Chapter 23

Charlotte Sanguinite

I didn't even bother with my slippers, my mind hazy.

It's the same thing every night.

The woods, that spot by the waterfall.

I keep seeing it in my dream.

My hand, tightly held by the man walking next to me.

I see the path we take.

I need to see it. I need to go.

My feet hit the wet mud, but I don't care. The dream from tonight jolted me awake, my heart pounding, this vicious need building inside my head, this throbbing sensation that won't go away until I see it, until I know.

My thoughts are a tangled mess. I can't distinguish one from the other. The only prominent thought in my mind is to find that waterfall again. Robert took me there. I know where it is. I have to find that rock, that cave, the one from my dreams.

The urge is especially strong tonight, and I cross the road.

I can barely feel the scraping of the stones, the rough ground underneath my feet.

I keep on walking, no concept of time in my mind, stuck in a state of deliriousness. Something is screaming within me, but I can't find the will to focus on anything but the goal in my mind.

Although we drove here, I remember the way almost as if a map has opened up in my mind. Once in the woods, I go deeper, stumbling over roots and picking myself up, wiping my hands on my pajamas. The sound of falling water has me breathing easily.

I'm here.

This is it.

I head toward the waterfall.

I just have to—

A hand grabs me as soon as I put one foot in the water. I'm yanked back against a hard chest, and a familiar voice growls, "What the hell are you doing?"

My head jerks up, and I see a furious-looking Robert glaring at me. I stare at him blankly, the noise inside my head fading away.

"Wh—What?"

He whirls me around, forcing me to face him, both hands gripping me by the arms. "What were you planning to do, Charlotte?!"

I've never heard Robert so angry before. And even when he's been mad, he has never directed his rage at me. To see him this way makes me freeze up. "What are you talking about?"

"Why were you getting in the water?" He gives me a little shake, and then I see it, the raw fear in those cerulean blue eyes.

"The rock," I manage to say. "I was trying to get to the rock. Th—The one from my dream."

His brows furrow, some of the anger dissipating. "What rock?"

"Let go of me. You're hurting me." I pull away from him, and he releases me. Rubbing my arms, I point to the center of the water. "That rock. I was trying to get to it."

"In the middle of the fucking night?" Robert gapes at me. "Is it made of gold or something? And what dream? What are you rambling on about?"

I take a few steps back, reality suddenly crashing down around me. As I rub my eyes, it hits me that I walked all the way from the house to here, this place in the woods, the one Robert brought me to on our date, the one I've been seeing in my dream lately.

"I wasn't sleepwalking," I mutter. "I was awake, but I was not here. There was this strange pressure in my head. I had to come here. Had to find the cave."

"What cave, Charlotte?" Robert's voice lowers as he grabs my hand to stop me from trying to pull my hair out.

"In my dream, it's always the same, the same path, this waterfall. That rock opens a cave. I have to get to the cave."

Robert's hands cup my face now. "Sweetheart, why?"

He doesn't tell me I'm being ridiculous. He doesn't call me a lunatic.

"I don't know." I shake my head, meeting his gaze. "I just have to. It's in my head. It's driving me mad, Robert."

His face is tense, and then he lets out a shaky breath. "Alright. If you need to do this, whatever this is, let's do it. But you're not getting in that water. It's too cold, and I don't want you getting sick. Also, here." He takes off his shoes and puts them on me. "Stop damaging your feet. There are a thousand stones and sticks and critters in these woods."

My heart grows full as he looks up at me from where he's crouched.

"I know they're big, but you're going to have to make do, okay?"

I nod mutely.

"Okay," he says, getting to his feet. "Let's do this. Which rock is it?"

"The one in the middle." I point it out. "I can go myself."

The buzzing in my head has started up again, but Robert is already treading into the water. It's deeper than it looks, I realize, the water reaching his chest. And as he gets closer to the rock, the water begins to submerge him even more.

"Robert!"

