Anne Brontë Nightwalker

Chapter 44

Shadows flicker at the edge of my vision like quivering ghosts as I awake in an expansive room. Heavy wooden beams crisscross the cathedral ceiling. Flames hiss and pop in a great stone fireplace, the only light in the room. Heads of murdered animals line the walls like morbid curiosities, trophies of pain. Nausea rises in my stomach at the sight of them. There are stags and bear, a mountain lion, a zebra—all emblems of death, stuffed and displayed with pride.

The windows are flung open wide and a freezing wind groans through the trees like an abandoned lover. Starlight slips inside, dusting the room with the faintest of glows and I try to sense how much night is left. I am weakened from blood loss. Webb has drained me enough to be a pliant captive, too frail to fight back.

He's wrapped me in the softest of furs and placed me on a couch. My head rests on a leopard-pelted pillow. He sits before me in a leather chair studded with metal nails, looking at me with an expression of deep concern. As I wake, I see him before me, taking slow deep breaths. Although not tall, he must have been immensely strong as a man, with broad shoulders and thick arms and thighs. Built for power, not grace. A swinger of clubs, not dancer of sabers.

My heart begins to race in my chest from blood loss and fear. I feel like a child next to a king's champion. He is impossible to fight through physical means. In a haze, I think back to all the stories I have ever read: legends, epics, fairy tales, and myths. How did the hero survive? Odysseus? Persephone? Gretel? But my mind is a swirling vortex, unable to grasp any conscious thought. I can't make it work. Webb compels my attention, sitting still and dangerous, mere feet away.

Head swimming, I pull myself up to a sitting position.

"You are delicate," he says. "I've never seen one of our kind who has lived like you and survived so long in civilization. I thought I was the great anomaly. Why do you starve yourself? Is it a psychological weakness you had as a mortal?"

I shake my head, trying to clear the fog from my mind. "I . . ." My voice comes out a raspy whisper. My wrist is throbbing and I cradle it with my other hand. "I know how it feels to lose people. I don't wish to torment others with despair."

He smiles. "A sensitive soul."

"Loss has taught me compassion. Have you not lost anyone?" I wonder when he was turned.

"Not really. My mother died when I was a small boy. My father died decades ago, but he hasn't been missed."

"Did he love you?"

"No. He was a surgeon. A son was the least of his priorities. That was the fifties when childcare was a woman's domain."

"Love and protection of a child is a father's domain as well."

Webb smiles sadly. "Who can protect us from this? No mortal. Did your father protect you?"

I look away to hide my grief.

"There's no room for mortals in our life, Anne. They will never be able to protect you. But I can."

"Like you protected Dana?"

His eyes grow hard. "She belonged to me and was not for you to take, but you are far more my type."

"Tractable."

"Pure."

"I'm a vampire. How can you call me pure?"

"It's all over you. I smell it on you. I taste it in your blood. You're a virgin."