45. Winnie

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

WINNIE

Harudha: Winnie, I’m very happy that you’re seeing someone new, but unfortunately, I don’t know any therapists who specialise in ‘fake-dating supernatural monsters.’ Are you sure you don’t need to book an appointment with me?

“ I have a surprise for you.”

I startle as Alaric’s towering form looms over me. Curse all vampires and their ability to move silently like a cat stalking a box. What is he doing in here anyway? He’s supposed to be helping Reginald with the chairs, but none of us have seen him all evening.

“I don’t have time for surprises.” I gesture to the dust covering my favourite blazer, the teetering pile of ceramic mugs, and the Get Shit Done playlist blasting from my portable speaker. “I have to get these last pots boxed up for Quoth, and then Gideon needs help hanging the decorations in the ballroom and where have you been? You were supposed to get up hours ago. You haven’t even had your swim yet and we need you to?—”

Alaric clasps my hand. “I’ve been awake. I’ve been in my studio. Come.”

“Alaric—”

He pulls me to my feet. I manage to set down the pot I’m wrapping before he drags me away.

“Alaric, what is it that can’t wait?”

He doesn’t say a word as he tugs me into the small courtyard containing the cistern. My panic rises, remembering the water closing over me, but he skirts the edge of the cistern and pulls me through a narrow passage between the overgrown garden beds. Lichen-covered stone rises on both sides of us as he leads me down narrow, slippery steps, winding between the towers and through an older wing of the castle where ruins crumble away down the hillside. I’ve never been to this part of the castle before, and I’m terrified that I might make a wrong step and end up in the ravine far below. But Alaric moves with casual ease. He knows every stone by heart.

We reach another set of stairs carved into the bedrock itself. I grip Alaric’s hand as I press my back to the rock and shuffle down sideways.

“Keep your eyes on me, Winnie.” His cool hand in mine is steady. “Don’t look down.”

“Excellent advice. Have you thought about teaching?”

“One more step and you’re here.”

My foot slips on wet rock and I scream as I go flying. He catches me in his arms, holding me against his cool chest as my jelly legs give out. He scoops me up and carries me to?—

“What do you think?” he beams.

I work my jaw, but I can’t find the words. I had no idea that a place so beautiful could exist, especially not clinging precariously to the side of a castle.

A small stone temple with a columned portico and carvings of Dionysos and his dancing maenads and satyrs is carved into the rock of the cliff itself. In front of it is a large, rectangular pool with a small fountain that burbles in the corner. The water laps invitingly at the edges and spills down over two smaller pools further down the cliffside. Surrounding the main pool are statues of angels and winged beasts, ivy twisting over their weatherworn features. One side of the pool is open to the valley, and there are rocky platforms where you can sit and admire the view. Despite the chill in the air, steam rises from the water.

And someone who was supposed to be helping with ball preparations has lit at least a hundred flickering candles around the edges and placed a picnic basket and towels on the steps of the temple.

“Wow. What is this?”

“This is the castle grotto. It was built by the lord who owned the castle before me.”

“The one you skewered?”

“Actually, I tossed him from the castle walls,” Alaric says, like it’s no big thing. “He used to host extravagant parties here. The pools are fed from a natural spring, and by lighting a fire in an oven inside the temple, I can heat the water. I thought you might like to join me for my evening swim.”

My body seizes. “No, thank you.”

“Winnie, you told me when I set my intention for our work, that no matter how high you build your castle walls, someone will always knock them down.”

“I did say that.”

“Then allow me to help you dismantle your walls.”

Damn him. “I don’t have a swimming costume.” I back away from the water.

“You do not need them. It is only you and me and the moonlight.”

A faint mew echoes from inside the temple. Mirabelle pokes her head from behind a dancing satyr.

“And Mirabelle,” Alaric says with a laugh. “The little minx followed us down here.”

He strips off his clothes, the planes of his sculpted body practically glowing in the moonlight as he walks down the temple steps, submerging himself up to his waist. His cock bobs on the surface of the water, half-hard already.

I swallow. He’s doing this on purpose. He knows I’m weak for him.

But does he know how weak? Does he know how much I want to stay?

Alaric turns to me, beckoning me with a single finger. A slow, remote smile plays over his lips, and I catch the glint of one of his fangs. He’s not hiding himself around me anymore.

He’s naked in more ways than one.

My fingers move of their own accord, pulling my dust-streaked shirt over my head. Underneath, I’m wearing a blood-red bra with black lace details. Alaric sucks in a breath.

“This is what you get for ruining my favourite bra,” I growl at him. He manages to look both delighted and suitably chastised.

“Remind me to destroy all your corsetry from now on.”

My heart is hammering against my chest. He must be able to hear it. I kick off my trousers and fold them neatly on top of my shirt. Then I find Alaric’s clothes and fold them, too. And I roll his socks together. And I should probably try and get the dust off this shirt?—

“Winifred,” Alaric’s voice rumbles, closer now. “You are stalling.”

I swallow hard and turn back to him. I keep my eyes locked on his as I reach behind me with trembling fingers and undo the clasp of my bra. Hunger prowls in a dangerous shadow behind his eyes as he watches.

