33. Whitley Whitt

Chapter 33

Whitley Whitt

Spilling the beans .

“I love him,” I whisper to the empty library, then collapse into a chair in front of the fireplace.

The movement sends dust motes scattering in the air, shining with the morning sun from the uncovered windows. Fuck me.

He said he loves me . And I never even said it back, even though I wanted to, although I don’t think he noticed since he was too busy draining his balls in me.

The kicker of it is, I’ve had this niggling sensation in the back of my mind ever since he mentioned the Van Helsings, and I have no idea what to do or say, or how to approach telling him an ancestor of mine could have been someone who hurt him. I half fought having sex with him at all, even as the want to plead for him to fuck my pussy yesterday became overwhelming. As much as he can scent me, I can perceive his scent too, and it changes when he gets horny. It’s sweeter to the senses somehow.

I’ve been needing his cock for days, even as I was avoiding him for something that wasn’t his fault. Now I feel like a complete asshole.

My plan of reading a book as a distraction didn’t play out how I thought it would. I assumed I would have time to read a book, rub one out, and go about my day with him none the wiser, not wanting to complicate things further since it feels like I’m keeping a secret.

But then he showed up—because of course he did.

The idea that I could ever deny Connor anything, especially when he’s offering his big powerful body up on a silver platter, is laughable. My insides tighten with apprehension at how guilty I feel about not telling him.

I rub my palms into my eye sockets and try to think. All I’ve done today is attempt to keep my head down and do my job, but now most of the guests have left. I stand up and stretch out my limbs, pressing my hands into my lower back as I stick my chest out and arch my spine, then look around the library.

I have no idea what Connor truly went through, and no way of knowing how he will react. My gaze slips from the sunbeams slanting through the massive windows, whose green velvet curtains have been tied back with gold tassels, to the oak shelves lining the room.

“There’s gotta be at least a hundred shelves in here,” I mutter to myself. “I wonder if there’s anything here on lycans.”

Thirty minutes later, I blow a curl of hair from my face, no longer in doubt that I’ve bitten off a bit more than I can chew.

I don’t fail to notice I’m a coward. A coward looking for books instead of just confessing and talking it out, but my love for him is just so new. I’m scared shitless of having him and losing him in the span of a week, then being stuck like this, a wolfish freak, without him. Every strand of hair on my body stands on end and I fight to keep control of myself. I let out a sigh of relief when my hair tie magically holds, and I rein myself in.

I don’t think I can do this without him... and isn’t that realization just terrifying?!

If I had any idea where Odette’s room is, I would ask her.

Maybe she could tell me how big of a deal it is and gauge how mad he will be at me.

I’m not sure how Connor would feel about me asking her anything, but if anyone knows if my ancestors had something to do with it, she will. I would go ask Allan for her room number, but I have no idea what to say. Hey, Allan, do you know which room the Witch Queen is in? And wouldn’t that just raise more red flags than what it’s worth?

Even then, I’m not so sure she ever technically checked in. Who knows, with her being a supernatural. Shit.

My shoulders slump as another thought enters my mind: Odette could have left already, and I wouldn’t know. It may not even be an option anymore, which still leaves me pilfering through the library, trying to open every book and drawer I can find.

“I’m really going to have to learn lock picking to get anywhere with this,” I mutter under my breath as I yank on a knob, my nose twitching from the specks of dust filtering through the air.

Common sense tells me that the library may not have all the information, but it will have something, and something is always better than nothing. If only the people who lived here left their desk drawers unlocked; it would make my whole life easier.

I blow out a harsh breath and push the wisps of my hair from my face. An old grandfather clock ticks loudly, and the smell of musty carpet and paper fills my nose with every inhale. I creep around the bookshelf and run my fingers along the old leather spines.

It would help if I could read all of them. At this rate, it seems I will need to add learning Romanian to my list of tasks before I get anywhere.

A breath leaves me on a heavy sigh and my shoulders slump.

Dear god, do I have it bad or what? But the idea that he could somehow now be repulsed by me makes me ill. Just the thought has my stomach seizing.

A month ago, I was so ready to get this job over with so I could go home and buy my bakery. Now I have no idea what I’m doing.

If he doesn’t want me, will he try to force me to leave?

Just as I’m admiring a pretty candlestick, I sense someone with a strange, charged energy behind me. My fur crawls along my forearms, my heartbeat thunders in my ears, and even my hair wigs out, threatening my poor hair tie again.

I’ve been so on edge as of late, hiding from Connor and now sneaking around in the library, that I don’t even register what I’m doing.

My hand tightens around the ornate metal candlestick as I turn... and throw it as hard as I can at the poor unsuspecting person who has snuck up on me. It’s not their fault, but my brain and body are so haywire these days that nothing seems to make sense with me.