"I'm fine!" he calls out over the sound of the rushing water. "I can swim."

And that's exactly what he does. I watch him swim to the large rock in the center, and when he reaches it, he turns to look at me as if to ask, "What now?"

"There's a—" In the dream, I reach into a crevice. "Is there a space there?"

"A what?" Robert gives me a blank look.

"A space, like a crevice, somewhere you can hide something. You're looking for a key."

I expect him to turn around and tell me I'm batshit crazy, but he doesn't. My blood is thrumming with an excitement that should be mine, but it isn't.

"A key," Robert echoes, circling the rock. He does a thorough check, and then his eyes widen. For a moment, he disappears out of sight, and when he reemerges, he's holding something in his hand.

As he wades back toward me, I hurry forward, fighting against the rising need in my head. "Let's get you home. You'll get sick. It's too cold—"

"What does the key open?"

I look in the direction of the waterfall before forcibly shaking my head to dispel this desperate feeling inside me. The key, the cave, the door. Whatever possessed me to come out here at this time of night is once again trying to gain control. When it came to me, it was hard to fight back. But because it's Robert who's standing before me, soaking wet, his eyes wide as he stares down at the key in his hand, it's easy to turn my back.

Not yet.

Robert comes first.

"We'll come back later," I insist, but he shakes his head.

"We're already here. So, where's the lock for this key?"

I relent. "It's behind the waterfall."

"Interesting." Robert grins despite being completely soaked in this cold weather. "This is like a treasure hunt in the middle of the night. Things are never going to be boring with you around, Charlotte."

My lips twitch without my meaning for them to. I don't know how he can make me want to laugh even in this sort of situation.

Getting past the waterfall is easier than I thought. There is a large gap behind the sheet of water that is only visible if you stand at a certain angle. We manage to climb up and then behind it.

"There's nothing but a cave here," Robert mutters, running his hands over the surface. However, I know exactly where to look. Moving forward, I take two steps to the right and touch a piece of the stone.

"Here. I can't see properly in the dark. What do you see?"

Robert comes to stand next to me. "There's a door. Hold on."

I feel him move, and then there is a clicking sound.

"Get back, Charlotte," Robert warns. "It's a bit rusty. I'm going to have to force it."

I move aside, and then I hear him kick the door. It makes a groaning sound as it opens.

"Stay behind me." Robert warns.

"You don't have to tell me twice," I mutter, the whispers in my head finally dying out and leaving me in peace. "I still can't see anything, though. What do you see?"

"Narrow passage," Robert replies after a moment's hesitation. "I hate tight spaces."

"You don't have to—"

He doesn't let me finish my sentence. "I'll go first."

I follow him, wondering why he's so determined to do this. He's probably curious, just like me. We walk for quite a while before Robert stops and I bump into his back.

"Robert?"

"Stay here and don't move," he orders, his footsteps echoing away from me a second later. The smart move would be to listen to him since I don't know what is in here, but I've already made a series of dumb decisions tonight. What's one more?

"Charlotte…" Robert's growl vibrates through my bones as I cover the distance between us and grab the back of his wet shirt for guidance.

"I got scared standing there by myself," I claim, smiling at the back of his head.

"I don't know if anyone has ever told you, but you're a terrible liar," he mutters. "Stay close. I know you can't see in the dark."

I've never had anyone try to protect me or shield me the way Robert does. It makes me want to lean on him.

After a couple minutes, the tiny passage suddenly widens into a room that is just as dark. My free hand grazes something that feels like the surface of a mirror. It's not fixed in place, and as I run my fingers over it, it moves—and for a moment, there is a flash of light.

"What the hell was that?" Robert exclaims.

My hand drops from the back of his shirt, and I rotate the mirror. Out of nowhere, when I hold it at a certain angle, the room suddenly lights up, and I have to squint.

"What did you do?" Robert turns to look at me, and when I open my eyes, I notice that there are mirrors all over the place. Small ones.

