Page 20 of Bloodstained
The air thickened between us, charged and electric. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shove him. I wanted to sink into him until I forgot every reason I should run.
His mouth hovered there, not quite touching, but his hunger was tangible. “Say you don’t want me again,” he murmured. “Lie to me and yourself.”
I glanced down slightly to see his hands curled into tight fists, his knuckles white, his forearms tensed so much his muscles stood out.
I should have cursed him, told him to fuck off. God, I should have. But the words snagged in my throat, tangled in the heat pooling between my thighs.
Ivan pulled back just enough for me to see the dark hunger carved into every line of his face. His pupils glowed an eerie white, burning with possession. Obsession.
For me.
“I’ve been alone so long I forget how terrifying the truth can be,” he said, his voice hard as stone. “I forgot how to be a gentleman and to take things slowly. But I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time, Clara. Theideaof you. Thepromiseof you. And now that you are here, I find it hard to control even my base urges.”
The vow settled into me, heavy and final. I trembled with something I didn’t want to name. When Ivan stepped back then,I didn’t feel relief, and I sure as hell didn’t dig deeper to find out what exactly I was feeling.
His gaze caught on my lips, my throat, and finally on the trembling of my hands. “So sweet,” he murmured. “So pretty.” He left me with that, his shadow dissolving into the darkness of the corridor until the silence pressed back in.
Why was my body still burning, my mind still conjuring the feel of his mouth on my skin and picturing the rough whisper of his voice promising forever?
And why the hell was I trembling with need instead of fear?
CHAPTER TWELVE
CLARA
Sleep didn’t come after he left me in the solarium. The corridor outside of it was cold enough that the hairs on my arms lifted. I wrapped my arms around myself and moved, testing each step before I gave it weight.
I didn’t know the castle’s layout beyond the few grand rooms I’d visited in my exploration, but I just moved because, right now, that’s all I could do.
I found myself in a hallway I hadn’t seen before. I instantly smelled something that made my nose tingle. Metal. The metallic note that lives at the back of the throat, like I’d been sucking on a penny. I tasted it before I understood it.
Every breath scraped my throat. My pulse felt too loud in my ears. I kept hearing Ivan’s voice, that low vow, like a blade dragged across a stone, “I’ve been waiting for you for centuries.”
The castle shifted around me. The light had bled away, and night had flooded every inch of this ancient castle. I told myself to stay where I was. But I knew I couldn’t hide; I could barricade myself in somewhere and hope it kept out a supernatural creature.
I should have left. I should have run back to my room and locked myself in and screamed until the walls shook. Instead, I followed the scent until it intensified and I was in front of a door. I touched the handle; the brass was chilled and unforgiving.
A little voice told me to turn back. Instead, I pushed the door inward and found a shallow flight of stone steps, each tread worn into a soft crescent by centuries of feet. Before I could think better of it, I was descending. The air sharpened with that coppery scent with every step until my nose stung.
The stairs spilled into a low, vaulted undercroft. Stone—cool and damp—rose in carved pillars to a ribbed ceiling, and a narrow runnel split the floor, carrying a ribbon of dark water toward a grated drain. The metallic tang hit me again.
My stomach clenched. I could have lied to myself a hundred different ways, but the deeper I moved, the more impossible it was to deny.
Blood.
The tunnel opened into a chamber, and I stopped short, shock skidding through me.
It took my brain a second to make sense of the shape on the stones—a deer, a stag, I thought—its antlers catching the candlelight that swayed and danced in this darkened crypt. It lay on its side, legs thrown awkwardly, chest not moving. I realized what this was… a visceral exhibition by a murderous artist on full, grisly display.
The ragged tear at the flank, the deep, obscene bite at the throat. I felt my eyes widen like saucers as I tore them away from the animal carcass. My gaze landed right on him.
Ivan stood in the corner, half-swallowed by shadow, head bowed, eyes glowing pale. He didn’t look… right. Instinct kicked, and I stepped back, knowing I was staring at the thing beneath the man— the monster I’d felt breathing behind the mirror of humanity.
The lower half of his face, chest, and his hands—those same hands that had held my face so gently—were slick to the wrists with something dark and glossy. I didn’t need color to know what it was. He was unsettlingly still. And entirely focused on me.
The sound he made barely qualified as sound. It was low, feral, and the kind of noise nightmares kept buried deep. It skated over my skin and tightened every muscle to fight or run. I pressed against the stone wall, heart thundering, a scream trapped behind my teeth. And yet, buried under the terror, something else stirred… an inexplicable certainty that I was not his prey.
With him, I would not be harmed. Reality was louder.
