Page 40 of Blood Vows
“I warned you not to come here.”
“I…I…” I stammered in cold, hard fear when his eyes started to glow crimson this time, as he issued one last warning…
“Run, little blood rabbit.”
16
WHEN THE THUNDER STOPS
Iran.
The sound that escaped me wasn’t even human. It was the sound of something breaking. Something that had dared to hope and now paid the price for its foolishness.
My socked feet pounded against the cold floor as I fled the room, the walls closing in, the flicker of candlelight stretching like claws in my peripheral vision. His voice called my name, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. The echo of that laughter,the witch’s laughter,still rang in my ears, searing through my mind like the shriek of madness itself.
He had said it, hadn’t he? That he was a monster. That I should have stayed away.
But I hadn’t listened.
I had seen glimpses of gentleness, of humanity hiding behind that mask, and I had been naïve enough to believe it meant something. That he was something more. That there was something good left in him.
I was wrong.
I had been wrong about everything.
I stumbled through the dark hallway, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The lightning flashed, flooding the corridor in brief bursts of white light, and for a moment I saw his shadow. One stood masterful at the far end, tall and still, his face half-swallowed by the darkness he commanded. The one that consumed him like hell’s sickness.
A sob tore from my throat as I turned and ran faster.
I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed to get out. Away from him. Away from this house and the horrors that were caged within.
When I reached the grand staircase, I nearly slipped, catching the railing to steady myself. The thunder crashed above the roof, shaking the windows and rattling the chandeliers, as if the storm outside had become a living thing that wanted to tear the house apart.
It felt right somehow.
A house of monsters deserved to crumble.
I didn’t even think as I ran through the main hall, throwing open the heavy front doors. The cold night hit me like a wall, and the rain instantly soaked through the thin fabric of my pajamas. The wind howled, carrying with it the scent of earth and lightning, and for a moment, I just stood there, chest heaving, staring into the wild dark beyond the steps.
Freedom waited somewhere out there. Or death. I didn’t care which. I stumbled forward into the storm; my arms wrapped around myself as I tried to shield my face from the pelting rain. The world beyond the manor was shrouded in mist and darkness, but I remembered what he’d said. The housekeeper lived in her own home on the property.
If I could just find her.
If I could reach her before he found me.
The grounds stretched endlessly before me, but I ran anyway, my soaked hair plastered to my face, my feet slipping onthe slick cobblestones. The storm swallowed every sound but the wild drum of my heartbeat and the pounding rain.
I didn’t dare look back.
Because if I did, I feared I would see him standing there in the doorway. His face half in shadow, half in flame, watching me run, knowing there was nowhere I could truly go that would ever take me beyond his reach.
So, I kept running. Through the storm, through the darkness, through the madness that whispered in the wind. All I could think was that I had to find her. The woman with kind eyes who had looked so startled to see me. The one person in that house who might have a soul left untouched by his shadow.
Please, I begged silently, be real.
The storm seemed endless.
The wind clawed at my hair, whipping it against my face as the rain blurred everything into a smear of silver and shadow. The grounds that had looked so beautiful by daylight now felt endless and unwelcoming, the hedgerows like sentinels, the trees bending low as if to whisper warnings.
