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Seven

ALEC

There’s no plausible reason for me to be down here, considering the party isn’t until tomorrow night, but something urged me to visit. That difference about her I can’t place. It’s strong. Intriguing. Inebriating, even. Addictive for sure. Something I want to break first.

Her willpower, perhaps.

Whatever it is, it led me down here.

“If you want it on your résumé, you’ll need a reference, no?” I grin, playing into her sarcasm.

“What would you know about that? Aren’t you from before the time of résumé writing?”

“I didn’t sleep my lifetime away.”

“Whatever.” She huffs, crossing her arms tight over her chest and making her shirt pull tight over nipples, which suggest how cold she is. The sight makes my mouth parch—which is physically impossible for my kind. “Why are you here?”

“Humour me, Sinclair.” I settle on the ground across from her and bring up my knees to rest my hands on. I can’t recall the last time I’ve sat in a cell with a prisoner. Never? Socializing defeats the purpose, and it’s wiser to keep distance.

Yet there’s something off with Harlow Sinclair, and I will discover what. After all, how can one build a profitable marketing plan if they don’t know their product inside and out?

She can’t see me as well as I can her, but based on the way her brows rise, she’s surprised by my seat choice.

“You’ll dirty that fancy clothing of yours.”

“You care?”

“Nope. Just making a statement.”

I hum. “Getting the sense you talk a lot. Use all those words to make yourself useful and tell me about yourself.”

Her face scrunches before she laughs, the sound lyrical and pleasant; a light chime reminding me of a certain harp that was played in the ballroom during my mortal years. Certainly something more pleasant than this dungeon has ever heard. They’re not screams, for one.

“You’re funny for a vampire. When I made the résumé joke, I wasn’t looking for an interview, so how ’bout I don’t and we say I did.”

Her attempt at humour gnaws at my annoyance when all I want is to learn the intriguing witch’s secrets. “I’m serious.”

Her lips purse before she insists, “Not without something in return.”

“That’s not how captivity works.”

Her chin lifts. “It’s how bargaining does. We both want something.”

I’ll entertain this…for now, simply because I’m curious. “What is it you want?” I ask, knowing her answer could be one of a few things.

“Food and water. I’m hungry. If you’re planning on keeping me alive to sell my blood, I need to, you know, stay alive.”

No better than a human, but I suppose comparable to myself. While my body doesn’t feel hunger pains the same way, I would grow weak and get thirsty if without blood for too long. A weakened, starving witch would be easier to manage, but her point about staying alive is enough to have me agreeing.

“Very well then. Tell me about yourself.”

“You don’t know everything already? Getting the sense this was premeditated and you didn’t happen upon me at random.”

My mind wanders upstairs to the files I have on the Sinclair family, though they’re not very detailed—their coven shielded them well. “You’re right, but there are facts about you I’m unaware of.”

“Why would you want to?” Her lips pick up with her confused sneer, her nose scrunching.

My question exactly. “Humour me. You grew up around humans. Must have been difficult at school to hide your powers.” From what I know, witches and warlocks spend years mastering their control, and usually around one another so they don’t accidentally alert mortals to otherworldly beings.

She’s quiet for a moment, and her bottom teeth scrape over her lip, making the skin red with the flush of blood. I roll my own together when a ghost sensation of teeth along mine causes me to experience my first shiver in centuries.

“Wasn’t a concern. I was homeschooled.”

“Hm.” I suppose it’s safer that way. Without a coven for protection, her family was sitting ducks—a stupid phrase Cedric recently taught me. “Why don’t you live in Banff?”

The day word got out the remaining Sinclair, Emily, her husband, John, and their daughter moved across the country, it struck me as odd. But witches have done stranger things, so after a brief check-in to confirm their new location, I left well enough alone until the day I planned on coming for Harlow.

“Random. What’s in Banff?”

I scrutinize her expression, the genuine confusion, for a lie or joke. She’s unaware of what’s in Banff and her family’s history with the mountains? “The Highridge Coven. Your coven. The coven every Sinclair has been a part of.”

“Oh.” Her voice is small, hurt. “Them. I didn’t know their location. They kicked us out when I was a child.”

“How old were you?” It’s a test question because I know the answer. She was eight.

“Not sure.”

“Liar.”

Red flushes her cheeks. “I’m not lying.”

As an immortal, I’ve experienced countless lies over my years, but after a quick study of the witch, she truly isn’t. Her heart isn’t quicker than earlier. She remains still and without a nervous twitch. Her breathing is paced. She looks genuinely confounded. Interesting…

Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m across the cell, crouching in front of her and studying her like mortals stare at poor animals caged up in zoos.

She presses back into the bars, her hands scrambling on the dirt. “Wh-what are you doing?”

