough for me to change a thing. As I traipsed around, my steps were clearly the only other sound or movement in Elliott’s otherwise very silent home. With eyes freshly renewed with the wonder of this private space, I
found myself scanning the sheer beauty of his suite – filled with too many intricate details to possibly remember all at once. The undying majesty of it all nearly overwhelmed me.
Beauty was one thing; fun was quite another. For all the beautiful stonework and intricate décor, I quickly discovered that I couldn’t find anything remotely meaningful or exciting to do.
Worse still, my host neither left a note nor even the slightest indication of his rules. I didn’t have any context for what might offend him, or what I was allowed to do while he was away.
And where is he, anyway?
I remembered that he had a fairly sizeable set of bookcases. Just as I turned on my heel to make my way toward them, my gaze caught the freshly empty sink. So the servants came in while I was asleep, I noted with mounting apprehension.
Elliott had slept the whole night without so much as a hint of biting. But he’d made it sound like his staff were far less discerning, and maybe uncontrollably so. The fact that I’d been so sound asleep, and so close to a vampire’s bite without even realizing, made my skin crawl. I’ll simply have to meet some, I thought to myself. Whenever he decides that it’s safe enough, I guess…
Shaking the thought clear from my mind, I shifted over to the bookcases and studied some of the prettier spines. Wow. Vampires don’t spare any expense on their books, I observed. Every fantastic new book cover played second fiddle to another, just a few hardbacks further down the shelf. Only a scattered handful of the volumes looked plain.
Finally settling on a few, I tugged them free from their shelves. As gently as possible, I carried them back to Elliott’s bedroom and shut the door behind myself.
Well, at least there’s this to do…
It didn’t bother me. In fact, I used to do a lot of reading. But when it wasn’t my ridiculously hard course load intervening in my limited free time, I could rely on my unruly stepfather to fill the gap. Over the last few years of waiting on him hand and foot, and being buried under homework, sheer necessity had pushed me out of the practice.