More importantly, what am I going to do now that Keagan has been assigned to me? I’m not joking when I say I’d rather die than be Henri’s pet forever.
Maybe I can’t do this on my own…
“Help me,” I say suddenly, realizing it’s my only option to get out of here alive. “Help me leave. You can help me now. Together, we can get to my father, and we—”
His disheartened expression cuts me off.
“You can never go back to your father,” he replies. “It will be the first place Keagan and Henri will look for you.”
My mind whirls from his words, and I’m suddenly dizzy. What is he suggesting? I can never see my father again? That’s impossible. I’d never just leave him, even if it means my freedom. There has to be a way for us both to get out.
“You can bring me and my father somewhere safe,” I blurt out in desperation. “Please, there has to be some way. I can’t stay here.”
Avrum’s eyes drift over my shoulder to where the manor lay quiet and still. He inhales deeply. “You have been bitten,” he says.
I take a slight step back. How could he even know such a thing?
“I saw the wounds when I found you,” he replies to my perplexed look. “Your blood is now entangled with Henri’s. For as long as they are together and flowing through his veins, you will be connected to him. He will know where you are, no matter how far.”
I gasp, my hand flying to the place on my chest where the two puncture wounds lay. “How do you know this?”
“It is something we all learn when we are first changed.”
“Have you ever killed?” I ask, but then hesitate. I’m not sure if I want to know the answer to that question.
“No,” he replies. “I haven’t taken blood directly from humans, besides Henri, when I was first turned, but none since. Now, I drink from a stock supply of human and animal blood in the manor cellar.”
The thought of consuming a person’s blood has nauseaspinning in my stomach. “Can you ever stop? Never drink it again?”
Avrum lets out a short laugh. “I have asked the same questions,” he says. “I still have to be reminded that I’m no longer like you. I can’t stop drinking it because I’m no longer fully alive. The living blood replaces what I lost during the change.”
“What are you, exactly?”
“We are called vampires.”
I can’t speak. I never heard the name before, but for some reason, my voice freezes in my throat.
“With your blood still coursing through Henri’s veins, you can be tracked. I need to get you back to the manor before he wonders where you are and realizes you’re gone.” Avrum holds out a hand to me, but I only stare at the open palm with wide, fearful eyes. The skin there glistens against the amber lights from the manor’s windows, and is marked with faint, overlapping scars.
“We keep the scars we have earned as humans,” he tells me, as if reading my thoughts. “I have many of my own to bear.”
For some reason, his words make the warmth in my chest grow even more, and the pains in my body ease. I stretch my own hand out, the raw marks around my wrist standing out against the paleness of my skin.
He offers me a tender smile—a smile that’s meant to tell me that, this time, I’m not alone.
“Come back with me,” he says. “I will protect you with everything I am. I swear it. Please…”
I hesitate for a moment, our hands hovering close. In the space between them, all my doubts and fears linger.
Can I really trust him? He is one of them after all. A vampire.
Taking a step forward, I suck in a lungful of icy night air and place my shaking hand in his.
Chapter 8
Henri
Ibreak the red wax seal of the letter in my hands and unfold the thick paper. My eyes just touch the words when my senses tell me to look up. Keagan strides across the floor toward me, his face twisted with a fierce determination. Annoyed by the intrusion, I lower the letter.
