Page 34 of A Bloom in Winter

Once more with feeling.

It was not long before he was on the Northway heading south, and he made slow time, traveling the single lane of tire ruts that ran down the center of I-87. Efforts had been made to clear the snowfall in a rudimentary way, and no doubt there would be other passes by the big municipal plows as the day went on.

Maybe he should have left his plow on—

“Just shut up,” he muttered. “And also, stop thinking while you’re at it.”

Unfortunately, all he had was the highway ahead to focus on.

No music to Bluetooth—because he’d left his cell phone on the bureau by the bed on purpose. No radio—because he didn’t want to deal with what would be mostly static. No Sirius—becausethis was a work truck and the aristocrat who owned it might be willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on the kitting out, upkeep, and human-world taxes of the old Adirondack estate.

But that monthly subscription was too much for a lowly worker.

Not that Callum cared.

In fact, he wasn’t much aware of driving, even though his hand was on the steering wheel and his right foot angled down on the accelerator—and the snow-covered peaks and forests of white-dusted pine trees were streaking by him. He couldn’t have said whether he was hot or cold, couldn’t have cared less if the heat in the cab was on or not. And not even the brightness of the sun bothered him anymore.

In his mind, he was in darkness, and not the kind that came with the night.

And shit was getting darker by the mile.

When he got to the exit he’d come for, he floated down a slippery descent, and as the stop sign at the bottom approached, he pumped the brakes and was gentle with the steering. As much as he didn’t care about his own health and safety, his destination was an obsession and ending up in a ditch on the way was not part of his plan.

Left or right? Of course, right.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew the way so well.

Willow Hills Sanatorium had never left him. Not its location. Not its five stories of patient porches or its tower-like core. Not the rotten, moldy smell of the place, or the layout, or the landscape.

Six miles farther down and he hit the brakes again. Hard.

The turnoff into the unkempt property wasn’t plowed, and as high off the ground as the truck was, he didn’t want to runthe risk of getting stuck on his way to the chain-link fence—assuming the thing still ran a circle around the place.

Pulling forward to get closer to the road’s snow-packed shoulder, he measured whether there was enough room for traffic to pass. The county plows, the big boys, had already gone through properly, so as long as none of those had to squeeze by, things were okay.

Getting out and locking the truck, he pocketed the keys and lithely jumped over the mound—

On the other side, he sank into the pack up to his knees—and for a moment, he just stayed there, in a snare of snow. As he looked up, he studied the piercing sky, then he measured the pine trees standing so docilely in the cold.

Once again, he could have shifted or dematerialized.

He didn’t.

As he pulled up one of his boots, and forced his leg down again, he wanted the exhaustion that was going to come with trudging through the acreage. Maybe it would help him finally sleep a little.

Starting across the wintery landscape, he felt like there were miles to go, especially with his bad ankle—

Right on cue, his brain kicked up a memory of Apex, walking through the blizzard toward the garage, emerging from the buffered, blustery night in all that black leather.

Like a stalker.

Then again, the male had been tracking Callum ever since he’d come back to the Adirondacks, a shadow cast by the past that fucked him up at the weirdest moments, the memories the kind of thing where he would be minding his own business, chopping wood, clearing snow off one of the main house’s flat roofs, making a meal . . . and an image of the vampire would slice through whatever he was doing and take over, an opaqueshield that he couldn’t see through, couldn’t get around, couldn’t burrow under.

And now that he’d actually seen the male in person? It was worse—

Apex’s voice was the same. Deep, with a slight rasp, his accent characteristic of vampires.

And he was always frowning. Still.

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