Page 14 of When Bones Whisper
Her jaw slacked. He was jesting, surely. “I can’t just leave my home.”
The muscles in his jaw feathered. “You have no choice, unless you want to die. In which case, I estimate you have maybe five minutes before Beatrice Avery’s patience wears thin, and she comes looking for you herself.”
“I can’t leave.” She looked around her bedroom, at her mother’s perfume, Alice’s jewelry box and the writing desk that was filled with bound letters. Everything in her bedroom was haunted, but it was hers nonetheless, and she wasn’t about to leave the only home she ever knew. “There must be another way. All my belongings are here.”
“Which will mean nothing if you are dead,” he said.
She huffed out a sigh, knotting the fabric of her chemise in her fingers. Duke wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and she wasn’t even dressed.
“Whyare you helping me?” she spluttered as the ticking from the clock grew louder. “You clearly don’t believe me. What’s stopping you from killing me when we arrive at your manor?”
“We share a common enemy,” he said, and touched the back of his neck. “Besides, if you are telling the truth, then I’ll need you alive.”
She wetted her lips. “I can’t go with you. If you want me alive to help you, then you’ll need to stop the Avery family from killing me. Unless you’renotstrong enough to stop them.”
His nostrils flared as he straightened his posture, jaw clenching. “They have power unlike I have ever seen. I can take on a few, but together they are too strong and here, in a place steeped with so much death, their magic is amplified.”
Yes, because they were siphoning it from her dead ancestors.
“Someone else is coming,” he warned. “I can hear their labored breaths. We must go. Now.”
“But I only just got my home back,” she whispered.
“The witches want you, not your estate. Unless you want to be sacrificed tonight, along with your staff, you will come with me.”
Her stomach knotted into ribbons.Damned and Hell.What choice did she have?
“I need to find Duke first. He’s my cat,” she added when he shot her an incredulous look. “Theywillhurt him.Please.”
“We do not have time to search for your pet. Now, you can come willingly, or I will take you by force. The choice is yours, little lamb.”
She shuddered at the nickname. A sacrificial lamb indeed.
His eyes darkened momentarily before glancing at her necklace. Instinctively, she pulled her long waves around her neck. “Promise you’ll come back for him?”
“This is not a negotiation,” he stated. There was no amusement in his expression, just an eerie stillness. “Hold on tight.”
“Wait, what?”
Before she could grab her pelisse, he hooked his arm around her waist, pulling her up his body as if she weighed nothing. He slipped his other arm behind her knees, knocking her off balance before lifting her in his arms and careening them both through the window and onto the stone balcony just as her bedroom door swung open and the amber-haired woman and Edith walked inside.
“Close your eyes.” His deep voice vibrated in her ears as she rested her head against his chest, her fingers crumpling the fabric of his shirt.
Chapter Five
The candlelit windows of her manor grew smaller, barely visible through the curtain of rain. Charlotte watched her manor fade from view as Nathaniel jumped over the iron fence of the garden. Her heart ached knowing she likely wouldn’t see it again. Even if she, by some miracle, didn’t die at the vampire’s estate, her home might still be taken by the witches.
“I’m going to jump us onto the roof.” Nathaniel’s low warning resonated in her ears as he angled her body in his arms, so she could wrap her arms around his neck. Leaning her head on his shoulder, she breathed in his dizzying scent and peered behind him.
The air whooshed from her lungs when he climbed up the side of an abandoned textile factory. Raindrops hit Charlotte’s bare ankles and arms like icy needles, her saturated chemise sticking against her skin. His arms tightened around her as hejumped from the factory onto the steeply pitched, slated roof of a terraced house. Below them, the city stretched out in a maze of gray cobblestone streets, the dim glow of gas lamps illuminating groups of people standing outside of bustling pubs.
Nathaniel’s muscles tensed as he careened through the night at such speed that she could barely suck in a deep enough breath. After a few minutes, he slowed to a normal pace upon reaching a stone gable, the stars above them pinpricks against an impossibly rich, black canvas. She watched them twinkle on their way down the side of a theater. He landed them on a cobblestone street, his body absorbing all the shock of the landing.
The sounds of laughter and carriages grinding over dirt followed into the smoggy night. With a deep breath, she inhaled the mingling scents of coal smoke, horse dung, and the lingering waft of sewage that hung in the air from the River Thames. A baked potato seller shouted his wares, unaware of the predator with her in his arms, lurking in the shadows just feet away.
Charlotte closed her eyes to the blur of the side streets and alleys when he sped up again. After several minutes, Nathaniel came to a sudden stop on the uneven pavement. Slowly, Charlotte cracked open her eyelids. Beyond the towering, wrought-iron gates in front of them was a long path that wound through gray oak trees with leafless gnarled branches.
Gravel crunched under the vampire’s feet as he walked them inside.
