Page 98 of These Eternal Bones
The shocked sound of Elric’s laugh makes my head snap toward him. My brow quirking. He makes a dramatic show of taking in the room with me. “Yes, windows.” He’s not saying something, but I’ll pester him about it later.
A smirk builds on my face, but I bite it back, careful of my new teeth. “Perhaps some new memories in here as well.” I slow my steps, my slippers cracking over broken wood as I wrap my arms around his neck, pushing my needy breasts into him. I’m not sure if sex had always felt like this, but right now, it seems I have a one tract mind. My lips find his, but as soon as he goes to kiss me, I pull back just an inch, making him growl. “I’m sure you’re hungry.”
I can feel it through the bond. And my stomach is full, having spent the last few days gorging myself on him.
He smirks, and instantly, I’m a puddle in his arms. He lifts me, wrapping my legs around his waist, peppering kisses on every exposed inch of my flesh.
Being loved like this for an eternity…by the Vampire Lord of Port Clyde…it seems too wonderful to comprehend.
Epilogue
Iheardofatown where flowers never grow, but one that’s covered in them all the same, painted along the faded brick buildings by a woman who tamed the beast that was trapped within its borders. A fantastical story whispered from ear to ear until no doubt the truth was far from those events that happened eighty-some-odd years ago.
I spent my entire life looking for my sister, the one who ran in the middle of the night. The one who was strong enough to do what the rest of us only dared to dream of, and some of us not even that. I had to know if the stories were true, not the sweet ones of a great battle, of gods, angels, witches, and fae. No, the one our prophet muttered about how Molly had fled into the night, fled from her duty to God, a duty…anhonorwe all paid. Even to this day, sometimes I can feel phantom kicks of his children in my belly, although they are long grown with families of their own. Far away from what little remains of New Eden. She never knew what her leaving had started, that it was the beginning of the end for that terrible place.
My steps shuffle along the cobblestone path, hope building in my chest along with something else…fear? Anticipation? Awe? The brick walls are, in fact, painted with flowers, ones I recognize. There’s a canvas filled with them in my home. It’s odd to think I’ll never see them again, those flowers or that home. The last eighty years have been hard on me, the boat trip here was even harder. The captain of the boat I paid passage for had thought to tell me no. That hadn’t worked for my sister, and it wouldn’t for me either. I’d long stopped letting a man tell me no.
Joseph had spoken of letters he’d received, how my sister had paid her passage to a strange man. He’d called it shame. Vile and unnatural, it was the first time we’d ever seen a crack in his skillfully crafted facade…seen him enraged. He’d thought it shameful.
I’d thought she was strong.
Brave.
A man passes me, leading a horse hooked up for a carriage. I wave him over, steeling my hunched back as much as I can. “I wish to speak to the Vampire of Port Clyde.”
I’d had many years after we left New Eden to ask questions. They’d seemed mindless, timid, and meek at first. They didn’t stay that way.
His eyes widen, taking me in, hesitating…I scowl at him. “Nobody goes up there, ma’am.”
I slam my cane into his shins, making him hiss out a curse. “You mean to make an old woman walk? I can pay you, but we go now.”
He inhales a deep, wavering breath as I fish a thick satchel of coin from my bag. It’s a lot, the rest of what I have. If I’m wrong, I suppose it won’t matter. I’m tired, I won’t be leaving here again. I can feel it as sure as I can feel the rattling in my lungs. He accepts, like I knew he would, nodding at me to wait here. After so long, I worried he wouldn’t return. He’d changed his mind. He did return though,taking the coin from me like he thoughtIwas going to change mine. The journey up the steep incline jostles me, making me wince as I grip the seat with brittle hands. I’d played this moment out in my mind since I’d first heard the tale years and years ago. I worked hard and dreamed of what I’d ask him. How I’d stand tall and demand he tell me if he knew her. What kind of fate befell my sister after she’d come into his care? If he’d killed her like they say he did the others. If it was true, that she’d tamed him at all.
If he’d buried her well.
The man doesn’t go as far as I think he should for the amount of coin I’d given him, but honestly, I don’t care enough to argue. He doesn’t wait around either, assuming the vampire will kill me, or I’ll keel over myself. Either is likely, I suppose. My eyes widen at the castle the closer I get. It’s grand, a dark, hazy, twisted version of the fairytale we’d told to the children in the last few years at New Eden. The nicer ones we read out in the open, unafraid, a few years after Joseph died.
It wasn’t a pretty death.
And it wasn’t quick.
He’d kicked around something terrible as he choked on his own sick.
Fitting.
I only wished I’d been braver sooner.
I’d expected to feel a great deal of nerves, if not fear, by this point, but I don’t. Perhaps that’s the disease. The one they say is rotting my mind. The one that makes me forget, makes them look at me with pity in their eyes. My daughters cried when I told them I was leaving, and said I was confused.
I don’t think I am. Not standing in front of it.
I saw the painted flowers.
They were real.
There isn’t a real one in sight.
The door opens before I can knock. Not that they’d probably heard that anyhow.
