Page 42 of The Cruelty of Thorns

The girl took me to a door halfway down the hall and stopped. “This is her room?” She nodded. “Thank you. I won’t tell anyone you brought me here. I’d appreciate it if you did the same.”

“You think I want to be punished?” she asked as she spun around and scurried away.

I knocked on the door and waited. When there was no answer, I tried the knob and, finding it unlocked, let myself into the room.

The curtains were shut, leaving the room in shadows, but what I could see was a Spartan quarters. A narrow bed with a table next to it, a straight back chair by the fireplace, and a small wardrobe in the corner were the only furnishings. A wool rug covered part of the wood plank floor, the only comfort to be found in the space.

Rosetta was asleep in the bed, and as I approached her, I could tell something wasn’t right. The covers were pulled halfway up, leaving her upper body exposed, and from what I could see in the murky light, her neck was bloodied and bruised. A slow rage kindled in my chest. Someone had hurt her, and someone was going to pay.

“Rosetta?”

I touched my hand to her cheek and found her skin to be dry and feverish. I bent over and pressed my lips to her forehead. “Rosetta?”

She startled awake and gasped, drawing back away from me.

“Easy. It’s me. Julianus.”

She looked around, her eyes wide. “Julianus? What are you doing here?”

“I was worried about you. What happened? Who hurt you?”

“You shouldn’t be here. If they find out–”

“I don’t care about that,” I interrupted her. “Was it Christopher? Did he put those marks on your neck?”

I would kill him. I didn’t know how, but I would find a way.

She nodded, her eyes tearing up. “He…tortured me. Laughed while he did it. While she stood by and watched.”

My rage was instant. “When did this happen?”

“Last night. After they took you back to your room. I was on my way up here when Christopher grabbed me. Said he was still hungry. He dragged me out to the garden.”

She started to cry softly and I had all I could do to keep hold of my temper. I reached for her hand and noticed her wrist, like her neck, was rimmed with cuts and bruises. “He did this?” She nodded. “I’ll fucking murder him.”

“You can’t do anything,” she whimpered. “They’re too strong. I tried to fight him, but that only seemed to excite him more.”

There had to be a way to stop them. Did they sleep during the day, I wondered? I never saw the Contessa during the day and wondered if perhaps the legends were true. That the vampira spent their days like the dead. If so, were they vulnerable then?

“I’m going to kill them both.”

“You cannot. They’re too powerful.”

“Everything can be killed. I just have to find the right way to do it.”

“Listen to me, Julianus. If they find out you’re here, they’ll do to you what they did to me.”

“No one knows I’m here.” No one but the maid. Would she talk? I supposed if they tortured her, she would. “We’ll leave then.”

“Leave? How? Franco watches the gate and Lucia and Tomasso would report anything they saw to the Contessa. If they even suspected we were thinking about leaving, they’d throw us both in the cellar.”

“Then we won’t let them suspect. We’ll leave as soon as you’re able to walk.”

She grabbed my hand in her smaller one, pulling my eyes to hers. “I know you mean well, but you don’t know her like I do. Even if we somehow managed to get off the property, she wouldn’t rest until she found us. We belong to her.”

“My father has resources. He could get us far enough away that she could never find us.”

“I love the idea that you’re willing to do this for me, but I don’t believe it is possible.”

---