It’s as if Alaric – caustic, passionate, kind Alaric – has fled his body, leaving behind a demon who has only one desire.
Tofeed.
“Alaric,” I breathe. “You’re hurting me.”
His head jerks to the side, those eyes devouring me with predatory intent, as his mouth opens wide, his lips curling back to reveal long, pointed incisors sliding down from the roof of his mouth.
No human has teeth like that.
I’m frozen with terror as he leans in close, his tongue flicking out. He licks the blood from my fingers. His whole body shudders with pleasure, and a low hiss escapes him.
He buries his head into my shoulder, those vicious teeth poised an inch from the bare skin of my neck.
“Winnie,” he whispers, his voice strained. “Run.”
“I—”
With a cry like the howl of the wind through the valley, Alaric tears himself from me.
“Run!”
He hurls himself across the room, upsetting bags of clay and brushes as he thrashes and claws at his own skin.
I run.
I run down the hall, wild with fear. I turn down a hallway and am immediately lost. I fling myself around corners, desperate to escape the monster behind me. I throw myself at a random door, which buckles under my weight but then swings back, resisting my desire to crash through it. A heavy chain clangs against my arm.
The dining room.
Not knowing what I’m doing but perceiving if I don’t put some kind of wall between us, that monster is going to devour me, I yank the chain. It falls into my hands. The padlock was so old that it had rusted through, and I’d managed to break it free. The doors spring open.
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. I slam the door, shove the wooden board through the metal bars to lock it, and thrust the candelabra in front of me. Fear rises inside me as I take in the room.
A banquet table large enough for twenty groans beneath the weight ofstuff. I choke back the trauma of towering objects and surge forward, gabbing the nearest thing – a statue of awarrior on a horse. It’s heavy, so I lift it in my free hand, thinking it might be better than the candelabra as a weapon.
But I freeze as I notice the warrior’s face.
It’s Alaric.
I’d recognise those sharp cheekbones, that strong jaw, the imperious features, and that long, wavy hair swept back in the wind anywhere.
Did Alaric make a statue ofhimself?But it’s covered in tarnish and looks like a medieval bronze?—
Behind me, the door bangs. Alaric yells again, “Winnie, you have to leave. I don’t know how much longer I can?—”
His words dissolve into inhuman cries. I hear his mother’s voice, soothing him.
I can’t help myself. My heart hammers in my chest. I should be running for the door, but I’m drawn deeper into the room. I hold up the candelabra to several paintings stacked against the sideboard. I flip through them. Each one is a portrait from a different era, in a different style.
They’re all of Alaric.
Alaric in various suits of armour, or wearing majestic cloaks, or riding horses, or looking brooding in a dark forest. Alaric with swords of every shape and size. Alaric as St Sebastian, tied naked to a stake, his body pierced with arrows. Alaric peering from the tower window while a mob approaches carrying flaming torches, his face twisted in pain. Woodcuts of Alaric as a demon dancing upon piles of skulls or drinking the blood of tortured men from a goblet.
There’s even one of Alaric and Mirabelle – the wild god and his familiar.
These are the portraits removed from the walls in the castle. All those gaps in the walls were because Alaric didn’t want me to see these.
They hid it all in here so I wouldn’t figure it out, so I wouldn’t know that Alaric has lived at Black Crag forcenturies.
