Page 49

I edge past the stables, my nostrils burning with the stench of hay and manure. At the other end of the yard is an old, derelict barn. There’s a hole in the roof, and the wooden beams around the entrance are crumbling with rot. I can’t see anything inside, yet the gooseflesh prickling my arms tells me something is there.

Each step feels like my legs are filled with lead. I don’t want to venture any closer. I don’t want to see whatever is in that barn. But I can’t stop. Something is drawing me in, pulling tighter like a noose around my neck.

At the threshold, I falter. Something is stirring in the shadows at the back of the barn. Jerking, swinging, just like…

Bile rises in my throat, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop myself retching.

I’ve found the farmer.

Everything turns to stone. I can’t breathe, can’t think. A scream builds in my lungs, but there’s no air to release it. My entire body is numb.

Alex Harrison is hanging from the roof, stripped to the bone. His feet are bound with a frayed length of rope looped around one of the beams running overhead. The rest of him… What’s left of him…

His naked body is smeared crimson, his skin so pale it’s almost translucent. He has been drained. More than that, he has been eviscerated. A deep gouge runs down his belly, carving him open. His entrails spill out like ribbons from his flaccid corpse.

When my eyes drift to his neck, I freeze. There isn’t just one set of puncture wounds. His throat is covered with gaping holes, too many to count. Some are crusted with dried blood, others still trickle.

This wasn’t hunger. It was unrestraint.

A low sigh echoes around the barn, and my body turns cold. I hadn’t noticed the second figure. The one kneeling under the farmer’s suspended corpse, hidden in the shadows.

He rises slowly, licking each finger clean of the blood covering them. When he turns, his mouth is smeared red from his lips to his cheeks.

I’ve found Elric.

28

It’s him. I’ve seen him through the elder tree’s memories. He haunted my dreams in Wreymoor Hall. But now, for the first time, I’m face to face with the monster who killed my husband.

Elric doesn’t startle. He barely moves except to lick a stray drop of blood clinging to his lower lip. When he looks at me with those fathomless eyes, there’s no glimmer of recognition, no understanding.

He doesn’t even know who I am.

I curl my hand around the rose, not caring about the bite of its thorns against my palm. “Murderer.”

His bloodied lips stretch into a smile, revealing the curve of his fangs. He doesn’t speak. Perhaps he thinks it’s beneath him.

I slide my other hand into my coat pocket, brushing my fingers over the handle of Henry’s revolver. Only one bullet remains in its chamber. I can’t waste it like I did on Iestyn.

Behind Elric, the farmer’s body swings from the beam, streaks of red running down the pale, strung-up corpse. The straw is bloody underneath, and I try not to think of Lottie. If I survive this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to tell her what happened here.

“It’s never enough for a vampire, is it?” Fear constricts my throat, but I push the words out anyway. “You’ve been preying on those ewes for weeks, staying away from humans, keeping yourself hidden from the town. You’d think their blood would have sated you. But you wanted more. You always want more. You can’t help yourself.”

Elric tilts his head, surveying me like an animal. I see the tension in his neck, the darkening of his eyes, the way he parts his lips, unable to contain the ache. I see it all, because I’ve seen it in Iestyn. I know what hunger looks like.

“If you’d only waited that day,” I say softly. “But you couldn’t contain it, could you? You saw him standing there at the altar, and you wanted him.”

The screams ringing in my ears. The metallic reek of blood clinging to the musty air. The crimson soaking my skirts.

“Henry,” I whisper. “His name was Henry Mortimer.”

Something changes in Elric’s expression. His eyes narrow, a shadow falling over his bone-white skin. It has struck him, what I’ve said. He knows something he didn’t before.

His gaze drifts to the rose in my hand, its petals tattered and bloody. “Ah,” he says quietly. “I thought I would have more time.”

His voice is different from what I imagined, ringing like a whistle in the breeze. It makes my shoulders stiffen, my neck itch. All I want to do is silence it forever.

“In truth, I should have known I could never have held him for long,” Elric continues. “Iestyn always was…resourceful.”