53. Alaric

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

ALARIC

Alyra: Alaric, thank you for a most entertaining and delightful ball. I haven’t had such fun since I moved to Sanctus. I can’t believe you’ve been hiding away at that musty old castle all these years! I would like to extend an invitation to a blood tea next week – call my Thrall to arrange the details. I wish to speak with you about an art commission. And you simply must bring along your delightful human!

Winnie: We found another murder victim in the village. Please come.

“ R eginald, bring the car around.” I slam the lid on my coffin and start pulling on a shirt. “We need to go to the village.”

“My Lord, is that a good idea?” Reginald’s face pales. “It’s daylight.”

“I am aware of that.” I hand him my phone, and he reads the short message from Winnie. “They found another body. Baylor wasn’t the killer. Winnie needs me.”

Reginald nods, and darts off.

My mind races and my heart is lodged in my throat, but my movements are slow, sluggish. Tiny demons pound mallets against the sides of my skull.

I have to get to Winnie.

She ran out of here with such fury in her heart that I was so sure I ruined everything. But she texted me. She knows I will keep her safe.

Maybe I can save this, save us.

Winnie has my favourite cloak, but luckily I have another in my wardrobe. It’s slashed around the hem from when I wore it in the last siege of Black Crag, but it has a hood I can pull up over my face. I slather my face and hands in a disgusting sun cream Gideon recommends. As I’m trying to figure out a way to hide my favourite sword down my trousers, my mother’s Thrall steps into the chapel.

“Lady Callista wishes to see you in the sitting room.”

“When I return,” I snap.

“She says it cannot wait.”

I glare at the Thrall, but I know that if my mother is awake during daylight, it is an urgent matter, and she will make my life – and Winnie’s life – a misery if I do not attend her. I grab my sword and fly from the tower.

With every step, my foolish heart dares to hope.

I find my mother in my seat beside the unlit fire, her dress streaked with Baylor’s blood and a self-satisfied smirk playing across her lips. If the sunlight outside wearies her, she doesn’t show it. Mirabelle sits in Winnie’s chair opposite, furiously cleaning her behind as if to protest the malevolent woman usurping her chair.

Callista doesn’t rise when I enter. I pick up Mirabelle, unpick her claws from the cushion, and replace her gently on my lap as I sit down. “I’m needed in the village,” I say. I won’t tell her about the new body until I can confirm it’s a husking.

“I’ll keep this brief,” she says. “I’m leaving for Germany tomorrow evening. Perdita has agreed to return with me. She will visit our court before going on to her home in Italy.”

“I’ve already told you that I’m not leaving Black Crag Castle.”

She snorts. “Of course you aren’t. I do not wish you to accompany us.”

Her words hang heavy between us.

“Do you mean?—”

“Winnie has proven to me that although she is but a breakable human, she has the fire of a Valerian warrior in her veins. She was right about the ball – finding the killer and bringing him to justice has done more for my reputation than this marriage ever could. These cold veins of mine sizzle with energy once more. She was right about our law, too. I’m drafting a contraception amendment right now. It’s a genius political move. I am anxious to return to my castle and continue the work of building this alliance and putting down the stirring rebellion. Winifred is a worthy match for you, my son.”

“You mean?—”

“It’s been more than five centuries since I gave you the Kiss,” she says. “And still I have not learned that I cannot control you. I see that you have made your choice, and although Perdita is of the Blood Chastain and the match would be politically useful, I will not stand in the way of your happiness, Alaric. You have been unhappy for so long. I see now that many things in our world must change, so you will lead the way. I will bless the union between you and Winnie. And if our kin should have something to say of it, then they will fear the wrath of the Lady of Agony.”

She smiles then, a genuine smile, terrifying for its cold brutality.

“Thank you,” I say, with genuine warmth. “Mother.”

“Please, I am excited to plan another extravagant ball.” She flashes me a chilling smile. “You may set a date. Sooner is preferred. It would be politically advantageous.”

