A small lump slid beneath my palm, pressing back with deliberate, knowing pressure.
I knew what I had to do.
Chapter 5
Clara
The entire train journey, I imagined my belly growing larger until it burst open. I checked Google, and my stomach was the size of a five-month pregnancy. It wasn't possible but neither was being fucked by a Victorian ghost. Edmund Greywood, there was little to be traced about him, his wife or child. They were erased from history.
The rickety train rattled on the tracks. Outside the window, the trees thickened, their branches clawing at the glass. Last time, I was afraid of the manor. I bit my lip as I thought of returning to the manor, but there wasn't fear.
The thing inside me stretched, not with the violent jabs of before, but with something almost like…recognition.
It knew where we were going.
And it was happy.
???
The taxi sped away, tyres spitting gravel like a final warning. Above me, the trees bent as if bowing, not to me, but to the thing waiting in the manor. My stomach quivered, not with fear, but with the thing inside me. It stretched as if straining toward the house. Toward him.
The green door gleamed, brass fixtures polished to a predatory shine.
I raised my hand to knock, but it swung open, startling me.
The caretaker stood there.
Not a man. Not anymore. Maybe never.
His eyes were black holes, the same void from my nightmares. His smile stretched too wide, lips peeling back from teeth that looked filed to points. He looked possessed.
“I was waiting, but I knew you would be back,” he said as his palms slid over my swollen belly possessively.“They always come back with my property and beg for more.”
I stared at the ghostly black eyes that haunted me for weeks.
“There you are,” he murmured, voice thick with something between reverence and hunger. His fingers flexed, nails sharp enough to snag on the thin fabric of my dress.“I felt you the moment you stepped onto the grounds. My blood. My seed. Mine.”
A cold thrill shot through me. His touch burned and froze all at once, sending a pulse of heat low in my belly—shameful, inevitable. The same way I’d felt that first night, when the dreams started. When he’d first crawled inside me, not just in my bed but under my skin.
He pulled me into the house, but the hallway was black. The sunlight had vanished. I turned just as he slammed the door shut.
“Don’t worry, my sweeting, I have the nursery set up,” he said as he gripped my waist, bending to curl his arm beneath my knees, lifting me against his chest.“It’s time to get reacquainted.”
“Where are they? Where are the other women and their children?” I asked, trying not to stammer, as he carried me upstairs.
“They weren’t strong enough,” he said, answering me unfazed at my horror.“The mothers…they fought me. Fought it. Their bodies rejected my gift.” His free hand cupped my jaw, forcing my gaze back to him.“But you didn’t. You took me so sweetly, so deep. Do you remember, sweeting?”
I nodded like a mute before I thought about the numerous cots and cradles.
“But what about—” A sharp cramp twisted through me, cutting off my words. I gasped, knees buckling. Edmond caught me effortlessly, his laugh a dark caress against my throat.
“Ah. You feel it now, don’t you?” He licked a slow stripe up my neck, teeth scraping.“The bond. The more you fear me, the harder it clings.”
“The cots,” I gasped.
What was I thinking coming back here? But the house felt different this time. My initial fear vanished, replaced with a sense of peace.
“A cot for each one that perished. A reminder,” he said before his smile widened, impossibly, cruelly tender. He pulled me toward the large double doors. “But you will both live.”
