Placing the bowl on the small table near the library entrance, Sarah immediately flitted up to Charlotte, her small fingers attempting to tear Charlotte’s hand away from the scar. “Don’t do that! You sound like one of them. Let me see!”
Charlotte cringed, baring her teeth, and pulled away. “There’s nothing to see. This happens every night. It burns. I just need him to come back.” She bit her lip hard against the flaming licks at her throat while she attempted to keep her breathing steady and even. It calmed the pain slightly when she tasted the coppery sensation of her own blood in her mouth.
“I think that’s exactly what you
don’t
need!” Sarah blanched and grabbed for Charlotte’s hand. She yanked her over the threshold, into the library.
The pain grew worse every second. Even though this was nothing new to her, it seemed Charlotte would
never
get used to this. It was like her skin was being burned off by hot metal. Her flesh tightened with the scorching heat at the place of her scar, the pain growing even worse in just the past few moments as it trailed down her spine. Beads of sweat formed at her brow when the pain continued.
With both of her hands on Charlotte’s shoulders, Sarah urged her down on the floor in the center of the large study. “Hang on,” Charlotte heard her say over the rushing sound in her ears. This was when she usually passed out with the intensity. When it became too much. Every day she endured this pain—dealt with it the best she could, trying to hide the level of its intensity from Valek and Sarah. But the truth was it was steadily growing worse. She didn’t know what was going to become of her if she continued to bury the truth of how severe it was becoming. Something had to give. She couldn’t keep going on like this. Pushing her face into the rug beneath her, she clawed at it desperately for relief—for anything to stifle her screams.
Sarah ran over to the fireplace and shoved both her hands in the flames, biting back a tortured cry. The Witch dashed back over to Charlotte and placed her smoldering palms over Charlotte’s scar, chanting something she didn’t understand. Was this what Hell was like? Had she done something to deserve this? Oh yes, she recalled, all of the mortal lives she’d sacrificed to the darkness—to Valek. All of the people just like her. She’d been committing this murder her entire life, but the manifestation of her guilt was only just beginning to set in.
“Valek will be home soon,” Sarah said in a soothing tone. Her hand brushed gently across the back of Charlotte’s head, and she was gone. Charlotte barely slit her eyes open and looked around to find she was alone. She couldn’t concentrate on anything except the internal immolation as she curled up in a fetal position and rolled over onto her side, clenching herself into as tiny of a ball as she could possibly become, hoping just to dissipate into the carpet. After a few moments, as if by magic, the pain was gone. Not abruptly, though. It drifted away like a diminishing rain storm, the light licks and flurries making her wince until they were gone completely.
Making sure she hadn’t in fact, blacked out, Charlotte straightened out a bit on the floor. She clenched and unclenched her fingers and opened her eyes to the baroque chandelier in the center of the ceiling. The room went into super-human focus, as if she were seeing everything for the first time with this odd, newly over-sensitive vision. Certain things about the room bulged and dipped, some of the tinier details moving in and out of focus. Digging her nails into the floor beneath her, she blinked violently, trying to dispel the unsettling side effects. Her breathing remained a shallow panting as she contemplating calling for Sarah.
But soon, the intensity died down, just as the pain had, though her focus remained extra sharp. She watched the glimmering particles of dust above her like suspended snowflakes in the air, so vivid; she couldn’t bear to pull her gaze from them. Wood logs crackled in shimmering amber under a massive fire in the cobblestone fireplace against the south wall. Sitting up slowly, she tucked her legs underneath her bottom in the center of the woven, garnet-colored area rug with the billions of impossibly tiny threads. Charlotte swore she could count them all with these strangely acute eyes. The hem of her ragged, pale dress fanned out on the floor around her as the itchy material of the rug pinpricked at her legs through her stockings like hundreds of tiny shocks.
