Page 9 of Vile Pucker

“Tomorrow will be better,” he said. “Once he’s had a chance to calm down.”

“What’s the matter? Why did he have that reaction to me? Does he not want a stepmother?”

Lucian said nothing, running his hands through thick salt and pepper hair.

“This is supposed to beyourspecialty,” he said. “Can you work on his empathy? If he could only see that other people are important, too. At least for appearance’s sake.”

There was a lot I didn’t like about this speech, but it was weak. Fucking weak.

“Have you never tried to curb Gabriel?” I cried. “Tell him he can’t behave like that? There’s no way I’m going to try to help him now. I’m not going anywhere near him.”

Lucian stilled, watching me carefully.

“I ask you to give him another chance. You didn’t see him at his best.”

“What’s his best? Did you see the way helungedat me?”

“Just trying to scare you,” Lucian said. “Nothing more, I assure you.”

He reached out to pull me into his arms.

“The boy needs a stepmother,” he said. “Someone to gentle him. If you don’t feel comfortable working with him as a professional, think of him as a stepson.”

But that look in his eyes hadn’t beenI need a stepmother.

I didn’t know what it was, but it was something disgusting, depraved, desperately unsettling.

Lucian got into bed with the paper and after I took a shower I tried to settle next to him with some academic reading, but I couldn’t relax enough to concentrate.

Then Lucian was asleep, snoring loudly beside me.

I tried to go to sleep too, but I only tossed and turned.

Why had Gabriel reacted like that to me?

I needed to go pee, but for some strange reason I was afraid.

Of those two long, dark halls to the bathroom.

Haunted

Of course, that was ridiculous!

But something about the very stones of this house at night. . . made me a believer.

At night this manor was a totally different creature, the walls colder, more forbidding. The fire had died into embers and I was too afraid to ask for more wood.

Lucian snored gently beside me.

This was nonsensical. I was going to have to get up and go to the bathroom, so no point in putting it off any longer.

So I got up, the stone floors cold on my toes.

Stop being such a coward, I told myself sternly.

What was I afraid of?

The answer had its claws deep into my brain, but I refused to accept it.