Page 16 of Ravished By the Revenant

“Fine. Vaguely twentieth century it is. Guess it would’ve been too much to hope for a cellphone charger.”

“Is that something to do with electricity?” I lean forward, curious about the world for the first time in a very long time. “Did Nikola Tesla achieve his goal of providing the world with free power?”

Clara looks at me like I’m some complex equation she doesn’t know how to solve.

“I, uh… no. Definitely no free power. Have you ever even seen something powered by electricity?”

Sighing, I shake my head. “It would be hard to install such things in a castle you can’t see.”

She snorts, then slaps her palm over her mouth, visibly forcing herself to sober.

“Speaking of,” she says. “Maybe we can work together? If we find out more about the curse, find out why I could just come in here when no one else can, maybe we can find a way to free you too?”

My heart might be a mangled, cold blue thing, but it still beats. And the prospect of leaving this estate has my pulse thundering in my ears. But hope is a dangerous thing. After all, my servants and I attempted to break the curse more times than I can count.

“Maybe… Maybe it is weakening,” I allow.

“Yes, exactly.” She tilts her head. “I suggest we go to the gate and see if I can⁠—”

“No,” I interrupt with a growl. Clara flinches back, but I can’t find it in me to feel bad about it. “You cannot, will not leave me.”

My chest heaves as Clara’s lower lip shakes. Schmetterling yowls his displeasure at being disturbed, hops off the chair he was sleeping on, and saunters out of the library. Then Clara turns on her heel and follows him.

“Where are you going?” I ask, my voice sounding like rocks grinding together.

“Away from you,” she says quietly, not bothering to look back.

Once I hear the master bedroom door close, I kick the desk.

“Fuck!”

This is not how you woo a woman.

12

CLARA

Islam the bedroom door hard enough to rattle the hinges, then stand there panting like I just ran a 5K instead of one hallway.

“You cannot, will not leave me,” I mimic in my worst impression of a seven-hundred-year-old baritone. “Cool. Very normal. Nothing concerning about that at all.”

Shmoo is already on the bed, because of course he is. He beat me here, which means he either knows a shortcut or teleports, and honestly, at this point, both options are on the table.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell him. “I’m allowed to be mad.”

He tucks his paws under his chest and becomes a loaf. A judgmental loaf.

I drag the heavy chair from the fireplace across the floor, the legs screeching against stone. I wedge the back under the door handle the way people do in movies, then step back and assess my work.

It’s pathetic. The man carries bathwater up a spiral staircase like it’s a hobby. He could probably remove this door from its frame with his pinky. But the chair isn’t for him. It’s for me. It’s a line on the floor that says this side is mine, and right now, I need a line more than I need it to hold.

“Barricade complete,” I announce. “The kingdom of Clara is secure.”

My voice cracks on the last word, and that’s when the shaking starts.

I sit down on the edge of the bed before my knees make the decision for me. My hands won’t stay still, so I press them between my thighs and stare at the fire I built earlier, now burned down to orange coals.

I chew on my lips. It’s not the glowing eye, and it’s not the piercings, and it’s not even the fact that I let him… That we… Nope. Not going there. Filed under Later, subfolder Never.