Her attention quickly refocused on the vision just outside of the window. She heard something, like branches crunching in the distance. She wondered what kind of creature could be responsible. The sky over the tall pines was a dusty sienna—almost red. The clouds swirled in this enamoring shade of indigo against it as she watched. Her breathing returned to normal, and she tried very hard to calm these new, over heightened senses. She sat there for at least an hour as the fiery shades in the sky grew ever darker. Her hands folded neatly in her lap, her curls combed off her shoulders, she waited for Valek to return.
Chapter Five
Afflicted
It is very strange to live in a house where almost everyone in it wants to eat you
, Charlotte mused. Her fingers wound around in one of the holes in her skirt. Valek hated when she dressed this way, after Sarah had given her so many of her old clothes. Charlotte just didn’t fit into any of them. It wasn’t her body. It was life. She couldn’t picture herself trapped in that house in Sarah’s beautiful hand-me-downs, awaiting nightly feedings by her adopted Vampire coven, when Valek was out there trying to figure out how to save their world. She wished they’d all just move beyond their fears of being caught by a forgotten Regime member, and go hunt other humans on their own. She wished they’d all just find an easier answer for sustenance instead of continuing to be so reliant on her, simply because she was
there
and they were
comfortable
with her. But as her scar blazed along the side of her neck, she was reminded of the horrible truth. She needed them as much as they
still
needed her.
She couldn’t shake the memory of the nightmare. She couldn’t just lose herself in the serene silence of peaceful thoughts. The only thing that remained, replaying over and over, was the vision of Valek and the woman over him in the bed. It wasn’t the same jealous sensation Charlotte experienced when she’d found him with Evangeline. This was more finite. More like an omen. She ground her teeth as developing tears stung at the corners of her eyes.
The scar at the side of Charlotte’s throat, which had finally cooled for about an hour, thanks to Sarah, began to blaze again up the side of her cheek, to her temple and down along her left shoulder blade. It wasn’t insufferable yet, just an annoying discomfort. Squirming, she dug her nails into the skin of her thigh to distract herself. She didn’t ever imagine Valek’s initial bite that evening, so many nights ago, would leave such an intolerable impact. Nightly it plagued her. It begged to be ruptured again. That was what it desired—for her to be bitten by the same set of incisors that had created it. It was the only thing to pacify her. Maybe it was her body telling her it craved something more. Something Valek would never give her in a million years. To be like him.
Her life had changed so vastly over the course of the past few months. As it turned out, her happily-ever-after hadn’t ended so happily after all.
The small gaggle of Vampires had become Charlotte’s new family in spite of all of the discord. They’d moved from Prague, which was still under siege, back to their modest, Bohemian Occult village, hidden from the rest of the world and its mundane, mortal towns and cities. She was a part of the magic, though alone in her mortality.
Valek had reestablished the rules, however, once the coven of rogues moved in. He kept his promise to Charlotte, challenging Francis’ original agreement that she would be looked after and protected by the coven as long as she remained their exclusive source of blood. The new agreement was this: Valek would house his new family, protecting them from the eyes of whatever was left of the Regime, as long as they promised not to lay a single talon on Charlotte. Begrudgingly, they obliged, though not without sneaking tastes here and there. And Charlotte could hardly help herself anyway, needing them as much as they still wanted her. Whenever Valek caught one of them with her, the consequences were always gruesome for the perpetrator. It caused Charlotte’s innards to twist with guilt upon hearing their painful cries from downstairs, in Valek’s office, as he punished them. The fault was always at least half hers.
The left side of the ornately carved double doors creaked open, and a pair of lavender, ballet-flat clad feet toed in over the polished wood floor. Sarah padded back into the library almost silently. It had been nearly an hour since she’d left and Charlotte wondered what she’d been doing. She watched the Witch as she drew deeper into the study, carrying with her a silver tray of the enchanted food. There was her answer.
A ceramic teacup rattled atop it and a plate of the fresh sweet rolls she’d been mixing earlier enveloped the room with their heady, cinnamon smell. It was actually enough to make Charlotte sick to her stomach. The spicy scent burned in Charlotte’s nose, a catalyst for the bile lifting once more in the back of her throat. She held her breath as she willed herself not to dry heave. There was nothing in her stomach to regurgitate anyway, but she didn’t even want to think about eating. The scar produced such strange effects. There was only one thing she craved now. Her fingers wound in tight, impatient knots in the material of her dress.
