Page 42 of The Vampire Curse

“Wait,” I say. The word comes out somewhere between a command and begging. It is the same thing I’ve said a thousand times before.

Clara looks over her shoulder at me. Black has swallowed her irises and the whites of her eyes. “You did this to me,” she whispers. “You’ve killed me.”

And then she’s gone.

I startle awake—truly awake this time. A sliver of red light pours through a thin opening of the curtains. The sun is setting.

I sit on the edge of the mattress, resting my elbows on my knees, and let my head hang. Cherno remains sleeping on the pillow next to mine.

It is the same dream each night, with variations. It started with just her voice in the dark, then her face started to appear. There are times when her eyes are covered in the milky white film of death, others times they are encircled with a thick line of red, or entirely human and brimming with unshed tears.

Sometimes I wake upon seeing her face, other times when I reach for her. Her face and voice haunt my nights.

She's gone, but I still cannot rid myself of her presence.

I cannot help but feel as though she is sending me a message. I have betrayed her in my attempt to save her.

There is no use in trying to go back to sleep now, the others will wake soon and I will be expected to play the part of the perfect host. I stand and take my time dressing before I head to my office for an hour.

At least I will have some time to myself before the others demand my attention.

* * *

“How long will you allow yourself to mope over that human?” Lawrence’s voice mutters from the doorway of my office.

I don’t look up from my desk, though I rearrange the papers, flipping the one I was writing on so that it’s faced down.

“I’m not moping,” I say dryly.

“I never thought I’d see the day where Alaric Devereaux claimed a human… why did you claim her? It is so unlike you.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to participate in these ‘festivities’ as you called them.”

He saunters over to me and rests a hip on the edge.

I set the quill down and cross my arms and lean back in my chair. A fire snaps and pops in the hearth. Above, Cherno hangs from one of the support beams, observing.

I sigh and rub the back of my neck, desperate to change the subject. “What do you make of Mr. Connors?”

Lawrence frowns. This is clearly not the conversation he intended to have when he sought me out.

He cocks his head and arches a single golden brow. After a moment’s hesitation, he takes the bait. “What about him?”

“The last time Elizabeth made a new vampire was almost a hundred years ago. Why him? Why now?”

Lawrence waves a hand dismissively. He stands, crossing to the window. He pushes the drapes aside to stare out on the manor’s grounds below. “Who knows why she does the things she does?”

I sneer at the drive leading passed the wrought iron fence at the edge of the property and the woods beyond. A view I had once enjoyed—a view I have kept covered for the last several days.

My fingertips graze the overturned papers.

“She must see something in Victor. She wouldn’t have turned him otherwise,” he adds after a moment.

“There are twelve of us all together… There haveonlyever been twelve of us made by her hand for almost a hundred years now.”

There is something about this new vampire and Elizabeth’s motives that bother me. It's one thing for her to create another vampire on a whim, it is yet another to send him to do her bidding when he is still learning to control his strength, needs, desires, and his very nature.

“We know all this,” Lawrence says as he studies me from the corner of his eye. “Why are you bringing this up? It won’t do any good. We can’t even begin to guess at her reasoning—and attempting to do so is a waste of time.”