My heart stutters. That she gives me this gift now, after Winnie has run from me. “We haven’t discussed a wedding?—”

My words die away as Callista removes an envelope from the folds of her dress, sealed with red wax and the Valerian family crest, and holds it out to me.

“Not your wedding, son. I refer, of course, to the date for Winnie’s Kiss. Even after her bravery at the ball, it took much convincing on a pre-sunrise Zoom call when I’d have rather been torturing Baylor, but I have secured the permission of the Conclave.”

The red seal burns in my retinas.

I shake my head. “I won’t turn Winnie into one of us. Not unless she wishes it, and she does not.”

She’s made that clear.

“Alaric, you must .”

I stand, tipping Mirabelle unceremoniously to the floor. She turns to admonish me with her claws, but instead darts under the table as I fling myself across the room.

“You cannot change all of vampire society in one night, Alaric. They will accept a human on your arm, but only if they know she will become one of us. You do not understand how fragile our position is. You wish to stand against me to marry this human? This I respect. I can see now that your love for her is real and not merely a way for you to wriggle out of your responsibilities to our family. But we have laws, and the son of a noble bloodline is not exempt.”

I bow my head. “I won’t do it. It is Winnie’s choice, her life, not mine.”

“A vampire and a human cannot wed. She cannot live here with you in sin until she is dust and bones. It is too cruel, and I don’t say that lightly. Unlike contraception, there is no cure for mortality. You will undo our alliance with your pigheadedness. You will be cast out. I will be cast out.”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t care that you will lose Black Crag? The clans in England will not tolerate you living here with a human. After last night, you are no longer the reclusive lord hidden away in your remote castle. The entire Upyr community is watching you. They will notice. They will talk. And even the most progressive among them will turn on you as a tyrant if you do not grant her the Kiss.”

I think of the invitations blowing up my cursed phone. I hate that she’s correct. “There are factions who wish to change the laws. Just because something has always been done doesn’t mean that it?—”

“And there are those who will go to war with their kin to protect those laws. Is that what you want?” She glares at me. “I have let you live unchecked in this castle for too long. Have you thought what will happen when she grows old and you do not? What will happen to your heart when you must tend her death bed and live for the rest of eternity without her?”

“I—”

Callista’s dress crinkles as she leans back in her chair. “Turn her, Alaric, or I shall do it myself.”

“You will not touch her.”

“Very well, then you will marry Perdita. She told me she suggested that plan to you. A marriage of convenience. Keep Winnie as a Thrall, a toy like your little Reginald. It’s okay to break your toys.”

“I will not .”

“If you have given your heart to Winifred, that is your concern. She is a fine woman, and I’m sure, in time, she will become used to our ways. But she is not one of us. A marriage between a vampire and a human is an aberration. It would be like a wolf marrying a lamb. If you truly wish to bind your soul to hers, then she must be one of us. As a mother who cares for you, I will do that which you cannot. You may hate me for a century or two, but I’m used to your ire.”

Memories flare hot against the insides of my skull. Callista pulling me to her breast on the battlefield, spilling her blood into my mouth as she drank from me, the waves of agony and ecstasy that pulsed through my body as my soul died and was reborn a monster.

The idea of her fangs anywhere near Winnie…

“You would issue an ultimatum to your son?” I rasp.

“Would you expect anything less from me?” My mother smiles, and her sharp incisors glint in the candlelight. “I do this for your own good, Alaric. I do this because I love you, as blood loves blood. She is not one of us. But she could be. Turn her, or I will do it myself.”

She leaves me then, her skirts rustling as she glides from the room. My nails tear at the leather of the chair. Winnie is waiting for me in the village. I must go to her. I must explain?—

Callista will do it.

Winnie is in danger from more than one killer.

Her bright smile burns behind my eyes, hotter and more painful than the daylight peeking through the corners of the blackout curtains. I love her with the kind of fierce, reckless love that I have always believed impossible for a monster like me to experience. I am in awe of her heart and her bravery and her kindness. I am jealous of the sunlight that gets to touch her skin. I am made anew every time she smiles at me.

I love her, but she cannot survive me.

I love her too much to make her like me.

There is only one way to save her…