Page 3 of Velvet Folds (Velvet)

Chapter 3

In which our heroine sees the cost

I’ve heard so many of the sacrifices tell tales of pain and fear.

I feel none of that.

The fire coursing through my veins is a hunger I haven’t felt in years.

But Adrik doesn’t bite when his lips find my throat again. They ghost over me in a kiss that makes my eyes flutter closed.

“I cannot take any more blood from you tonight,” he says.

My body sags away from him… disappointment weighting my limbs in a way blood loss didn’t.

He’s done. He’ll leave now.

He owes me nothing, not even that favor he offered.

“Thank you.”

His head tilts in confusion. “For what? I am the one indebted to you.”

His clawed fingers scoop beneath me, lifting me up into his arms, holding me close to him. He kisses me and I melt into him, even though I know it’s folly.

He is not for me and I am not for him.

I can’t even, truthfully, be his for the night. That was a lie borne of desire.

But I don’t pull away. I don’t ask him to stop… until I remember we are likely not alone. Then I do draw back, fingers clasped in his ruff.

I can just imagine Felicia in the woods, watching in wide-eyed terror.

“It’s time to punish the wicked.”

I almost ask if he means me as a joke, but then, he shifts and juggles me and I realize…

“You can’t take me with you!”

He looks down at me and I know he can hear the panic in my heartbeat. A panic I don’t want to fully explain.

“I don’t want them to see me. I don’t want them to know I asked for it,” I tell him. “The door is marked with an X, stained by blood berries. He is the only man who lives there.”

He doesn’t set me down.

Fingers brushing through my hair, he toys with the white strands. “No one will see you. Only your wrath.”

He bundles me close to him and I bury my face in his ruff as he takes flight.

This was not how this night was meant to go.

He wasn’t supposed to take me.

I wasn’t supposed to want to go.

But now, as the night wind flutters the skirt of my nightgown around my legs, the idea of him releasing me holds less appeal.

We aren’t far enough away from the village for that flight to be satisfying.

It is cut all too short when one of his hands leaves me and he catches the bell tower, alighting on it as though it was a tree.

His long tail wraps around the bell tower as his claws dig into stone. And he places me in the belfry, sending pigeons fleeing.

“Ring it for me. I want them all to know what happens when a sacrifice is forced to the stone.”

He watches me, waiting for me to do it, and I go grasping the lip of the large bell with my hands, shivering at the loss of his warmth.

Despite regular use, the brass is dusty, and I have to take hold of it with both hands and push with all of my weight to start the swing, but once I do, momentum makes my tasks easier.

It clangs so loudly, and I grasp my ears, wincing at the sharp sounds. And when I turn back, Adrik is gone.

I creep toward the arched openings and peer down.

Windows have started to open, just a few, spilling lines of light out into the streets. Panicked faces peek out.

There’s a clatter of feet on the stairs, but when the trap door opens, it’s only Felicia who comes to me. My shoes clutched close to her chest.

“I thought he was going to take you away to eat you!” She gasps for air.

“No, he’s come to punish your father.”

“My—” She swallows, looking down at the square and I take my shoes from her, slipping them on again.

Together we stand at the edge of the belfry and look down as Adrik’s shadow coasts over the village roofs.

In a blink, he descends and the door of Felicia’s house clatters open.

He doesn’t even enter. Reaching inside, he grabs the old man by the front of his shirt and throws him out into the center of the square.

Felicia stares, wide eyed, clutching my arm so tightly, my bones feel like they might break.

Adrik holds her father down against the cobbles. And even though I cannot hear the words, I know they are threats.

I watch, and a new shiver flutters across my skin. I need to leave.

“If anyone asks, tell them he knew your father had made you go.” I tell her. “Say that Lord Adrik refused to take you as a sacrifice, because he knew, even though you did not tell him. Do not tell them I was here.”

She nods, her eyes never leaving her father’s death scene played out below us.

Watching the viscera for a moment longer—glad of it—I take hold of her shoulders, guiding her down the bell tower stairs and once we are at the door, I repeat my words. Sure that she’s understood me, I take back my cloak and dart out into the shadows, racing back into the forest while all eyes are on Adrik.

They cannot know I was there.

They cannot know I was the one who asked for one of their own’s death.

No one will suspect sweet, soft, Felicia. They will believe her.

The forest is dark. Dense branches tangle together overhead, but I have raced through these woods a hundred times.

We live outside the village for so many reasons.

The main one, of course, is that the village doesn’t understand us. They’re happier to have us elsewhere with our cursed hair and odd stories.

But on nights like this, I am especially glad of the freedom that comes from being outsiders.

My home is protected by incantations and herbs and plants that have grown for decades undisturbed.

Snatching my dress from where I left it to hang on the line, I slither into it, buttoning myself up as I grab the rest of the washing and bundle it inside.

When the door closes, my father starts awake in his chair beside the low fire.

“Where have you been?” he asks as I drop the washing into a waiting basket.

“I was helping a friend.” I set my shoes aside quietly and pad across the carpet to him, taking his hands and smiling down at him, even though he can’t see me. “ You were supposed to be in bed hours ago.”

“Was I?” He asks, pretending—as he always does—that he cannot hear the clock ticking the hours away, or the chimes marking the hour. “And where were you supposed to be hours ago?”

Here.

“I told you, I was helping a friend.” It’s true enough. “Now, let’s get you to bed or your bones will ache in the morning.”

“My bones always ache.” But he chuckles as he says it, letting me help him up and into the room on the other side of the hearth.

It’s warm and cozy and I linger beside embers before I slip away, letting him fall into a fitful slumber while I quietly climb the stairs to the loft.

In the dim candlelight, I inspect my neck with a mirror that’s too old to show me a true reflection. But I can see the marks.

When I close my eyes, I can feel the warmth of his touch.

Perhaps I sacrificed more tonight than I intended.