Page 32 of Fangs

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper. “Why help me?”

I close my eyes. The question cuts deeper than it should.

Because I am already lost to you.

“Go,” I say instead, my voice harsh. “Tomorrow. Do not tell anyone. Do not look back. And if you value your life, you will forget I ever existed.”

She rises, the book clutched to her chest. She is still naked beneath the sheet my shadows draped over her. I realize I covered her without thinking. Some primal part of me wanted to protect her modesty, to shield her from my gaze. I am a fool.

“Blake,” she says, and my name on her lips is a knife to the chest.

“Do not.” I shake my head. “Do not say my name like that. It makes this harder than it already is.”

She takes a step toward me, and I retreat. I cannot. I will not.

I meet her eyes, and I let her see everything. The loneliness. The hunger. The desperate, aching need that has consumed me for two centuries. “I cannot be what you need me to be. I am not the man in the portrait. I am the monster who built this house on the bones of his enemies. And if I keep you here, I will destroy you.”

She holds my gaze for a long moment. I see the tears glistening in her eyes, and it takes every ounce of my will to remain still.

Finally, she nods. “Tomorrow,” she whispers. “I will go.”

The words should bring me peace. Instead, they feel like a wound that will never heal.

I turn away, my shadows rising around me. “Sleep Lucille, sleep. And in the morning, forget the monster who wanted you more than anything he has ever wanted in two hundred years.”

I dissolve into shadows, watching her dream so peacefully, so unaware.

And I remain in the darkness, utterly alone, the taste of her blood still on my tongue

I let her go. I sacrificed my one and only chance to break this curse.

And I would do it again. A thousand times over. Because she is worth it. She is worth everything.

And the knowledge of that—the devastating weight of it—will haunt me for the rest of my existence.

Blood

Iwake to the cruel intrusion of morning light.

My eyes flutter open. The ceiling stares back at me, water-stained and unfamiliar. For a moment, I don’t know where I am. Then memory crashes back—the manor, the masters, the portrait. The shadows.

I sit up too fast, my head spinning. My hand flies to my throat, fingers pressing against the skin. Smooth. Unmarked.

I scramble from the bed, nearly tripping over the tangled sheets, and stumble to the vanity mirror. The glass reflects a pale, wild-eyed girl with tangled red hair and dark circles beneath her eyes. I tilt my head, exposing my neck.

Nothing. No bruises. No evidence of what happened last night. But when I turn back to the bed, my stomach drops.

There is blood on the sheets. A dark, rust-colored stain spreading across the white fabric like a bruise.

My hand drifts to my lower belly. A familiar ache settles there, low and dull.

Oh no.

I’m on my period.

I exhale, a strange mix of relief and horror flooding through me. Relief because the blood is not from a bite wound. Horror because I have to report it.

The rules. Pets must report their cycles. It is one of the rules that comes with severe consequences. They will lock me in the tower for the duration. Isolate me. And I can’t let that happen. My gaze falls on the desk. The notebook. The one I found last night, the one with the red circle on the cover. It sits open, pages covered in my own handwriting.