Page 34 of The Curse of Eternity (Descendants of Helsing #1)

“Seems like it. Well, I’ll scrounge up some clothes for you both to change into. There’s coffee brewing in the pot whenever you feel like it.” Winston headed up the hall, taking a right at the end, and the promise of coffee after so many days in withdrawal helped to wake up my exhausted brain.

Silence descended, cut through only by the sound of a clock ticking in another room.

Given the moment of peace, my attention drifted over the soft-beige walls.

Several framed photos had stained edges, like they were a couple of decades old or more.

Winston didn’t look older than mid-thirties, but every picture seemed to feature him surrounded by others in his age range at the time of the photograph.

A peek through the open archway into the living room revealed a pair of suede couches with afghan blankets thrown over them.

The furniture was angled toward the fireplace against the far wall, opposite a low coffee table and lamp in the corner whose shade widened into a bell shape.

Tassels fringed the rim like something out of a Victorian period piece.

My brow pinched, trying and failing to piece together what felt off about the place, when suddenly Drake cleared his throat. In the entryway beside me, he stood with an odd juxtaposition of comfortable ease in his posture, but a look of uncertainty across his features.

“I wanted to apologize—for having chained you in my residence back in Albuquerque on the night we met.”

“Oh.” Weirdly, hearing him talk about our first encounter as ‘the night we met’ set butterflies to flutter in my stomach.

“Admittedly, I had forgotten the discomfort they bring to the living. For one such as myself, it merely drains our strength due to the engraved sigils. Wearing them must have been incredibly painful. Had I thought better of it, and I should have, I would not have restrained you in such a way. I am sorry.”

I blinked in the wake of his unexpected, drawn-out apology.

Concern was clear behind his dark eyes, like he really cared whether or not I forgave him.

If he’d said as much right after it happened, I would have told him to shove it.

Now, after everything we’d been through, an apology didn’t seem necessary.

Hell, he’d saved my life how many times since then? A grin tugged up the corners of my mouth before I realized it, and the tension seemed to dissipate between us.

“I forgive you.”

At my response, Drake smiled—like, really smiled—and I stilled into stunned silence at the way his honest grin lit up his face.

Even with the light filtering in through the windows, no amount of magick stripping away his illusion could change how the sight made warmth spread through my fast-beating heart—

“Getting along, I see.” Winston’s voice came from right behind me, and I spun. His black eyebrows rose. “Jumpy little thing.”

I frowned up at Winston’s impressive height, because I was neither little nor a thing. Was that how Caleb viewed me, too? Maybe that’s why he teased me so much growing up.

“Thank you for the garments.” Drake accepted the clothes Winston handed over, a matching light blue sweatpants and sweater folded on top of a white long-sleeve button-up and dark jeans.

“No problem. The guest room upstairs is still made up from when I’d been expecting you.

Feel free to take it.” Winston’s final words were directed at me, but his glance at Drake seemed to pry at whether or not we’d be sharing a room.

The idea came and went through my head as Drake started for the stairs, but I hung back.

“Thank you.” I rushed to follow Drake after a casual wave of acknowledgement from Winston, who then turned to head up the hall toward the drifting scent of freshly brewed coffee.

“Ladies first.” Drake waved me on, and I started climbing on aching legs.

“Come here often?” I asked.

“The house originally belonged to me, so, yes.”

My brows rose. On the second floor, all three doors—one to my right, left, and ahead—were closed, and I hesitated.

Drake smoothly moved past me, angling for the room on the left before opening it.

Following him in, I took in the hardwood bed frame and matching nightstands on either side.

Against the corner wall with the sloping ceiling was a writing desk not unlike the one I remembered from Drake’s house in Albuquerque.

Atop the desk, another black-and-white photograph’s frame leaned against its stand, and I stilled when I recognized its subjects.

Drake looked the same as he did today, the ends of his straight black hair reaching slightly past his ears.

The full lips, high cheekbones and chiseled jaw were identical, unmarked by time.

Beside him, dressed just as elaborated in an old-fashioned suit, was a young Black child with familiar bone structure.

“Is that…” Then I glanced at the paisley pattern of the bedsheets, and it dawned on me why the downstairs had seemed unusual.

What kind of a mid-thirties guy, living by himself, decorated his house like it was still the 1960s?

I turned to Drake, who studied the old portrait picture with reminiscent fondness.

“Yes, it is Winston and I.” Drake faced me, and a cavalier shrug lifted his shoulders. “As you may have surmised, he is far older than he looks.”

“But he’s not a vampire, I could tell.”

“Not in full, no.”

Oh —a piece of lore trickled back into my brain. Apparently, I’d learned something from what we were forced to study as kids.

“He’s a dhampir.”

Drake nodded, and I exhaled a long breath. Returning to the photo, I tried to find any kind of resemblance between them. They didn’t look alike, but if Winston had one vampire parent and one human… I didn’t want to pry, and surprise washed through me when Drake spoke without being prompted.

“Winston was a young boy when I took him in from an orphanage, sometime in nineteen-forty-eight.” The story didn’t roll off his tongue well, and maybe he hadn’t told it often—or ever, before now.

“I had known his mother prior to his birth, and aided in her escape from the man who I believe was in love with her, but would have destroyed any chance of offspring.” A frown creased his forehead, but his thinly-veiled disdain was nothing compared to the horror slackening my jaw.

