Page 56 of The Vampire Debt

“No?” she asks, echoing me.

“I have taken nothing from you, and I do not plan on taking anything now.”

She wrinkles her forehead. “I don’t understand… then how am I to pay my debt?”

“Do you wish for death so desperately?” I ask. Was I wrong to think she didn’t want to die? As willing as she seemed, her tears said otherwise.

Clara drops her gaze, her features hardening. “If it is a debt I owe you, let me pay it or let me go.”

“Do not tempt me, Clara.” I take one more step back and lift my chin, looking down at her as though her very presence offends me… “I will take nothing from you, but don’t think there is nothing I do not wish to take.”

There is something about her I want… her humanity.

It has been so long since I have been around mortals who were anything more than shallow worshippers that offered up their blood so they could have the mark of a vampire.

She shudders, her eyes sliding closed for the briefest moment. I’m not entirely sure it’s from revulsion either.

She takes a few steps away from the tree, favoring her left leg. This will make the trip back long and arduous.

“I won’t go back with you,” she says.

“I could always return you to your home and claim your sister. Would you prefer that?”

“No, Kitty is innocent. Leave her out of this.”

“The innocence of others hardly matters.” I don’t know if I am growing fond of her defiance or find it tiring. “You have no choice. A debt is a debt. Now come, we must leave.”

I walk away from her in the direction of the manor. She doesn’t follow at first, then after a moment she does. The howling of demons growing bolder without my presence no doubt spurred her on.

“My ankle,” she says. “I can do little more than hobble.”

I pause to look at her. “Then you better learn to hobble faster.”

I keep up my pace. Stopping every several minutes, allowing her time to catch up when she lags too far behind and my reach to keep the demons can extend no further.

Demons and saints…The normal human pace is slow enough to drive me mad, but this… this is a new agony. To her credit she doesn’t complain once.

I stop and finally look back at her upon her footsteps silencing. She stands leaning on a tree with her weight off her left foot. Even from here I can see the sweat that glistens across her brow and the grimace of pain tightening her features.

This woman has no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. She is behaving as though it were the middle of a bright day and not late into the night—as if we weren’t surrounded by higher demons that would rip her to shreds after possessing her body and breaking her in every way imaginable.

Clara looks up and begins walking once more. Her limp is more pronounced now and her breathing labored even as she fights to keep it slow and even.

She stumbles and falls to the ground. She presses her hands into the dirt, her fingers digging in with the strain as she tries to push herself up.

I shouldn’t help her. She deserves to walk all the way back after the trouble she’s caused. Nevertheless, I stride over to her and lift her up, positioning her in my arms to carry her.

“What do you think you are doing?” she asks, every muscle in her body tensing.

“It will take us all week if I let you continue on at your pace,” I say, starting to walk. It’s a relief to finally make some headway. What would have taken hours at her pace takes me minutes.

After she adjusts to the much faster speed, she relaxes into me. Then after another moment or two, she rests her head on my shoulder.

The little fool has allowed herself to grow comfortable when I am barely able to keep myself from destroying her—it is only her humanity that keeps that dark part of me at bay.

Sharp, searing pain shreds down my back. I stumble and we fall. Clara and I collide with the ground, a tangle of limbs as the growl of a demon snarls from behind.

Clara lands with a grunt and rolls away.