Home to London.
Far away from Alaric and his mother and Perdita, the woman she wants him to marry. Far from pottery lessons and midnight chats by the fire and listening to Alaric passionately describing the drying times of different modelling paints.
Home to the biggest opportunity of my career – a chance to get the Winnie Wins System on TV and maybe help thousands of people get their clutter under control. A chance to finally escape the obnoxious posh clients I loathe and do something that helps people.
Home to my mother, who may drive me crazy but who I love. At least sheneedsme.
Home, where I can start over again with a newflat, a blank slate.
Home, where absolutely nothing supernatural ever happens and none of my mediocre Tinder dates ever end in fangs sinking into my neck …
I should be happy to escape from Alaric and his fangs.
So why don’t I feel happy?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ALARIC
Gideon: So, did my birds-and-bloods talk help you do the horizontal greasy weasel tango with the lovely Winifred? Word at the Sanctus Club is that the Lady of Agony has arrived early. She’s already summoned me to the castle to oversee my plans for the ball. Let me know if you need moral support or a new sword …
Ifill my goblet to the top once more and tip my head back, allowing the blood to flow down my throat. I’m drinking my way through the fine vintages Reginald has procured for me to enjoy over months and years, but I don’t care if I drink the castle dry.
Winnie’s gone.
She’s not coming back.
I’ve allowed the best thing that’s ever happened to me slip away, all because I couldn’t control myself.
All because she smells like sunshine and strawberries.
I hear my mother’s tinkling laugh through the thick castle walls. She’s commandeered my newly clean office for hermeetings, and she’s in there right now with Gideon, putting the final touches on the plan for her ball. When Reginald returns from escorting Winnie to London, he’ll have to find another organiser to finish the drawing rooms in time for the ball.
The ball where mother will announce my engagement to Princess Perdita of the Blood Chastain.
I dart my tongue into the goblet, sucking out the last of the blood. This bottle came from an eighteenth century duke – a fine vintage, difficult to come by, aged so perfectly that it almost tastes fresh.
But tonight it turns to dust in my mouth.
It’s for the best that she’s gone.
Why had I allowed myself this delusion that she and I could have a future together? That we would live here in peace at Black Crag and sit by the fireplace every night reading books and arguing about her appalling taste in music?
She is not for me.
Even if Winnie could have loved a monster, Callista Valerian would never have allowed our union. I was a fool to believe that my mother would permit me to remain here, undisturbed, when she could use me for her own ends. All this time, I’ve been the chess piece she kept in reserve for her final assault across the board.
My eyes flutter closed as the glut of blood works its way through my body. Beneath it, the hunger for Winnieburns. She is a painting itching on the ends of my fingers, a sculpture bursting forth from a block of clay, a tapestry woven in purest gold.
And she will never look at me with love in her heart.
“You should know better than to close your eyes, son.”
Callista’s voice – so close she’s practically on top of me – startles me, although I don’t allow her to see this. She snuck into the room without me hearing her. There is a reason she is feared among vampires as the Lady of Agony.
For who fears death more than those who can live forever?
I open one eye, and am greeted by the tip of a sword aninch from my eyeball.
