Page 103 of Her Creation

He could scarcely bear that he had touched her as he had the night before. In a grave. In mud and rot and stormwater with her dead mother feet away. His hands trembled faintly at the memory, not with regret, but with a sick reverence.

He shifted her gently and pushed open the door of the abandoned church. It groaned in protest, the sound echoing through the hollow nave like a lament, as he stepped inside. The air was thick with damp stone and neglect, but it was shelter, and it was quiet.

Inno loved Victoria in a way few could love. Not softly. Not cleanly. He loved her with the totality of a man already damned, with an obsession that gnawed and consumed him from the inside out.

He laid her carefully upon a worn wooden pew and slipped off his waistcoat, wrapping it around her slight frame, tucking it close as though cloth alone could shield her from the wretch he’d become. The gesture felt pitiful, almost mocking, but he clung to it all the same.

He would not let what had happened to his sister, Lyudka, happen to Victoria. He could not endure that annihilation again. As he stood over her and watched her breathe, his heart splintered beneath the weight of what he understood he must do.

He would never stop loving her. That was a curse written too deeply into his bones.

But he could not stay.

No matter how many people he would slaughter for her. No matter how far he would descend to keep her safe. He had failed once before. He would not gamble Victoria’s life against his hunger, his obsession, or the violence that lived so easily within him.

Not even for love. Not when there was still one more who had to die for hurting her.

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Victoria woke with a sharp kink in her neck. She groaned softly, raising a hand as pale, dust-specked light spilled through a narrow window to her right. For a heartbeat, the place was unreal, unclaimed. Then the cold stone, the damp air, the faint tang of old earth returned to her senses.

The abandoned church.

Her breath caught. Something was wrong.

She swept her gaze across the small, crumbling interior, heart stuttering as dread pooled low in her stomach. He was not there with her. Inno was gone.

The sound of wheels on gravel made her flinch. She ran to the window and peered out. Three black carriages rolled past, grim and exacting, heading for the castle. Magistrate. Lawmen. Authority. Her blood ran cold, eyes scanning for any hint of him.

What had he done?

As Victoria ran out the church door, crows gathered and swooped, swarming above her as she ran. They followed her through the winding path of the forest, over the trickling stream and iron-walled bridge until finally the castle came into view. The carriages had been there at least thirty minutes prior to her panting, exhausted arrival.

A fourth carriage, brown and plain, waited at the castle’s front, silent and still.

Victoria did not pause. She gathered her skirts and ran, lungs burning, breath ragged. By the time she reached the castle, her legs shook beneath her. The black carriages were clustered at the back gate, the brown one before the main entrance.

She slowed at the door. Her chest felt as though it might collapse inward. The front door hung ajar.

Her shoulder struck it as she stumbled inside, heart hammering so violently it made her dizzy. Had someone entered when she had not answered? Panic settled into her bones like ice.

She ran through the empty castle, room after room, until a stench rose up before her: decay, rank and suffocating. It caught in her throat and drove her forward. Faster. Until she burst into the parlor. The laboratory door stood wide, dark, and inviting.

She seized the nearest chair to steady herself a second before bolting down the stairs. A cry escaped her as the damp hem of her dress slid beneath her heel, her footing slipping, a grim and frightening repetition of her father’s deadly fall. Her hand clawed at her chest, the other grasping the railing just in time. She panted as she froze at the bottom, standing where her father’s blood still darkened the stone.

Her gaze lifted.

The tunnel door yawned open. Beyond it, the second door revealed itself, sunlight spilling through to illuminate the gray, murky stone of the passage into the laboratory.

Inside, three men she did not recognize waited.

They stared at her, eyes hard, unforgiving, predatory.

The air thickened, heavy and sharp, pressing against her lungs like stone.

“Who are you?” she breathed, struggling to draw air into her lungs. Something shifted to her left. She stepped forward, past the stair landing, every nerve taut and raw, until her eyes fell upon the cold-chamber door standing wide open. Dr. Paranthal, her father’s oldest friend, loomed there like a spectre of grief and fury. His eyes were rimmed red, tears catching the dust-laden light that spilled through the tall, narrow window in glittering, sharp fragments, shards that pricked the skin like needles.

“Victoria Frankenstein,” he lashed out, each word a curse. “How could you do this to your father?” He advanced, every step sending a tremor through the warped and stained stone floor.