The Blood Ruby (The Arcane Artifacts #2)

Chapter 16 - Passing of Time

The days following my ordeal bled one into another. A mix of dazed, sleep deprived moments, times where I ended up somewhere—the drawing room, the library, the dining room, various sitting rooms, the activities room, the garden—and couldn't remember how I'd gotten there. I picked up books and didn't finish them. I pushed food around my plate, only to watch Vittorio frown when I didn't eat everything.

Each day was a battle against my mind, memories that weren't just mine. That made it a thousand times worse. Now I had memories from Laurent. I'd gone from hating him to fearing him. Owning his memories didn't make me any less frightened. Being subjected to the events in his life—years and years of it—made me better understand what he truly was.

A cold-hearted killer, without a shred of kindness or decency. He could bite into a throat, rip out a heart, or both simultaneously, faster than I could blink. His decisions were made with precise calculation, void of emotion, to serve his own agenda.

"Blood is a person's identity," Zola had explained the day after I'd awoken. "It carries memories. The more you ingest, the more of that person you carry. Laurent gave you a lot of blood."

A lot of blood. It made me feel...contaminated. I got nauseous whenever I considered it, despite the faint itch that also accompanied the thought.

"He didn't have a choice, darling. You were...not well." As she'd said it, her eyes darted to my fingers, and I knew she was thinking of what they'd done. I'd felt every single bone break.

When I'd asked why none of the other vampires had given me their blood, she'd simply pursed her lips and said, "He never would have allowed that."

I knew why, and it killed me. Killed me that he'd given me enough of himself to better understand him, if only I cared to look. I did my best not to. Did my best to ignore his memories, to stay far away from them. But there were times, when the silence stretched on, when the sound of my screams echoed too loudly in my own head, that I grew weak and turned to his memories for escape. Like a book I could climb into.

Nights were even worse. I'd wake gasping, sometimes screaming, caught in between paralysis, back in the same awful facility. In those initial waking moments, my terror would spill out of me, and I'd crawl to the bathroom to empty my guts. I usually didn't go back to sleep for hours. Sometimes, I'd hear the faint sounds of a violin melding with my dreams, and I'd wonder if I was losing my mind.

Initially, I couldn't bear to leave my room, but as each day passed, I took to wandering the halls of the manor. I needn't have worried, they were always empty. The only vampires I saw, on rare occasions, were Hassan, Vittorio, and Zola. Sometimes I called Ania, just to listen to her voice. But trying to hide this from her, lying to her, making things up about my vacation, left an empty feeling in my belly. At least she was having fun on her trip—that made one of us.

Occasionally, I paused my wandering to stand in the drawing room and stare at the beautiful piano. I still hadn't played it after that day. During my initial days, I'd avoided it out of embarrassment. Now I avoided it because the desire that used to be there felt cracked and wounded.

Most days I found myself in the library. The first few, I browsed the collections of books, nosing through each vampire's section. Except Laurent's. That was, until I discovered a beautiful journal and fountain pen sitting on the draft table. My name, Lily Winifred Shaw, was embossed into the leather of the cover. A stack of brand new mathematics text books sat beside it. Most of them were familiar to me, topics I'd taken during my undergraduate education.

Someone had been thoughtful. Vittorio? Zola? Perhaps Hassan, who always seemed to notice things others didn't in his quiet, watchful way. A soft smile stretched across my lips. It felt rusty and unused. But I dusted the cobwebs off and let my cheeks bunch.