Page 14 of Bloodstained
She curled in on herself, seeming smaller than any memory I had hoarded. An ancient tenderness I’d only ever shown to her rose within me. I almost bent to the bed and brushed a lock of hair from her face. I’d done it a thousand times when she’d been alive and was my wife.
I knew the moment she’d closed me out. The fight slowly ebbed, not from surrender but from the way fatigue settled into bones after a near drowning. I didn’t want her silence. I didn’t want her to block me out. But time was fragile. I’dwaited lifetimes for this moment. She could take all the time she needed.
“I’ll leave you. Know you’re free to wander and explore.” She didn’t look at me. I hadn’t expected her not to acknowledge me, but I knew space was essential right now, so I gave it to her.
I left the room and stood outside her door and closed my eyes, reaching out with all my senses. Outside, the world pressed at the shutters. Somewhere beyond the forest edge, an animal moved. I heard it scurrying across the leaf-laden ground. Inside, the castle breathed a slow, ancient rhythm. It held my secrets in its tight fist.
There were things that needed to be said, truths and stories that she needed to be told. It was tales of poison coating a cup by a friend’s greedy hand. I would tell her all of it but never show her where I'd scattered the bones of the man who betrayed us. I’d never admit the evil I’d done after her death. Her fear of me was something that I’d never stand for.
But first, I wanted the memories that surfaced of us together to be happy, loving, passionate. I wanted her to remember the wine we’d drunk together while we curled next to each other under the furs and watched the flames eating the wood. I’d show her the portraits I’d had created of her each century, ones that captured her likeness and transformed them into those times. I’d sit and stare at them and imagine she’d been there with me as they’d been painted by the artist.
I’d let those little whispers press at the edges of her memory while she connected them together until it all made sense.
My hunger lay coiled and patient, rising only when I knew I had to feed.
Tomorrow, I’d start the slow process of breaking down the centuries that had separated Clara and I.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CLARA
Ididn’t know how long I stood there, staring out the window, asking myself for the hundredth time how I got here. But I knew nothing could shield me from this situation. Because I knew it was inevitable.
Days had seemed to pass seamlessly, yet I couldn’t be sure how long I’d been here. I’d given him my silence, refusing to acknowledge Ivan. I ate and drank because I knew I needed my strength for when I ran. And I would.
Even days later, I still heard Ivan’s words echoing in my head.
“I want it all, Clara. I want everything.”
I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly, trying to gather my composure and thoughts and figure out what my next step would be. There was a knock on the door, and I straightened my spine, breathed out slowly, and said nothing. A moment later, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
I hated how good he looked.
I swallowed past the thick knot in my throat when his gaze met mine. All I felt was the slow, terrifying reminder ofmy situation and that this man wasn't human. And there was nothing I could do about it.
The silence between us stretched, thick as the stone walls caging me in. And the only sounds I heard were the distant whistle of the wind banging against the structure and a wolf far too close for comfort.
Be strong.I turned my focus away from him to stare back out the window. There was a slight shift in the air, just a millisecond of chill along my cheek. I glanced to where Ivan had been standing by the door and gasped. He was right in front of me once more.
Ivan’s broad, impossibly powerful frame blocked out the mantel and the fire behind him. And the way he looked at me—the way he drank me in—told me this male was thirsty. He was hungry…for me.
I took a step to the side, and his lips curved, a slow, predatory smile that sent a shudder through me. But if I was being honest, that shiver had nothing to do with being afraid or intimidated by him. I stepped away from Ivan for my own sanity because being so close and feeling his body, smelling his potent, masculine aroma, aroused me.
“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was a deep, deadly caress, deceptively soft because I knew the demon who lay in wait beneath the surface.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I didn’tknowwhere I was going.
He lowered his head slightly, his glowing, ethereal eyes still locked on me and making my heart race. And then he inhaled. Deeply. Slowly. His nostrils flared ever so slightly with that breath.
“You’re angry. Slightly afraid.” He moved a step closer, and I moved one back. “But do you know what I smell most of all?”
I took another step back until the wall right beside the door stopped my retreat.
“You’re aroused.” He didn’t sound human any longer, this primal force vibrating throughout the entire room and my body.
My breath was uneven, coming in shallow pants, and I hated how he could hear it, how he could scent everything that was happening in my body. I was humiliated and ashamed that he could smell my arousal.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured, now right in front of me again. “Lie to me and say that if I placed my hand between your thighs, I wouldn’t feel how wet you are.”