“You don’t have to eat it until later, Charlotte,” Sarah muttered, as if she heard precisely what Charlotte was thinking. It wasn’t the first time someone in that house had answered one of Charlotte’s thoughts.
Everyone
had a key to her mind. It was entirely frustrating not to have any privacy at all.
Sarah knelt down next to her on the library floor and affectionately ran her fingers through Charlotte’s curls, her nails slightly grazing the back of her neck. It made Charlotte shiver.
“Ready?” she whispered after a moment.
Her voice wavered, like it held some heavy emotion. Sadness? Charlotte squinted at the space in front of her and wondered why. What she was going through now was entirely her own business. She didn’t want to worry anyone else. Especially Sarah, her very best friend.
“Where is he?” Charlotte asked desperately, wanting just to fix her addiction so everything could go back to normal for a short time. Her words came out rough, like sandpaper. Every sensation about the room had been magnified a hundred times, it seemed. Due to Sarah’s magic or her scar, she had no idea. The crackling blaze in the fireplace in front of her bellowed in her ears like a roaring brush fire.
Sarah’s touch, light on her shoulder, might as well have been hundreds of tiny electric shocks zapping at her skin. Even the Witch’s breath in her ear was enough to chill her like the harsh winter wind from outside. Charlotte swallowed. Even
that
was painful.
Sarah stood up again, and almost tiptoed back to the library door. Her creeping feet, however careful she was, sounded like an elephant parade. Charlotte shut her eyes against the noise that created a pulse in her eardrum, another miserable side effect. Something suddenly oozed slickly from the inside of her ear.
Blood
.
Sarah pulled the left side of the door closed before the right, bolting them together at the center of the threshold. Charlotte’s pulse reacted to the impending knowledge of what was coming.
“They’re home,” Sarah warned, her voice low and grim.
As if on cue, dozens of ravenous, screeching howls wailed from outside the house walls, loud enough that the foundation seemed to quake beneath them. At a distance, it sounded like the blood-curling songs of the sirens that inhabited the banks of the Vltava River—haunting. Threatening. Though very far away, the wave of harrowing screams echoed closer and closer with each passing second. A swarm that sounded like it was headed straight for Charlotte, like they had pinpointed her exact location. She could sense them closing in on all sides. Her heart slammed to the front of her chest, her fingers winding tighter around the material of her dress, though her eagerness swallowed the fear whole. The excitement they would soon arrive electrocuted the ends of her nerves as she shifted, leaning more forward on her knees.
The sound drew nearer. It raced through the front door, so close, her eardrum felt like it might burst. Her pulse raced in her throat, stopping the flow of oxygen. Though her vision had gotten blurry again, she could see Sarah guarding the doors from within the library. She stood there, with her back pressed against the entrance, her eyes tearing, like she wanted to reach for Charlotte, though she did not move from her place there.
They were just outside of the library doors then. She lurched forward, her hands cupped tightly around her ears, begging for relief from the hellish noise as the scratching and pounding began to fuse with the banshee wailing. Her mouth fell open. She screamed as tears began to roll from her eyes, though her own voice she could not hear over theirs. She pulled her quivering hands from her ears and looked to see fresh blood staining her fingertips, and heaved. Everything seemed to swirl together. Their granite talons, hard and stone-like, pounded against the library doors, demanding access to her as Sarah quickly moved her hands to hex the lock.
Charlotte forced herself to open her eyes, looking to Sarah who had turned to face the door again, both of her white hands gripping tightly around the baroque brass handles, holding them in place in case her hex failed and the assailants burst through. She had her forehead pressed to the doors.
“
Stop!
” Someone bellowed from the outside of Charlotte’s library sanctuary.
This
noise was the only thing that differed from the rest. It was velvet and soothing and the raging chaos on the other side of the library doors was instantly pacified, going as silent as the crypt. The whole world quieted.