But I haven't heard his question. My eyes are staring straight ahead at a larger-than-life portrait of a couple. Robert sees my shocked look and follows my gaze. I hear his sharp intake of breath.

When he looks back at me, I shake my head. "I'm just as astounded as you are."

"What is this place, Charlotte?" His voice is hard. "Why is there a huge-ass portrait of us in medieval clothes? And how did you know where this was?"

The whole thing seems a little too suspicious, and I can't blame Robert for doubting me.

"I didn't do this." I look at the couple in the portrait. The whole room is covered in dust, but there is no mistaking the faces of the couple. "They do look like us."

There are shelves in the corner with books on them, boxes, weapons, utensils.

"I've been having dreams for a very long time," I admit. "Of walking through these woods, a man by my side. That was why the idea of leaving Portland was so hard. Every time I considered it, it felt like something was tying me here, and I realized it was the constant dreams. I didn't recognize the path in the dream, but it was always the same place, the same woods. When you brought me to the waterfall, it was slightly familiar, but I didn't think much of it." I run my fingers through my hair, agitated. "But tonight…It was tonight when I woke up that I suddenly knew where this place was. And my mind sort of went hazy. I couldn't control my actions. It was almost like somebody was forcing me to walk here. I knew about a key, and about the place behind the waterfall, but I didn't know what was inside. I swear it."

Robert looks around, and then he lets out a sigh. "You don't have to swear. I believe you. But what is this place? And who are those people?"

The woman in the portrait is sitting on a chair, her wild, red hair flowing like mine, her expression soft and relaxed. The man with Robert's face has his hand on her shoulder as he stands behind her, his eyes alert.

"There's a plaque at the bottom," Robert suddenly murmurs, moving forward. He wipes the dust off the iron plate with his sleeve and reads, "Jean and Lucian Whitlock." His body tenses noticeably. "Whitlock. I know that name. In fact, I'm pretty sure I know who this man was."

"Who?" I come to stand beside him, curious.

"He was the Alpha of the Whitlock Pack. He was prominent in ending the war with the vampires, but the Whitlock Pack was erased from history after a couple of centuries. There's very little mention of the end of the war, you see, and a lot of the packs involved integrated with each other either for the sake of numbers or because they wanted new starts. As time went by, most of our archives disappeared along with the packs fading away. But Lucian Whitlock is a legend. I never knew he looked like me."

"What about the woman next to him?" I lean forward to read her name. "Jean?"

"She can't be his mate," Robert says, staring at the couple. "I've never heard of Lucian ever taking one. A very basic biography of him still exists, and there's no mention of a mate." He squints up at the portrait. "But that's a mating mark on her neck."

I follow his gaze and see something on the woman's neck in the picture. Weird for the painter to be so specific.

"Maybe he did take a mate." I shrug. However, I can't help but stare at the woman.

Jean.

The only Jean I know of is Jean Sanguinite, an ancestor of mine who lived, coincidentally, at the same time as Lucian. Jean was a strategist and the leader of the Nelo Clan. There is no portrait of her in the clan's archives. In fact, it seems like someone deliberately wiped out all evidence of her existence. But stories cannot be erased. Jean is considered nothing short of a saint in vampire culture. She swooped in and outsmarted the wolves, securing a favorable outcome for our kind and preventing more blood from being shed. Even the most arrogant of vampires respect her name. It never made any sense to me why there is no portrait of her.

This woman…She has to be Jean Sanguinite. Why else would she look so much like me?

But mated to a wolf Alpha, the enemy at that time? And not just any enemy, but the one she would have been facing head-on? It doesn't make sense.

"I must be wrong," I mumble to myself. "It can't be her."

I force my eyes away from her face and look around the room. I don't understand what this place is. Maybe some kind of medieval storage unit?

It's evident that nobody has been here for a very long time. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. I make my way over to the boxes and open one of them.

