“I’ll take care of Henri,” I say, grinding my teeth. How Iam going to do that exactly is another thing, but I will have to figure that out later. For now, I have to take care of Haven. “If you like, I will send for Emma and have a bath drawn for you. Your wounds should be cleaned to prevent infection, and the warm water should help the pains you are feeling.”
Haven glances at the room’s only window. The drapes there were pulled back to reveal thick metal bars. The opaque glass is sealed closed. All details I’ve never noticed before, but now are sickening.
When she looks back at me again, I can’t help but think how beautiful and frail she looks, so innocent and so incredibly…human.
The thought shakes me and I remember Lysander’s words. He’d said the longer we’re alive, the more humanity we lose. The less certain things matter and the more monstrous we become. Is that really true? Will there be a time I lose myself as I am now completely?
I hope not. But as I look at Haven now, I can see our differences. I can see her humanity.
Clearing my throat, I try to regain myself before speaking again. “I know you are probably regretting your choice to come back with me,” I begin. When she says nothing, only watches me with curious eyes, I go on. “You were presented with an opportunity to escape, and after everything you have been through, I understand why you would risk your life to leave this place.”
Her head tilts to the side, studying me with those striking eyes again. “Why are you really helping me?”
It’s a simple enough question, but for some reason I can’t find the right answer. Because Henri deceived me?Because my ignorance has caused this to happen for so long? Because it is my fault? Because, despite everything, I do care about her?
They are all true, and the more I go over the reasons in my head, the more my heart thuds in my chest.
“Avrum?” she calls to me, pulling me from my thoughts. “Why are you helping me?”
I run a hand over my face. “Because it is the right thing to do,” I settle on, “and if we are both going to survive this place, we need to work together.”
“Henri adores you,” she replies. “What do you have to fear?”
“Already what I have done would be considered treason to him, and if I am found out, I have no doubt that Henri would kill me.”
“Then why take the risk?” she pries. “I’m not worth it.”
Without hesitation, I close the distance between us. I run a finger over the smooth skin underneath the wound on her cheek and lift her face to look at me again. “You are worth risking everything for.”
A smile flickers across her lips like a dying candle.
“I envy your strength,” I add with a quick, nervous laugh. “A person who can endure as much as you have and still be standing is a rare thing to find.”
“I don’t know how much strength I have left.”
The desire to kiss her is overwhelming. My fingers slip along her jaw line. “What’s happened to you isn’t fair, and I feel partially responsible for it. I want to make it right again, in any way I can.”
She blinks, as if realizing something, and turns her face away. My hand falls away and the rejection makes myheart clench in my chest. I move to the bedroom door to give her the space she desires.
“I will have Emma come and draw you a bath,” I mutter as I open the door. But I pause before stepping through, wishing I could give her more words of comfort, something to let her know just how much she means to me.
No words come to me—nothing—so I offer her a small smile instead. Hopefully it’s somehow enough to tell her everything I want to say in that moment but can’t.
Haven
Silver steam swirls and rises as Emma pours more hot water over my bare shoulders. I sit in a metal basin tub that had been brought in and placed at the foot of my bed, my knees drawn up to my chest, as Emma continues to wash me with scented oils and soap. The smooth feeling of the water running over my frigid skin has a moan creeping up my throat. It’s heavenly on my aching muscles.
My hands drift through the water, back and forth, over my bruised wrists and arms. When my palms come to the surface again, I cup them together to collect as much water as I can hold. The water slides through my pruned fingers, and the many wrinkles there remind me of the scars I saw on Avrum’s hands.
“We keep the scars we earn as humans… Come back with me…”
His words… He had a way of convincing me I wasn’t alone. Just hearing his voice replay in my head now, the idea of having him in the room with me, sends a strange feeling wiggling through me. A warming, more soothing than the water in the bath.
Placing a hand on my cheek where Henri’s ring had left its mark, I remember the softness of Avrum’s fingers there, too. His touch was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. There was such tenderness to it, such kindness—all the things I’d thought impossible by their kind.
This isn’t right. I shouldn’t be putting my trust in any of these inhuman creatures, especially one who is so close to Henri. I’m supposed to hate him for everything these vampires have done to me. His kind took me from my father and imprisoned me here. He’s one of them.
But still… It hadn’t been Avrum specifically. He wasn’t the one who had followed me home that night, broke into my home while my father and I slept, and forced me to make an impossible decision. One that would permanently brand me as Henri’s captive.
