His smoky scent troubled my senses and made the nausea return.
My hand gripped the barber’s blade under my pillow.
Silas moved some of the wet hair from my face, but I kept my eyes closed.
“I can hear the pulsing of your heart. You can’t pretend to be asleep,” he whispered against my ear.
I glared over my shoulder from my fetal position. “If you can pretend you’re a gentleman, then I can pretend to sleep.”
“You wound me, my dear.” He clutched his chest mockingly. “My heart is yours to do with as you please! Even if you are to run blades through it!”
“Must you be so melodramatic? Are you not the one that eats flesh and chased me like an animal through this very house?”
“Whatever do you mean?” he gasped. “That is the height of romance!” His expression darkened as he got closer, climbing over me. He threw me a puzzled look. “Why do you smell like that?” His nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Like what—” My words were cut off by his hand grabbing my face, forcing it in his direction.
The swift action prompted my arm to swing out at him with the barber’s blade, cutting the pillow in the process, and feathers trailed in the wake of the deadly swipe.
The blade cut his shoulder before he slapped it away, cutting his hand as well. The razor clattered on the wood floor as he pinned both of my arms above my head.
“Get off!”
“Is it him?” he shouted at me, his eyes becoming dark.
“Who?” I choked back, bucking my hips to try to get him off, but his weight held me down. My vision trailed from the pain of my migraine, his blurry figure impending above me.
“Don’t lie to me.” His voice was strained. “I can smellsomeoneall over you. Is it that lab partner? Someone you met elsewhere? A tavern fellow perhaps?”
It was exhausting being labeled only by the ownership of another man.
I spat in his face, and he froze, letting go of one of my arms to wipe it off.
“You know, I’ve been easy on you. I thought we were getting to know each other. Such a shame,” he said, his voice lowered, grabbing me by my arm and yanking me off the bed. “If you want this to be transactional, then fine. You will let me feed willingly in exchange for me not taking it myself.” He shoved me forward away from the bed.
His words cut through my skin and made me shiver.
“I am in no condition for you to feed from me.” I rubbed my wrists.
I almost preferred him before. This change was frightening. A shooting pain hammered at the inside of my skull, and I gripped the right side of my head again, letting out a loathsome groan.
“That is not my problem,” he hissed. “Come on, Alina! Where did all that nerve and valor go?” He circled me, taunting.
“I need water,” I croaked, not taking my eyes off him. I did not have the energy for another one of his games or tantrums. I had to put distance between us. “I need bandages as well, especially if I am to accommodate your carefree feeding style.” I glared.
“Fine, fetch them.” He waved at me, pulling a fresh cigarette from his pocket and seating himself in the chair in the corner. “I trust that I don’t have to tell you what happens if you run, correct?” he mumbled, letting the cigarette hang on his lips as he set it alight. The flicker from the flame reflected strikingly off his sharp features.
With a nod, I steadily moved out of the room, the air lighter as I got farther from him. I did not understand why he kept mentioning another man. While I wish I had the company of someone who was not an all-consuming psychopath, there was no one else. I was a shut-in. He should know that. Which was what made this whole situation even more odd. I had not seen the lab or Viktor since my incident. All of my interactions were reduced to telephone calls.
The kitchen had no light, not even from streetlamps, as I had closed my shutters earlier. The candle in the middle of the counter was lit to aid in my rustling through the drawers.
An instinctual pitch nagged at the back of my head and warned me of danger. I examined the syringes and knives in the drawer. I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the long meat-carving knife. Maybe Silas had decided that he preferred not to wait and was going to just finish me here. Everything in my body told me to ignore the looming presence in the corner.
Something wasn’t right. Nothing about this was right.
A sickly sweet smell surrounded me, reminding me of the first time I smelled embalming fluid in the lab. My hair stood on end, and my heart would soon be punctured by a rib if it beat any harder. I turned my head to catch a glimpse out of my peripheral vision.
Two dots of blue light peered at me from the corner, but this wasn’t my regular phantom.