Jewelry, trinkets, hair pins.

I reach for an emerald necklace, but as soon as my fingers make contact with it, I feel a rush of emotion, and I immediately retract my hand, my heart beating wildly. I don't try touching it again.

Closing the box, I approach the shelves. I take out the book closest to me. Brushing off the dust, I realize it's a strategy book, written in delicate penmanship. The paper is fragile, but the tome is bound with great care. The other side of the shelf seems to have hard-bound journals. It's like an entire couple's life secured in one small room.

I hear a scraping sound, and I turn my head to see Robert picking up a stack of small portraits from one of the iron boxes in the corner.

"What are those?" I ask. He's staring at one of the pictures, and when I go peek over his shoulder, my face instantly feels hot, and I look away. "That's porn! The medieval version of it, anyway."

The red-haired woman is posing in a rather sultry manner, scantily clad. The painting is amateurish in nature.

"Will you stop gawking at it?!" I blurt at Robert. "She looks like me!"

"I know," Robert replies, his voice strange. "There are more."

I pick up a few of them. They're rather small, the size of my forearm.

"They had children," I breathe, looking at the crudely painted kids with bright, beaming smiles. The girl looks older; she's laughing, and my eyes focus on her mouth. What I see there has my hands trembling.

It's not possible. There is no way.

Robert must sense that something is off because he looks at the painting in my hands. "What is it?"

"Her teeth," I say softly, convinced I'm imagining things. "Look at the girl's teeth."

As Robert leans closer, I stare down at the obvious fangs in the girl's mouth.

"Young vampires, under the age of seven, have large fangs. They grow into them as the years pass. Tell me I'm seeing things because—"

"It's not a mistake." Robert sounds shocked. "They're painted very clearly. The younger kid has his mouth closed, but the girl…There's no denying it."

I'm not an idiot. It's not hard to put two and two together.

"This is Jean Sanguinite," I whisper, picking up one of her portraits. "But how? There's no mention in my clan of her mating a wolf shifter."

Robert looks just as stunned.

"Maybe that's why they were erased from our histories," Robert murmurs. "It makes sense. Neither side would want it to be revealed that shifters and vampires can mate with each other and have children. It would create a special kind of chaos."

"But it was done," I point out, "and most likely in the midst of war. I don't know the full details of how a peace treaty was reached or what it entailed. There's information on other peace treaties over the years, but nothing about the one from this time period. Perhaps Jean and Lucian chose to bind the shifters and the wolves together to stop the war. After all, they were both powerful people."

"I don't see that happening."

"Then maybe they fell in love," I whisper, feeling my heart drumming against its cage. "And when they refused to give each other up, it turned the tides of the war."

Robert is silent, and I see the way his hands clench around the portrait.

I clear my throat. "Either way, they lived together, had children together. The war ended. There was peace. So, maybe it all worked out."

"But it wasn't agreeable to both sides in the future generations," Robert muses, "so they chose to erase this part of our history."

My hand grazes his; his skin is icy cold to the touch.

"Robert!" I give him a horrified look. "You're going to freeze to death. Let's go back!"

"There's so much to see—"

"We'll come back later," I insist. "Let's go."

He's reluctant, and before we leave, I see him cast one more look at the lifelike portrait hanging from the cave wall. He locks the door and then hands the key to me. Outside, walking through the woods now, he remarks, "This is a lot to take in. Let's not talk to anybody about this. What do you think?"

I nod. "Yeah. But it's going to come out sooner or later. You know that, don't you?"

He shrugs, then glances at me. "By the way, what had you so worked up today? Ricky told me you were upset."

I go still as the events from this afternoon come rushing back to me.

"Charlotte?"

I stare at him, feeling numb.

When Robert tries to touch me, I step back, avoiding him.

My voice is strangled as I say, "When were you going to tell me you're engaged?"

The way the blood drains from Robert's face makes my heart sink.