Page 37 of Wynter's Bite

And after four more years in a gray cell in the pauper’s wing, Bethany even missed her ugly yellow room. At least then there was color.

Chapter Sixteen

Manchester, 1825

Justus stood on the edge of an outcropping beside a gargoyle and stared through the bars of the dank cell of the asylum. His heart ached with agony at seeing his love crumpled on the cold stone floor from fainting at the sight of him.

His breath remained frozen in his lungs until she stirred with a whimper.

“Bethany!” he whispered as loud as he dared. “Are you alright?” If she’d injured herself in her fall, he didn’t know if he could bear it.

Groaning, she slowly shuffled to her feet, eyeing him fearfully.

What kind of malicious world was this to reduce her to such a weak and subdued state? Yes, Justus had suffered from his years as a rogue, but he had deserved it. Bethany did not deserve this.

She was so thin and frail in her rough-spun frock. Her eyes were dilated and glazed like an opium addict’s, and she shook like a willow in a storm. Her once lush, waist-length golden hair was chopped to shoulder length and hung dull and listless around her thinned face.

Eight years since he’d last laid eyes on the love of his life, and he hardly recognized her. But it was her, of that he had no doubt. Under the reek of terror and old sweat, he detected her unique scent that haunted his dreams since their first dance. But it was her words that chilled him the most.

“You’re not real,” she whispered once more, slowly backing away to her shoddy cot.

He reached through the bars, longing to feel her touch once more, but she was already too far from his grasp. “I am real,” he insisted. “Bethany, please, believe me. I’ve been searching for you all these years, never giving up, even when for some time I had reason to believe you were dead.”

She shook her head, eyes wide and fearful. “Vampires aren’t real. Doctor Keene says so.”

He sighed. “Doctors are among the foremost people who are not supposed to believe in us, but I assure you, I am quite real.” Another spear of pain stabbed his chest. “Don’t you remember the night I told you what I am? Don’t you remember my bite? The way we ran together?”

“It was a dream,” she protested stubbornly. But a flash of her old spirit glinted in her blue eyes.

“Not a dream,” he said, fixing her with a firm stare. Reaching into his shirt, he withdrew the locket she’d given him. “Look.” He opened the locket, revealing her miniature. “Since the night you gave this to me, I’ve never taken it off.” Well, except for the time the chain broke and Gavin had taken it, but he’d confess that folly later.

Bethany studied the locket, a measure of the feral light in her eyes dimmed as her brows creased in speculation.

“Come here.” He struggled to maintain a note of command, rather than a desperate plea. “Take my hand once more, only, please do not faint again. Feel that I am real.”

Still shivering, Bethany crossed her arms over her breasts as she took a deep, shuddering breath and slowly walked towards him. “Are you going to bite me again?” she asked with a touch of her inquisitiveness that he’d fallen in love with.

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