At the sound of fingers snapping, a bright light appears a foot in front of my face, and the candlestick comes to a grinding halt in the air.

I gasp and freeze in place at the sight of Odette looking furious, her rainbow gaze swirling ominously.

“Oh my god! I almost took you out. Whoops!” I paste an apologetic smile on my lips. Relief floods me that I didn’t manage to smack her with the candlestick, and then again when I realize she hasn’t left the castle yet and I can ask some questions.

Her nose wrinkles, and the rainbows fade back to her normal dark-brown irises as she looks at me like I’m a few crayons shy of a full box.

“What?” I blurt, my face heating when she uses her magic to return my useless weapon to where it belongs.

“You have claws now, so why are you wielding a candlestick?” she retorts, and goes back to what she was doing.

A little orb of light floats close to her head, illuminating her black hair and bronzed skin. Although it’s daytime, she obviously prefers the additional light, especially as she enters a dimly lit area. She then bends over a cabinet filled with index cards cataloging the library’s contents, I assume.

“I keep forgetting.” I flex my claws, watching them make terrifying shadow shapes around the room with the brightness of her magical orb thing. “What are you doing?”

I glance down at her new outfit, a long-sleeved navy-blue jumpsuit and cream-colored shoes that I would break my neck trying to walk in, even with my new reflexes.

“Looking for something.”

Her fingers begin to race through the cards in front of her at an alarmingly inhuman speed. She cocks her hip and lifts a brow, then her hands go to her hips as the index cards still flap noisily in the background.

“Am I allowed to know what that something is?” I ask, my tone revealing my annoyance at how evasive she’s trying to be.

“An old book my sister left here, but I doubt Vlad and Doyle have been keeping good records.” She crosses her arms over her chest, and a chair materializes behind her, catching her as she throws herself into it and hangs her head over the back of it with a dramatic flare. “Men are infuriating.”

A glass manifests in her hand and an olive appears on a stick.

“Tell me about it,” I respond, before thinking better of it.

She tips the glass into her mouth and cocks her head at me. “You have it better than most with Connor, believe me.”

Odette gets to her feet and waves a hand, flicking her fingers oddly. My jaw drops at what I’m seeing. She’s out of her chair with her back to me, her hand waving in front of a bookshelf... that isn’t a bookshelf at all.

I take a step closer to get a better look. “Wow,” I breathe, and jostle her from behind.

She tsks with disapproval as I make my way around her and into the small hidden room that wasn’t there a moment ago.

“What is this place?” I ask, marveling at the exposed brick and intricate metal spiral staircase that continues upstairs, and at the many bookshelves lining the space.

“One neither of us should be in,” Odette says as she saunters into the dimly lit hidden library without care. “But I know a certain powerful maid that should have a grimoire I want hidden inside here, even if she would blow a gasket if she found me rifling through her stuff. I trust you’ll keep this as our little secret, otherwise I’ll turn you into a rodent or a frog or something.”

I pin her with a glare and cross my arms over my chest. “Tell me what I want to know, and I will forget this cozy little reading room exists,” I whisper.

She raises an elegant brow, and a slow, calculating smile curls the corners of her mouth up. Suddenly I feel like a baitfish in a shark tank.

My gaze wanders around the room and lands on a metal sconce in the shape of a bat, lit with a purple flame. Holy shit.

“Go on then. Ask away, but don’t be shy with the details when it’s my turn to ask some questions,” she says, and waves her hand for me to get on with it while she rummages through a really old desk.

I loosen my arms and toe at the worn wooden floorboards that look like they haven’t seen a cleaning in a hundred years. “What do the Van Helsings mean to you?”

“They’re a group of hunters who hunt down the supernatural. Why?” She rummages through an old trunk and begins to snap her fingers this way and that while muttering. “You would think a neat freak would keep this place in a better state. It doesn’t look like she’s been in it for centuries.” Then she huffs in frustration. “Fuck this.”

The purple flame sconces flare suddenly, and the air in the room constricts.

I gulp down a wave of apprehension and stand still, trying to not get in the way as books and odd things start to whiz by my head, reminding me of a scene from The Sword and the Stone where Merlin starts tossing shit into his bag. My gaze catches on an old book with leather bound around it that magically slides into a shelf on the opposite wall neatly, and I have to admit, magic is seriously cool.

A crumpled note floats over to the wastepaper basket and drops in, and I blink. She’s cleaning while she looks through things. Now that’s a handy trick.

Reining in my wandering thoughts, I ask, “Out of curiosity, who all did the Van Helsings hunt? Were they like... really bad?” I ask, sliding into a vacant chair behind the large, ornate desk in the room, trying to keep out of her way as she works her magic.

