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He paused once more. “You’ve seen me transform into a bat.”
“And?” I whispered, glancing down at the skin reforming where the burn had once been. My eyes widened at how… easy and how quick vampires could regenerate and heal. If only humans could have that power.
All the sick men and women I saw daily could live to see another day.
A low, dark chuckle escaped from his lips. “Do they educate you in Carco Village?”
“Excuse me?” I said, taken aback. “Are you insulting my intelligence?”
“Yes,” he said, lips pulled into a soft smile. “What’s your name?”
“That is not how you talk to a lady,” I said in a sudden burst of confidence. I crossed my arms and stared up at his sculpted face. “I would never give my name to any devil like you.”
“If I was a devil, I would have ripped your cross off you by now and have forbidden you from wearing it in my chambers.”
“You’re not going to make me take it off?”
“The cross?” he asked, lips curled into a smirk. “No. Because no god will save you from me.” He curled his hand around my throat. “One day, you’ll take off the chain and realize that the only gods are the ones who live in this castle.”
I swallowed hard and stiffened.
“What’s your name?” he repeated.
“I’m Daphne,” I whispered.
“Daphne,” he said, tracing my throat with the pads of his fingers. “Say it again.”
“Daphne.”
“Daphne, have you ever heard of the expression, ‘Blind as a bat?’”
“Y-Yes.”
“Where do you think that expression comes from?”
I dropped my gaze and stared at his wrist just below my chin. “I’m not sure who has come up with such lies, but bats are not truly blind. I’m not that uneducated, Sir Alaric.”
“Sir Alaric, so formal,” he hummed. “You’re correct. Most bats aren’t fully blind but, if you couldn’t tell, I’m not like most vampires, Daphne. My tastes are a bit… different.”
“You’re blind?” I asked, eyes widening.
Maybe this was God’s way of saving me.
But while the thought of trying to escape crossed my mind, I couldn’t shake the feeling of pity. A vampire from the royal family who ruled over this continent couldn’t actually see any of its beauty.
“My family doesn’t allow me to havefoodin my quarters, because when they discover I’m blind they try to escape the estate.” He drew his fingers up the column of my neck. “But the last human who tried to leave me… I bled dry.”
My eyes widened, and I pressed my thighs together. “I won’t leave. I… I promise. My village selected me to satisfy the monsters who live here. I can’t go back to them without fulfilling my duties.”
“They sent you here to die for them,” he said. “Not to fulfill any sacred duty to a higher god. We don’t send humans back unless we’re done using them for their blood.”
Swallowing hard, I clasped my hands together as realization finally set in. All this time, I had contemplated why they had sent me, knowing deep down it was to save themselves. No priests and no monks ever made the journey.
Only nuns.
“Why’d you choose me?” I whispered.
“What do you mean?”
