I had Mum’s cross, and my kitchen knife. I would carry my letter to Roche Rock and leave it at Mr. Tregarrick’s door.
“And Yet I Live”
Harker
Though my acquaintance with Mina—which she had thankfully survived—would now come to an end, it hadn’t stopped me from thinking of her.
That first hint of her honeyed scent on the breeze almost drove me from the battlements onto the rocks below. My feelings about her had become so entangled with the bloodlust that there was no separating them. I craved the sound of her voice. The fragrance of her skin and hair. The taste of her own sweet vital essence.
I could have none of these things, and if I tried, she would be lost forever to me and everyone who loved her. I felt a twinge of sympathy for my father and his father, whose marriages I’d viewed as no better than murders. Mina had shown me that staring down countless long decades with no companionship was a fate worse than death.
And yet I live.
The constable had entered my home yesterday evening for the second time, having come to notify me that another corpse had been discovered near the estate; I was beginning to know his smell almost as well as Mina’s. Wherever she’d gone this morning, he had accompanied her. On his visit here, he’d made no mention of Mina accusing me of the attack on her, so I assumed she hadn’t. I had all but blurtedout a confession before it occurred to me that the truth might sully her in the eyes of the village.It must be her decision.
As I sat down with a pot of tea, I stared across the table at her empty chair, wondering how I had so miscalculated. In my laboratory I had let her see what I truly was. I had felt how close she was to fleeing. One more small show of aggression would have sufficed.
I was too weak to do the job properly.
She had a kind heart, and my honesty, instead of making her truly afraid of me, had aroused a compassionate interest. Which had come like an offer of water to a man lost in the desert. I hadn’t the strength to refuse it.
Groaning softly, I lifted the pot to fill my cup. Cool air moved through the casement, and I froze.
She’s coming.
Stomach dropping, I set the pot down so carelessly tea sloshed from the spout. I started up from the table.
There was nothing I could do to stop her, and I couldn’t trust myself to ignore her knock. But I could at least choose the ground we met on.
Stones
As I neared the chapel—winded and weak limbed, though the climb hadn’t gotten steep yet—I spotted Mr. Tregarrick coming down the path and stopped. His quick stride set my heart galloping.
I had half turned to escape him, as if such a thing were possible, when he, too, stopped, leaving more than a carriage length between us. His eyes dipped to the bandage around my neck. The rush of heat—the sudden memory of our bodies pressed together—came as a shock. I took a slow and shaky breath, aware my cheeks were apple-peel red.
How these sensations and reactions to him confused and frightened me! One moment I hovered on the point of flight. The next, I longed for him to come closer.
As my eyes moved over him, I noticed the wound athisthroat, just above the ruffled collar of his shirt—a small cross, charred into the skin. When he’d asked me to wear the necklace, how little I’d imagined I would use it to save myself fromhim.
The change in him took my breath away. The cool tones of his skin had warmed, and there was even a flush in his cheeks. He wore his spectacles, but they rested low on the bridge of his nose, and how his eyes shone! His skin, too, gleamed with youth, and even his hair had lost its ashy tint, leaving a rich, deep brown. Everything about him was brighter and more alive—except his expression.
“Mina.” The word was a handful of earth tossed onto a coffin.
“I had not meant to disturb you again, sir,” I blurted out unsteadily. “I only meant to leave a note asking you to send your man to me. I’ve learned things in the last two days that you should know. Things that may help you.” I bit my lip. “But it will be much better to tell you directly.”
His dismay was plain. “You would put yourlifeat risk to help me. Have you stopped to think why?”
His gaze burned into me. Even with some distance between us, I could see his eyes had changed their dusty cast for a glossy midnight purple. I dropped my gaze to the path at our feet, the hem of my skirt draping the rusty bracken on either side.
“I have, sir. I even considered whether I might be under a kind of spell.”
“Perhaps you should listen to such thoughts. They might be trying to save you.”
I looked at him. “Tell me, then.Isit a spell?”
With a glancing shake of his head, he admitted, “Not a conscious one. But there are creatures whose forms are designed to attract.”
It would explain much. But I wasn’t sure that hisform, pleasing though it was, could explain my concern for him.
