Page 116 of Eternal Obsession

“Okay. I suppose we could contact doctors in the Salisbury area to find out if any of them have ever treated anyone with this disease or another similar one. Perhaps it’s a mutant strain or something. Now show me the cells’ reaction to light.”

“Take a seat and keep your eye on the screen up there,” Andrew said.

Ingrid sat on the stool positioned at the workbench, watching as Andrew worked around her. He extracted the cells from the small glass tube and with detailed precision placed them upon the slide. Ingrid stared up at the screen watching the perfectly formed oscillating cells. They quivered on the glass slide. Andrew opened the door and light flooded in.

Ingrid watched the screen carefully. The cells, which had first appeared so vibrant, now withered. One by one, their matter became almost invisible under the microscopic lens.

Ingrid was astonished. “What the. . . ?”

“Something out there is an anomaly. We are wary of professional ridicule as much as the next person, but off the record,” Andrew pointed to the specimen, “if you told me those blood cells came from a vampire, I would believe you.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

JADEON

Considering ways in which to kill myself, I tried to imagine which would be least painful. Without Alex, life would be unbearable.

As dusk settled, I had turned my back on that dreadful cathedral and made my way home.

To the only place I knew where I would be safe.

We should never have left.

Padding barefoot through the castle, only now noticing how the silence echoed, each lonely cold step, each breath, haunted the vast emptiness. The solitude pressed in with something almost sinister. It struck me with cruel clarity that this was the punishment I had unwittingly given my brother.

And now, through my own mistakes, I had killed him.

I found myself in the grand foyer, though I couldn’t recall how I’d arrived. Standing beneath the gleam of the brass chandelier, dazed, adrift, and shaken by the quiet terror of eternity spent alone.

A presence distracted me from my morose thoughts.

Someone was outside the castle.

And someone else was already inside.

Ingrid was here.

I sensed that she had found the tide still out and guided Sergeant Blake along the path on the causeway. She had instructed him to search around the castle walls, giving her the opportunity to enter the castle alone.

I reached into her mind, turning her thoughts like pages in one of my ancient books, familiar, fragile, and wide open. She moved, unaware I followed, Ingrid slipped through the shadows, unaware of me behind her as I tracked her every step. Ingrid had easily picked the antique lock, a skill she had learned at the academy. She began her search with the bedrooms, looking for any sign we were home. Making her way up the sweeping staircase, she remembered how she had been in awe during her first visit. Even now she gazed in wonder at the many paintings and perfectly preserved antiquities. Ingrid entered my bedroom, looking for any evidence to suggest I had recently been here.

Hold me.

This was her silent message to me. She moved with a quiet denial, clinging to the idea that nothing was amiss. But the way her gaze lingered on the bed, told a different story, one born of longing she could no longer hide. What we had shared in the castle’s lower chambers had marked her, awakened a part of her she hadn’t known existed. And that part still reached for me. She fought to bury it. To pretend it meant nothing, only denial sharpened her craving for me.

I released a quiet breath, sensing her emotions as if they were my own, affection tinged with uncertainty, admiration tinged with fear. Her loneliness echoed mine, folding into it seamlessly, undeniable proof that our connection ran deeper than either of us had dared to admit.

Everything appeared to be in its place. The bed had not been slept in since she rested there. Leaving my room, she walked toward my father’s old bedroom where she had stayed. Ingrid noticed the light within the castle was dimming with the setting sun. Making her way down the stairway to the dungeons, she had mixed memories from when she last explored this part of the castle.

Flickering candle flames beckoned her. Ingrid walked away from the cells, following another smaller passageway toward the shadowy light. Squinting, she attempted to see. Aware of an eerie presence, she realized the danger she was placing herself in.

She kept close to the wall, trying to blend in at the end of the arcane corridor. Ingrid continued, impatient to find what was on the other side of the door. As her fingers touched the handle . . .

I pulled open the door.

She screamed and leapt back.

“Bloody hell! You shouldn’t creep up on people like that,” she said.