Odette scoffs. “Did Connor bring them up?” she asks, her tone concerned and not nonchalant for once. “Yes, they were that bad. I mean, tracking down werewolves and experimenting on them is bad enough, but what they tried to do to Connor... oof. And don’t get me started on what they did to the ghouls.”

My stomach sinks, dread spreading through my middle. “What did they do to Connor?”

“What didn’t they do?” she responds. “That’s a better question to ask.”

My stomach flip-flops and sinks even further, and fear has my heart tripping in its cage.

I clear my throat and fidget with my fingers, picking at my cuticle as she stares. “Odette, my great-great-grandmother was a Van Helsing.”

“What?” She rears back from me, and the sound of fluttering stops as the ancient room goes dark, the purple flames extinguished. Her anger turns palpable in the air. “What do you mean, you’re one of them?” she hisses, her voice low and pissed right off.

“I didn’t know it was a big deal!”

“Keep your voice down.” Odette paces for a long moment in her designer shoes. “Shit, this is bad.”

I want to vomit. “Why is it bad ?”

The Witch Queen huffs and moves to sit in the chair opposite me, worry lining her beautiful features. “It’s bad because they hunted him, captured and tortured him, and he killed them for it, Whitley.”

The blood drains from my face and I break out in a cold sweat. “What?!”

Purple flares in the sconce again, eerily illuminating the place, and I don’t like the way her brow is furrowed. She stares at me as if truly seeing me for the first time.

“Fate would be a cruel bitch,” she says. “No wonder you have lycan blood. Dr. Augustine Van Helsing discovered one of his own family members was a lycan and he wanted to ‘fix’ them while experimenting on them. Of course, no one knows about that dirty little family secret, but it’s the whole reason Connor was hunted so mercilessly. It’s your own ancestor’s blood that changed him—its delivery was just wrong since it was through a werewolf bite. The change nearly killed him.” Then Odette narrows her gaze on me in what I can safely guess is spite. “The lycan and Van Helsing blood in your veins is the root of all his suffering.”

My heartbeat trips, thudding with alarm. The crackling of the flame flickering in the sconce echoes in my brain like static.

For the first time in a long time, probably since my grandparents died, I felt true hope. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, chasing a dream and my own survival. I couldn’t stay in New Orleans, so I took the first opportunity I could and ran away.

I fled here and found him.

Now, I have a new dream, one he is the center of. Not only that, but he’s also now the center of my universe, and somehow, I’ve hurt him without even understanding how, or how much. It has to be okay. There’s no way I’m going to lose him or everything I’ve worked so hard for since I’ve started working here.

“Don’t tell him just yet,” Odette says, and purses her lips in thought as she resumes her pacing. Finally she pauses and flicks her gaze back to mine. “He hated them, Whitley. I thought they died out years ago. Most of us worked together to eradicate them.”

My heart seizes in my chest, and I grip the edge of the chair, my claws erupting as all my hair stands on end. “Odette... what do I do?”

“Let me think on this and figure it out. Maybe we can break it to him gently.”

“Break it to him gently that my ancestors are the reason he was in pain for three hundred years?” I bite out sarcastically and force my change to recede. This is a disaster.

“Don’t panic,” she says. “Everything should be fine.”

“Telling tales, Odette?” Connor asks, and even without looking at him, I can tell his voice is devoid of emotion.

I was so distracted by Odette’s reaction I didn’t hear or smell him approaching. It doesn’t help that this room is covered in so much dust it’s making my nose twitch like I’m having an allergic reaction.

My back straightens and I turn around. Fear races down my spine at the sight of him in a full-breasted suit at the hidden doorway. Chills crest over my body, from my scalp to my toes, at the vile look he gives me.

“Connor, I can explain,” I blurt, nausea threatening to double me over at the contempt on his face. He won’t look at me.

He glares at Odette, like I don’t exist.

“That’s my cue,” she says. She shoots me a look and winces as if to say sorry before snapping her fingers and disappearing from the room, leaving me alone to face him.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, unable to keep the words from being said.

I walk toward him, wanting to touch him, maybe even comfort him, but the growl that comes from him stops me in my tracks. His face looks so stiff and hateful, and he cranes his neck to the side to reveal fur lifting to the surface before he manages to hold back his shift. He looks enraged, and the yellow in his eyes is predatory and frightful. All I can sense is contempt.

He says nothing as he turns from me and strides away.

“Connor.” Tears threaten, burning the back of my eyes as my heart breaks. I hold my breath, knots forming in my stomach when he pauses and looks back over his shoulder.

His gaze locks with mine for a beat, and with a sneer, he finally speaks.

“Get. Out.”