Page 22 of Bloodstained
“I know what you are.” My throat burned. “I see it clearly. I see everything.”
“Yes,” he said. “And you’re still here.”
The words cut deep. I wasn’tstill herebecause I wanted to be. I was here because he kept me, because stone walls and locked doors made sure of it. Yet, something traitorous inside me twisted, whispering that there was more to it than chains or corridors.
I realized I’d felt almost safe—in the bedchamber, the library, the glass-lit solarium. But down here… there was no softness. The undercroft was raw, stained with decades of blood, smelling of death that was so thick it was an unmistakable odor.
“I won’t pretend,” he said, almost lightly, “that I didn’t enjoy it. Feeding. There is pleasure in surviving. But it’s a necessity. I won’t dress it in finer clothes to make you more comfortable. This is what I am.”
I shook my head because it gave me something to do. My palms ached from digging my nails into them. I forced them to loosen, then wrapped my arms tight around myself. “You wanted me to see this,” I said, my voice breaking smaller than I intended.
“Eventually, yes, you needed to see what I am. But I didn’t bring you here,” he said. “You came of your own accord.”
Heat flushed through me so fast I thought I’d be sick. Shame burned, and I clutched it because it was easier than facing the other thing clawing through me. He noticed. Of course he noticed.
We stood in silence long enough for the bite on my neck to throb, a reminder that he’d fed from me, too. My fingers went there on instinct. The heat that answered my touch made me furious.
At him, and especially at my body for betraying me. “I should go back,” I whispered. “I?—”
“You should.” He stepped back a single inch, enough to shift the air between us. “Get some rest. Tomorrow”—the word sounded like both a promise and threat—“we’ll talk.”
I swallowed hard, wanting to argue, to demand answers. My gaze caught on the clean line of his jaw, the faint smear of blood at the corner of his mouth.
The woman I had been before all this would have recoiled.
The woman I was now wanted to reach up and wipe the blood away with her thumb.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CLARA
The castle breathed like a living thing. If I closed my eyes and focused, I could almost hear it speaking to me. There was an endless hush of stone and memories… ones that felt familiar but foreign all in the same breath.
Even in silence, it pressed down heavily enough to make my skin prickle.
I had spent the day barricaded in my room, refusing to leave after what I’d seen in the undercroft. The animal. The blood. Ivan’s hands slick to the wrist, his face unmasked at last. Terror and curiosity still wrestled in my chest.
I should have been exhausted. Instead, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned under the weight of the castle’s oppressiveness, staring at the fire until its crackle turned to static in my head. When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I rose.
I didn’t go far, just to the heavy chair by the window, wrapping myself tighter in a blanket. My bare feet were curled under me, the cold stone floor enough to cause my whole body to shake from the chill.
Moonlight slanted in through the window, the light pale and bruised. The blanket didn’t help. The coldness of the castle wentto its very bones. I brought the blanket to my nose and inhaled. I couldn’t deny the fabric held Ivan’s scent.
My fingers drifted along the edge of the chair. Restless. Frustrated. It had been days, but I didn’t know how many. I couldn’t tell. Time blurred here, hours bleeding into one another until even light and dark felt the same.
I hadn’t spoken to my family. No one knew if I was alive. I pictured both my grandparents’ faces, my mother’s anxious texts, the way panic would hollow them out. They’d have called the police by now. They’d be frantic.
But I knew they’d never find me. Not here. This place wasn’t just a home; it was a fortress built to keep the world out.
To keep me in.
I wanted to scream, wanted to hurl something until glass shattered and stone cracked. I missed them. God, I missed my family. A soft sound broke the air, and I stiffened. My heart kicked once, hard.
“You’re thinking of your family.”
His voice came from the doorway, low and steady, like he’d been standing there for hours, waiting. I turned, breath sharp. Ivan stood half in shadow, half in firelight, the contrast making him seem unreal.
A man, yes, but more… always more. His hair had fallen loose across his forehead, and his shirt hung unbuttoned at the throat, revealing a line of pale skin I hated myself for noticing.
