25. Alaric

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ALARIC

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling as the night fades into day. Normally, a vampire has no problem with sleep. Our sleep is not the same as humans – we do not dream. We lay down in our coffin and our bodies shut off until the sun disappears once more.

But I cannot settle myself into my dreamless sleep when Winnie Preston is snuggled into my arm. When my eyes are open, all I see is her beautiful body moving over mine, all those secret, filthy things she said to me last night, how amazing she smelled and tasted, how close I came to truly tasting her…

I held back so much. I did not want to frighten her. This monster is far from sated, but this night with Winnie is the happiest of my long life.

I broke the most sacred Upyr law, and I would break it a hundred more times to feel her come apart around me.

For one night, she was mine.

Now I am counting down the hours until she wakes and I must tell her the truth.

She might stay, a foolish voice whispers inside my skull. She wants you now. She could still want you once she learns the truth.

You are supposed to be dead, I remind the voice. You were supposed to die after the last time the villagers tortured me. You’re not supposed to allow me to hope.

And yet, I hope .

I hope for a future where Winnie stays at Black Crag, where we use contraception so we can fuck in every room of the castle and I make art and she whirls about with her terrible music, where everything smells of sunshine and strawberries and she lets me taste her whenever I desire, and we are wed and fed and happy…

Winnie stirs in my elbow, her lips falling open. A low, pained moan escapes them. Her fingers clench against my chest.

She’s having one of her nightmares.

They were harrowing to listen to on the other side of the door. Up close, her pained whimpers devastate me. I long to reach into her dream and pluck out the monster that’s hurting her, but I don’t have that power. Instead, I gather her in my arms, cursing myself for my uselessness.

“Winnie, I’m with you. You’re safe.”

She jerks against me, her limbs flailing out to slap at her body. “Bugs…get them off me…” she whimpers, her eyes squeezed shut.

“There are no bugs.” I stroke her hair. I don’t know if I’m helping or making things worse.

But I remember something that helped me.

When I ran away to the Midnight Court with a skull filled with nightmares, a friend taught me to sing. I learned songs of hope and longing, songs of farewell to brothers at arms, songs of war and songs of love. I sing them to myself sometimes, when I need to remember, or when I long to forget.

I pluck one from the air and sing it for her now.

It’s an old Germanic folk song about slaying monsters, one that I have sung on the battlefield many times to stir my blood for the killing. I sing and soothe her until her limbs stop jerking and her body rests easy against the pillow. She returns to sleep. I watch her for hours, making sure that she doesn’t have another dream. Winnie wants me to be vulnerable. I’ve never felt more vulnerable than watching her suffer and knowing that there’s nothing I can do.

My fingers itch to sculpt the feeling, to capture this moment in clay so I can show her that I listen. I have already nearly filled the priest hole with my discarded artworks of her, but I’m certain this , right here, is how I should capture Winnie.

It’s still a couple of hours until the sun sets, but if I keep the curtains drawn and don’t overexert myself, I can work.

Compared to the secret of my blood, this art project is but a tiny lie between us. When I reveal my final artwork to her, when I can finally show her how I truly feel, she will not care that I have snuck around to make it happen.

I plant a gentle kiss on her hair and slip away, careful not to step into the shaft of sunlight streaming through the half-open curtains.

Winnie, what nightmares haunt you?