I should have expected that kind of gross violation of autonomy from the undead, but being around Drake was beginning to desensitize me to them.

A deep, integral part of me cleaved in two—having been struggling to rationalize my experiences with Drake compared to what I’d been raised to believe about vampires.

Everything I learned about him confirmed that he’d been human once.

How he experienced the world wasn’t so different from the way I did.

We were both capable of caring for others, putting ourselves in harm’s way to protect someone else.

Neither of us hesitated to defend ourselves when we were threatened, even if that meant reacting with violence.

Vampires were defined by several traits, their strength, speed, longevity, and inception, to name a few—but beyond the bloodlust, and the bodies they’d left behind for me and my family to find, they were fundamentally the same as us.

Was it always so simple? Were they not doomed to commit horrible acts?

Drake had proven that change was possible, even for those who never grew older.

The thought dawned, rising in me like the sun and warming me throughout.

Because the truth was that I’d stopped thinking of Drake as one of the undead.

If he was just a man, how would I have judged him?

I wouldn’t have. He was too kind, his generosity and patience seemingly endless. Beyond his disarming good looks, there was genuine compassion in his every action. Regardless of what he really was, or how we’d come to be standing here together, I couldn’t fight how I felt about him anymore.

Face flushed, my heart throbbed as my lungs filled with relief— but why did I have to pick the worst time to understand that both realities could be true?

That Drake could be what he was, and who he was at the same time.

It was never being a vampire that transformed them into monsters—it was that they’d never tried to be anything but cruel.

As he continued the sad story of Winston’s start to life, I tried to bury the tenderness blooming within my chest to focus on his words.

“The mother rarely survives carrying a dhampir, especially when medicine was more primitive than it is now. Since he was orphaned, and left to face a world that would never understand his slowed aging, I opted to adopt him.”

“You guys seem close,” I remarked, and the corners of Drake’s mouth curved up ever so slightly as he handed me my fresh clothes.

“We often resided in the same household until more recently…”

Before I could ask anything else, he abruptly started to retreat to the hall. “The bathroom is the door on the left here, and you are welcome to use the shower. I will leave you to go about your business.” He reached for the handle to close the door behind him.

“Wait—” My hand rose, like I was about to stop him even though I was halfway across the room, but Drake already paused.

His dark eyes bore into mine, expectant, and I steeled my courage.

“I need to admit to something.” After what he’d just shared, it felt like I now knew a piece of him that many didn’t get to see.

Maybe it was time I started trusting someone else, too.

“Yes?” He re-entered the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him to give us privacy.

“I—I’m not the person you think I am. I mean, I am, but…

” Inhaling a deep breath, I blinked slowly and organized my thoughts.

“Last year, I did something awful, and my cousin got hurt because of my bad decisions. I went on a hunt with my family, not exactly sober, and nearly got her killed.” The tears threatened to fall, but I was done hiding from the guilt.

“You do not have to share anything that you do not wish to, Maria. I did not tell you about Winston, his upbringing, to make you feel as if you owe me anything in return.”

“It’s not like that,” I assured. “It’s just—I feel like sometimes you think so highly of me, and I don’t want you to think I’m that great when you don’t know the truth.

” What the hell was I saying? Flushing hot, like I’d admitted way more than I’d meant to, I averted my gaze to the window.

Where lace curtains allowed softened sunlight to illuminate the space.

A moment passed, and to distract from my self-imposed humiliation, I focused on how bright the house was.

Compared to the Cneaz’s manor, where every window was shuttered closed, and the dwellings of the colonies my family had taken out—where any and all cracks got boarded up—it seemed like the undead couldn’t cope with seeing themselves, or each other, the way they really looked.

Drake had never shied away from what or who he was, if only I could do the same.

“I was already aware that you held a heavy heart.” His voice was too damn tender, and caring. I gripped my crossed arms harder to keep my emotions from welling up. “Blinking hell, you had suggested as much during our evening at the Two Fools Tavern.”

The way he said our evening heated my cheekbones.

“If I were to judge a person based on who they used to be, then I would never be capable of looking into the mirror.”

“Then what do you judge someone by?” Despite my small voice, I looked up to face him head on. He’d moved closer, his steps silent, until I was staring up at him from only a foot away.

“By what they choose to overcome.” His smile was heartbreaking, made complete by his heavily-lidded eyes staring down into mine. I swallowed, and took a shaky breath. Desperate to forgive myself, even if nobody else had.

“Okay.” It was all I could say, everything in me trying to hold back from throwing my arms around him. Losing myself in his embrace, like I had in the park when we kissed, was too tempting—and the part of me fighting the urge was weakening.

Neither of us spoke. An undercurrent sparked between us, waiting for the other to act while we stood in silence spiked with tension.

Then his hand rose, his fingertips brushing my jaw before he tucked a stray curl behind my ear.

The simple touch soothed an ache inside me that returned when he pulled away, and a chill caressed my spine.

Drake visibly swallowed, glancing toward the door we’d entered through. “I will be downstairs, enlightening Winston to what has transpired before I tell him of our future plans.”

“I’ll be down soon.” I cleared my suddenly tight throat, which seemed to make Drake smile before he left the room. He closed the door behind him, and I sank down onto the bed. What had almost happened? More importantly, what did I wish had happened?

Slapping my warm cheeks, I shook my head and made my way to the bathroom on wobbling steps.