I can’t kid myself that we’re pretending.

Whatever happens under the moonlight this evening, it’s real for both of us.

With shaking legs, I step out of my panties. Now we’re both naked. Alaric holds out his hands to me. My legs tremble as I step into the water. It’s deliciously warm. I reach for him and he clasps my hand in his, his skin cooler than the water – solid and reassuring as stone.

“I’ve got you. Take another step.”

The next step is easier, and the one after, and before I know it I’m in the water up to my waist, my body pressed against his. Alaric wraps his arms around me, burying his face in my hair, our bodies fitting together like we were made for each other.

“You’re trembling,” he whispers. “You don’t need to be afraid, Winnie. I’ll never let anyone or anything hurt you.”

“I know,” I whisper back. And I know it. I have never felt so safe with anyone before.

And I’m terrified .

I wanted to stick to my rules, to keep my heart safe. But Alaric’s mother isn’t watching us in the grotto.

This is just him and me, and all our personal demons, dancing beneath the stars.

I was supposed to be safe with my mother, and I wasn’t. I thought I was safe with Patrick, but that was a lie. I want to trust this beautiful, deadly vampire who holds me so tenderly, as if he’s afraid of breaking me. But I’m terrified that I won’t be able to survive being broken by him.

And then I think of all the times he has saved me, how he has been in the shadows when I needed him, how he has upended his life and changed his habits because of my trauma. He has bent his ancient will to fit me into his life.

And I think that maybe he needs me to save him even more. He needs to believe that he isn’t a monster, that someone sees past his fangs to the bright jewel of his heart.

“I don’t know what to do now,” I say, and I mean it about swimming and also about us.

“Lean back,” Alaric’s dark voice commands me. “I have you. I will not let you go.”

I will not let you go.

His fingers press into the small of my back as he angles my body so that I’m facing sideways to him. His other hand goes beneath my chin, tilting my head back so my body is forced to follow. A cool breeze blows across my exposed neck, and Alaric sucks in a breath.

I suck in a few shallow breaths as the water swirls around me. My legs bend beneath me. Alaric wraps his arm around my back as my feet lift off the bottom. Water rushes over my torso and I fling out my arms, fighting to put my feet back down again. Alaric’s face appears in my vision, his dark hair draping around his face.

“Hold onto me if you’re afraid. The water cannot hurt you. I will let go of you and you will float, but it will only work if you keep your body relaxed.”

How can anyone relax when all that’s holding them up is a quivering wet mess that has tried to kill them once before?

But something in the way Alaric says you will float , as if commanding the water to obey his will, stirs me. This is a man who has waded into battles that now adorn history books and medieval tapestries. He’s had to do much harder things than float in some stupid pool. I’ll show him that I can be brave, too.

I try to remember the slow breathing techniques that Harudha taught me. I start at my toes and work my way up my body, focusing on the soft lapping of the water and the warmth and the cooling resistance of Alaric’s arm around me. I relax, my eyes wide open, watching his face for a sign that I’m in trouble.

Alaric may not have seen the sun for centuries, but his smile is pure sunlight.

The butterflies swim laps across my belly.

Alaric slowly peels his arm from around me. His eyes never stray from mine.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “You’re floating. You’re doing it, Winnie. I knew you could. You can do anything.”

The way he says it, with the surety of ages, makes the butterflies flutter in my chest. I reach my arm up to touch him, and this unbalances me. I tip sideways and water closes over my face.

“Argh!” Panic rises through my chest as I flail, kicking my legs, trying to find the bottom again.

But then his arms go around me, and he pulls my head from the water and presses his lips to mine.

The water heats to a million degrees.

My chest feels as if someone’s kicked it in. His cool lips do nothing to ease the heat pooling low in my belly. Before, when he’s kissed me, I’ve tasted his hunger, but now, I taste something deeper.

I study him, wide-eyed, as I press my body into him and kiss him back. He is so beautiful that it hurts me to look at him, like trying to glimpse the sun. Water clings to his skin in cool droplets. Stars shimmer in his eyes – reflections of the Milky Way above us in their inky depths.

“I know it’s hard for you to let me see you being weak,” he murmurs. “You have always had to be so strong. You’re the one who cleans up everyone’s mess, so you never get to be a mess yourself. Well, I want to love you whether you are a quiet day or a raging hurricane. I want you to fall apart for me so I can love every piece of you. Give me your wounds, Winnie, and I will bleed for you.”

I want to love you.

How can I be afraid of loving him when he speaks so pretty?

But I am afraid. I’m afraid that I might sink beneath the tumult of his love. I’m even more afraid that I might float.

I can’t find words to voice my fears, so I pour them into him with our kiss. And he takes them and swallows them down for me. My monster .

And then, the kiss is no longer sweet, no longer stained with pretty poetry. It’s hot and hard and possessive. It’s his fingers tugging my hair, his teeth scraping my lip, his huge hands everywhere all at once, driving me wild.

Alaric pushes me against the side of the pool, caging my body with his arms. I look out over the cliffs into the valley beyond, everything shadowed and shrouded in fog. I can’t escape him even if I want to, and I definitely don’t want to. His cock brushes against my arse and I gasp a little, pushing back against him until he lets out a pained groan.

