Page 33 of Hound

“Then we shall meet in my chamber. I’ll call for you when I conclude.” Although an ache hammered at my backside due to Lorenzo, the strain on my shoulders and back was the result of the hardened ground we slumbered on. I wasn’t opposed to continuing our rendezvous here, however, until after the soreness vanished from my body.

Lorenzo brought me to him in a swift pull and kissed me. Tongues whirled as his body pressed into mine, and before we could tear down the progress we’ve made, we parted, a sunken sensation consuming me the further I walked from him.

It caved as I prepared myself for what was to come, washing away remnants of Lorenzo until all that remained was the phantom of his touch beneath my flesh. Had Lorenzo returned? Though he was wholly healed, I couldn’t help but?—

A heavy clank beyond my chambers caught my attention and reeled me onto the hallway.

Though our chambers were soundproof, this creak was impenetrable, unlike the silent hums of my brother's doors and our mothers old chamber on the opposite side of the household.

Within the darkness, my gaze drifted away from Kaleb’s and Noah’s closed chambers to That Man’s. Neither of my brothers had perceived the undone chains of That Man’s towering wooden doors, nor when?—

The door was ajar. The chains, gone.

How?

After the night I’d stumbled on Lorenzo, I’d made quick work of shutting that burdensome entrance before my flesh could react, ensuring no trace of my presence.

Someone had taken the chains, and wedged a leather bound literature between the doors as if it was a stopple. But it was anything but that.

Jagged yellow pages decorated the fore edge, the dark front cover bearing scars of age and bruises of common wear in which belonged to one piece of literature under this household, the very one that had haunted our youths through teachings.

And haunted me now, after nearly five years, when it was meant to be stuffed away in the depths of the library’s third level.

Who did this?

Thoughts ceased to exist as I gripped the literature and stormed out the household, confusion and anger tangled as I whisked past the posted guardians and inner gate, beyond the Sephtis cemetery’s metal entrance, and stepped into the mausoleum, the sun above prickling beyond flesh.

“Why?”

Our mother’s soul-stirring soft voice, her request for this work of text. . .it was to never be revisited unless life depended on it.

The History of Vampires fostered the power to end me. End Lorenzo and my brothers alike.

Why had it all appearednow, when time had enshrouded it all? Unless. . .

No.

“What were you thinking, Mother? How could you abandon us yet forsake us with traces of your presence?”

A gust of wind gave rise to gooseflesh as I stepped forward and my hands tossed the heaving weight. The thick piece of literature bounced against the cement ground, a resounding thud echoing within the caving mausoleum. Had it always harbored such a narrow path with bright walls? When had it become so suffocating in the last year?

A familiar presence swelled behind me, quaint and smoldered, indistinguishable within the air if not studied. His presence thinned amongst Noah’s and Kaleb’s, theirs exuberant and vain, but I recognized it in moments where I visited our mothers mausoleum every year, lingering from the flower-filled vase at the centered podium.

I didn’t turn to face him as Alek asked, “Where did you get that?” His tone usually held a habitual serenity, seldomly quiet and apathetic when spoken to. In this moment, it was elevated and sharp, rumbling with rage underneath the contained surface.

“It was mother’s.”

Short, cedar waves and hardening sharp features met my sight, Alek’s dark brown eyes growing pitiless as they widened. “We all witnessed the destruction of the book, the fire that encapsulated each page until it was ash on the ground.”

The night a few days after our mother’s burial still reigned lifelike in my memory, the fire’s hovering heat a shadow on my flesh.

“We did.” My gaze fell on him as I fully turned, tension warping the space between us. “But that wasn’t the true edition.”

“Why?” he gritted with a hardened jaw.

“Many things that cannot be disclosed, Alek,” I responded, a shiver crawling on my flesh. Though this was not an outcome I was expecting during this unbidden visit, it was one I needed to rectify immediately. Alek’s knowledge of the literature’s existence doubled the risk—if another brother discovered it, death was absolute by the Ministry.

I lowered to grasp the wretched thing, but Alek kicked it, the piece flying behind me and onto our mother’s resting place.

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