Page 6 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

I didn’t want to listen. That was the problem with me. I always gave myself excellent advice, but I was never very good at following it.

“Could you point me in the right direction, at least?” I grumbled to the Castle.

Something in the wall to my left gleamed, one of the Castle’s many secrets, which Esperida had only shared with Eron, Hector, and me.

The Castle had multiple surfaces of running water set and framed into the walls like mirrors. They resembled waterfalls trickling over glass, something whimsical but decorative. In reality, they were portals that could take you anywhere within the Castle’s halls. The downside, however, was that they had a mind of their own. Not only was it impossible to choose your destination, but as you passed through them, you also got drenched to the bone.

Water, Esperida had explained to me once,is purifying.This one more than others. If you want to move through the Castle’s bones, you have to be cleansed of any mortal vanity.

But water, sacred or not, was still water, and I was already feeling the beginnings of a terrible cold creeping on me.

I decided it was wiser to ignore the Castle’s fiendish suggestion altogether, as my reflection in the mirror was alarming enough. My unbound curls were littered with pink petals, my complexion had taken on a rather ashen appearance, and my eyes were tugged so gruesomely wide you’d think they were trying to pop out of my skull.

And I could have sworn there was something in the glass. Something slippery and silver-white. Something shimmering. Somethingwatchingme.

I snapped my eyes shut, cursing my fear and wild imagination. When I opened them again, there was only frazzled old me, the lamp clattering in my trembling hand.

“At least warm the place a bit,” I bristled at the Castle. “Light a fire, perhaps?”

The temperature took a dramatic plunge, and my teeth started to chatter.

“Old bastard,” I hissed under my breath, continuing to shiver my way in the dim.

At the end of the hallway, another unfamiliar space opened up, a huge, round room with damask-dressed walls. As I raised my lamp, the light caught intricate patterns of untamed flora. Eventually they turned from fabric to real ivy and primrose, trailing up the vaulted ceiling and curling around the single lantern that dangled over the midpoint from a long brass chain.

Five entrances were circling the room, not including the one I’d just gone through. Four of them were arches, leading to other dark, mysterious corridors, but the one in the middle was a door. It stood ajar enough for a thin band of light to creep past the sill and stretch over the black and white squares of the floor. The light was dull and unsteady. It quivered like my heart.

Cautiously, with my breath caught in the siphon of my throat, I pushed the door further open, its screeching making the skin of my neck crawl.

The room was large but intimate, with dark walls and mismatched mahogany furniture. There was a great deal of velvet as well, hanging over the window and fitted over the armchairs. The ceiling was a dome, a night sky strewn with countless four-pointed stars, some artfully painted, others fragments of the universe itself.

What drew my attention the most, though, was the floor, which was covered by overlapping burgundy rugs and littered by a dizzying array of crystal decanters. They gleamed blood-red under the flickering light of the candelabra in the corner, holding about a dozen smoldering candles, wax dripping downthe pale tapers. The decanters I knew were of wine and not of blood, for the whole place reeked of liquor and ripe sweetness.

At the far edge of the room, a massive, four-poster bed swam in various dark textures. And in the center of it lay a man.

I had only ever thought of Hector as a boy, but there was no doubt that the person on this bed was a man.

He was naked save for a pair of white linen undershorts, lying on his back with one knee bent and one arm thrown above his head. The candlelit beauty of his body was something of a marvel. It drew my eye against my will and struck from me a sudden sense of longing.

Hector had always been a beautiful boy, tall and lean-muscled with a gentle, aristocratic face, carved by a loving hand.

But everything about him was harder and broader now. His sculpted chest and abdomen, his strong arms, even the defined line of his jaw looked unfamiliar to me. He seemed taller too—tremendous, in fact—his long, muscled legs taking up almost the entire length of the bed.

With a low, restive sound, he turned, and the candlelight hit his face.

My heart sank. Everything inside me sank.

He was as pale as the moon, the skin around his closed eyelids etched with purple shadows. His full lips were slightly parted and pulled over his fangs. His dark brows were pinched, his expression tormented, as if he was having some kind of a nightmare.

Without thinking much of it, I rushed to his side, set the lamp on the nightstand, and climbed up on the bed. The sudden movement made him stir, murmuring something unintelligible under his breath. I bent over him and touched a hand to his forehead. He was cold as ice.

“Hector?” I called gently, and when he didn’t respond, I cupped his bare shoulders and shook him a little. “Gods, when’s the last time you fed?”

The words barely left my mouth before his big hand shot out and gripped my wrist. The entire room tilted as he yanked me down, rolled over, and pinned me against the bed with the weight of his body.

I screamed, first in surprise, then in sheer terror, as he hovered inches above me with his fangs bared, his veins throbbing, and his wide-open eyes shifting into the vivid, unadulterated red of bloodlust.

I used to think the way vampire eyes changed to crimson in moments of rage or hunger was like gazing at a sunset. One moment you were savoring the colors, and the next it was too dark to see. But I found no beauty in it now. Only bone-deep horror.

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