“Naughty humans who tease me like that might find themselves bitten,” he growls, scraping his fangs over my neck.

In response, I wiggle even harder.

He pins me against the rocks, kicking my legs apart. I’m no longer touching the bottom, but I know that he won’t let me drown. He slides his length between my thighs to tease my entrance, and I hear myself make that needy little groan again.

“I am utterly lost when you make that sound,” he growls against my ear.

In a single stroke, Alaric pierces me from behind, driving up inside me with such force it expels the air from my lungs. I gasp and grip the rocks as Alaric draws back and slams into me again.

“You feel amazing, Winnie. You are amazing.”

The way he says it, the hard edges of his voice blasted away, I know . He loves me. And the reality of that slams into me with his next punishing thrust.

He loves me.

And maybe I can’t say it back yet, but…

But maybe…

“If this is swimming,” I grin, “I think I like it.”

In response, he dives his other hand beneath the water to circle my clit. His cool touch beneath the toasty water is too much. My last doubts and questions and fears fall away, because how can anything bad for me feel this good? Alaric swirls and circles as he spears me from behind, and I’m floating and falling all at once.

My orgasm is yanked from the soles of my feet, from the deepest chambers of my heart, offered up on the altar of this wild god, this monster who only wants to worship me.

I come around him with moans and splashes, staring over the edge into the dark valley below. The night steals my cries and the stars bear witness as Alaric sinks his teeth into my neck. Euphoria rushes my head, stealing away the last of my fears as I come a second time and he rides his pleasure to its peak.

He licks my wound closed as he collapses against me, his body cooling the ecstasy that courses through me. I can see why vampires must be careful, why they have rules. Humans could ruin themselves over the pleasure of their bite.

The stars shimmer their approval. Alaric is still rigid inside me. He sings softly, an old song in a language I don’t understand, but I don’t have to know the words to hear the worship in it.

He cuts off the song.

“Stay with me,” he says, his breath cool against my ear.

I wiggle my arse against him. “I’m not exactly running away.”

“Good. Don’t go back to London after my mother leaves. Stay at Black Crag with me.”

I go rigid.

The old, familiar fear clenches around my heart. I see towers of stuff, rooms filled with shifting papers, a rat in the peanut butter.

“I don’t know if I’m ready,” I say. “I haven’t lived with someone since I left Mum’s house. I never even lived with Patrick. I have issues. You’ll find out?—”

“You have nightmares,” he says. “I’ve heard them.”

“You have? But your coffin is miles from my room—oh.” I remember that he has the hearing of a predator.

“The first night, I came running, certain that you were in danger before I realised the truth. I’ve listened through the door when you had them. They were awful.” He loosens his grip on me so I can lower my legs. I lean back against him, and he kisses the top of my head. “I wanted to break down the door and run to you and chase the monsters away. Vampires don’t have nightmares, which is as well because if we did, mine would have driven me mad by now. I’m sorry for breaking your trust like that, but I couldn’t bear the thought of you enduring the nightmares alone.”

A blush creeps over my cheeks as I remember what I sometimes do with my purple vibrator after a nightmare to calm myself down. “Did you…hear anything else?”

“Oh, no, absolutely not,” he says stoically. “Definitely not anything that would appear on page 64 of one of your books.”

Great. Just wonderful.

“I dream about my mother’s house – only it’s monstrous, filled with things that want to crawl all over me or eat me or bury me alive. And I can’t get back to sleep until I’ve cleaned the whole room and scrubbed my skin raw.”

“Reginald did mention that you keep asking for clean sheets,” Alaric says. “I thought it was just normal human behaviour.”

“I am anything but normal,” I sigh. “But it’s strange. On the nights when you’re in my bed, I didn’t have the nightmares. I sleep right through.”

“You still have them, but I hold you and sing to you, and they pass.”

I thought that I was getting over the nightmares, that maybe when I got back to London I could stop paying my therapist. But of course, it was Alaric saving me again.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll stay on at Black Crag with you.” My heart hammers against my ribs. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. “On three conditions.”

“I accept.”

“You don’t even know what the conditions are.”

“I don’t need to.”

“One – you have to keep working on cleaning up the castle and keep your projects contained within their rooms. I can’t—” I swallow. “I can’t live in a place that reminds me of my mother’s house.”

“I can do this.”

“Two – you have to explain everything about vampires to me. I need to know everything . I can’t have any more secrets between us.”

“No secrets.” Alaric sighs deeply. “And what is number three?”

“That Reginald must make me hot chocolate every single night.”

Alaric kisses my neck over the spot where he bit me, sending a fission of pleasure through my veins. “I agree to your terms. Do you wish me to make a blood oath?”

“No. But you could come inside me again.”

We kiss and talk and fuck and kiss some more, until my conscience gets the better of me, and I drag Alaric out of the water so that we can go back and help. As he leads me back up the path, something prickles on my back.

I glance up at the castle walls. Perdita stands at a window in the tower, staring down at us.

She’s furious .