Page 37 of Lord of Eternal Night (Darkmourn Universe 1)

Marius grinned through his glistening eyes. “Do you read minds, Jak?”

I stiffened. That was a power that my kind had long lost. “Impossible. It was simply a wild guess.”

“Then yes, Jak, I would love a drink. You stay here and I will be back shortly.”

“Last time you promised that you did not return at all.”

Marius leaned in close, casting a shadow over me. “The difference is that this time it seems we have some unfinished business to attend.”

A tickling sensation spread from my feet until it roared through my entire body. Beneath his intense stare I felt my knees buckle ever so slightly. And the promise of his return moistened my mouth with anticipation.

“Do not disappear on me, Jak,” Marius said at the doorway to his study.

“Couldn’t even if I wanted to,” I replied, unable to hide the raw truth in my words.

14

There was a missing book. Someone had removed it from the shelving recently for the outline was still clear from the layering of dust around it. I also knew that this was the first book Marius had written for he had explained they were organised in order from first to most recent. The space between the missing tome and the next was large.

It was not the only thing I noticed as I studied the shelving in Marius’s absence. The older the books he wrote, the longer they were. Bindings of pages so thick that two hands were required to hold them open.

But the further I went along the never-ending shelves, the more it was clear that the recent books were shorter. Dramatically so. Small novella’s that were no more than a handful of pages long.

What had resulted in Marius writing so little in the more recent years? Was it his lack of want, or the distance he put between himself and the other Claims?

He likely planned my story now. Plotting what my life could have been like if I survived whatever hell waited for me on the final day.

But I knew he would never finish the story.

As I studied the empty shelving, I felt the sudden urge to vomit. Knowing what I had to do no longer warmed me from the inside. It conjured the freezing chill of dread to sit, waiting, in my soul. It was clear to me now that Marius was not the beast at all.I was.

“Here you are…”

I jumped at the sudden appearance of Marius. Forcing a smile, I turned to see him standing with a dusty bottle of undisclosed liquid in one hand and two crystal glasses in the other.

“Did I scare you again?” He bit down on his lower lip, likely remembering my previous warning and how that ended up.

“Sorry.” I ran a hand through my brown curls, the other resting on my hip. “I was lost to my own thoughts.”

The glasses clinked as Marius rested them upon his oaken desk. “No bother. I thought you might like this wine for its vintage. Has been in the undercroft long before my own father was born within these walls.”

It was hard to imagine it as Marius spoke of his family. “He must have been a King to be born in such a place.”

“He was a man who was no more than lucky to be raised in such a place. From memory his mother was a servant to the ruling house that dwelled here. He simply grew up in the shadow of the great family that lived in this place.”

“So how is it you came to claim it as your own?”

Marius slowly popped the cork from the dark-green glass bottle. He lifted it to his nose and took a deep inhale before pouring the red wine in the two waiting glasses. “I inherited it when my father passed. During his childhood he grew close with the daughter of the Lord who owned this castle. They fell in love, married and had me. Their sole heir.”

“Which makes you a Lord.”

“Mademe a Lord,” Marius interjected. “Now drink with me. All this talk of the past is making me feel like I am sinking internally.”

He handed over a glass which I took without question. Our fingers grazed for a moment as I did so.

As I lifted the rim to my lips, Marius spoke up. “Are we not going to toast?”

“Toast?” I questioned, breath fogging the crystallised glass. “To what?”

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