Ignoring her, I study her eyes. The strips of different purple shades like a clematis flower prove to me she wasn’t lying. They’re too clear, honest. Innocent.

Innocent is a dangerous thing to be. It makes me hungry, hard, and eager to hunt.

Before my thoughts get away from me, I return to my spot across the cell. “You’re telling the truth.”

She rolls her eyes, snorting derisively. “Told you. Anyway, next question if you have more.”

I have many. Humans usually retain memories from around eight-years-old, so why doesn’t she remember what was a big life event? Getting kicked out of a coven is major for witches, who trust their own above anyone.

“Homeschooled,” I muse, instead choosing a more direct topic. “Quiet life. You have a job?”

Another eye roll, this time making me twitch. “I’m twenty-four. Obviously.”

“Wasn’t sure, considering you still live at home.” This is solely a taunt because without a coven, no doubt her parents wanted to keep her nice and close and safe. Away from the vampires who’d descend, seeking the cure.

“Not all of us have castles, or whatever this place is.”

“What gave it away?”

She taps the bars at her back. “The row of cells for one. The fact this place screams torture chamber.”

“That’s down the hall,” I admit, thinking of the room so often used for prisoners during medieval times. It was a different world back then, and before vampirism, torture methods had to be more creative. My nose can still pick up the metallic scent of death that never quite left. “You’ve gone off track. Your job?”

“Yeah, I work, and yes I still live at home. Economy sucks, not that you’d know. I’m a secretary for an accounting firm.”

Certain jobs have existed as they are for centuries, but others are more recent, in the last two to three hundred years. A secretary being one of them.

“As in, you answer phone calls from rich mortals?” I verify we’re both speaking of the same thing.

“Ironic statement coming from a rich asshole.”

“The great, ancient bloodline of the Sinclairs has been reduced to working for another person. A mortal at that.” Stating the fact makes me chuckle as I picture centuries prior, dating back to Elizabeth Sinclair. How prideful the coven was. How they ruled above humans, not the other way around.

“It pays the bills. Besides, we were blending in, and it’s a pretty basic job.”

“Are they missing you?” I realize too late she may misconstrue it as interest when it’s…well, I’m not sure why the inquiry into her life.

She shakes her head. “I quit when my parents died.”

Yes, the mysterious fire that engulfed their house and took two witches whose power was fire while leaving the third alive and their house still standing. There are many things that don’t quite add up, but the questions die on my tongue when I catch the tear beading by the corner of her eye.

Her sniffle is nearly inaudible, if not for my enhanced hearing. She wipes her face before her hands rest in her lap, one wrapping around the other wrist, thumb stroking the scars on her skin. Those are a question for another day.

I understand the concept of grief from losing a loved one, but the actual experience of it is different for vampires. After losing Cora, I thought of only destruction. I want to probe the subject, even if it results in her breaking down, but don’t. Can’t.

A Sinclair has never cried in front of me. All the years of murdering them, not one has shed a tear. Screamed, yelled, fought, yes, but none looked so…mortal as this one. It’s all the more reason to continue talking, but instead, I find myself across the cell again.

She stiffens, but I’m too occupied studying her to care about her feelings over my proximity. Coupled with that addictive scent I swear is lingering upstairs because it’s haunting me through my halls, there’s something not quite right about her.

“Don’t touch me,” she bites out, even though I haven’t lifted a hand towards her. Her deterrence only makes it more tempting. Miss Sinclair shouldn’t have made such invitations.

“Explain why I’d want to.”

Her heartbeat, which was already beating quickly, kicks off into marathon speeds. It’s a tune I could very well rest to, knowing it’s driven by panic.

“Your heartbeat is extremely fast,” I murmur, despite her not answering my latest demand.

She turns her face away. “Fear does that.”

“So does intrigue. Lust. Pleasure. Joy. Excitement. Adrenaline. Numerous emotions could be the explanation, each one as probable as the last.”

Her teeth grind against one another, the sound a bothersome disruptor to her heartbeat. “Go fuck yourself.”

“You have such a mouth on you, Sinclair. It’s alluring.” Grinning, I stand and head for the cell’s entrance. “Thanks for the talk. See you tomorrow.”

“Wait.” She scrambles to her knees, one foot resting on the ground. “I answered your questions. You promised me food and water.”

Pesky little thing. Without replying, I exit the cell and lock it behind me before speeding from the dungeon, a mere blur throughout the castle as I go retrieve a few items from my stores, stocked the other day before retrieving her, knowing she’d need sustenance beyond air.

With the same speed, I return to the dungeon to drop the apple and water bottle in between the bars. She gasps, having not seen me enter, and I’m gone before she could attempt to spot me.

“Until tomorrow, Hellion. Until tomorrow.”