Six Weeks AgoFayeMy slippers pad across the pale marble tiles. I hike up my dress–pink, just like the slippers I spent hours upon hours embroidering with little stars and white flowers. My hair fans out around my shoulders and down my back in my haste to reach my father’s office. Cara, my lady’s m
MichaelFaye’s room is chaotic. Nurses and the physician crowd her bed to the point I can’t see her through the fray. I push through them, seeing her pale and writhing, arching off the bed in pain. “What’s wrong with her?!” I shout. Faye murmurs, white foam tinted with blood bubbling from her lips
MichaelAlma and Lowe speak in quiet tones in the foyer while he helps her into her thick coat. The usual, ceaseless sprinkle of rain has finally turned to sleet–a vicious mix of freezing rain and the first hints of snow that’s going to make the village an icy mess when day turns to night. Lowe pus
MichaelThree hours later, in the dead middle of the night, I stand in the doorway leading into the cozy guest room I brought Faye into what must have been weeks ago. I guess that much time has passed since then. It feels like seconds, honestly. I feel like I haven’t had a chance to catch my breath
“What did they do to you?” I press. I wave my hand at the mess of jars, herbs, and healing… potions, not just tonics. Actual potions. Potions made by a witch.“What didn’t they do is a better question,” she murmurs, turning away. “Emelda–”“I was a girl,” she whispers over the simmering water and c
MichaelI pace the foyer, running my fingers through my hair over and over again as I listen to the voices of Emelda and Alma drifting down the staircase. Lowe walks in from the kitchen with an armful of firewood, his face drawn with fatigue. I nod at him in greeting as he walks past me toward the
EmeldaMichael has officially lost his mind. I edge closer to the bed, the vial I hold trembling as I raise a shaking hand. “You can’t possibly know that for sure. It’s too early. Far too early.”He looks down at the nearly dead vampire in the bed, his eyes wide and glossy with shock and the last gl
MichaelLowe spins his pint of beer in a circle, his eyes scanning the run-down dive bar and its grizzly patrons. He wrinkles his nose when a duo of rough looking vampires walk by, baring their fangs at our table. “It stinks here,” he says under his breath before sipping from his glass. “The beer’s
“I’ll send him up,” she says, touching my arm. “That’s fine, Emelda.”“I need him to go to the castle first and tell Michael. The ball–he’s at the ball.” My mouth continues to move without sound as I grapple with the idea of telling Alma what he did to Faye. But my eyes glaze over the scar peeking
EmeldaI’m shaking. I quickly dab spots of dark, vampiric blood from Faye’s neck, my fingers trembling with rage and confusion as I watch her take several shallow breaths in a row. There’s been absolutely no change in her condition. She’s been still. Cold. Dead, in all honesty. Dying a slow, drawn
Michael Emelda moves like an agitated fledgling as she dusts lint from my shoulders. She swats my hand when I reach for my hair, shaking her head and scowling before adjusting a single rogue curl trying to fight against the hold of the hair gel she slathered through my tresses. “Don’t move. Don’t
MichaelLowe spins his pint of beer in a circle, his eyes scanning the run-down dive bar and its grizzly patrons. He wrinkles his nose when a duo of rough looking vampires walk by, baring their fangs at our table. “It stinks here,” he says under his breath before sipping from his glass. “The beer’s
EmeldaMichael has officially lost his mind. I edge closer to the bed, the vial I hold trembling as I raise a shaking hand. “You can’t possibly know that for sure. It’s too early. Far too early.”He looks down at the nearly dead vampire in the bed, his eyes wide and glossy with shock and the last gl
MichaelI pace the foyer, running my fingers through my hair over and over again as I listen to the voices of Emelda and Alma drifting down the staircase. Lowe walks in from the kitchen with an armful of firewood, his face drawn with fatigue. I nod at him in greeting as he walks past me toward the
“What did they do to you?” I press. I wave my hand at the mess of jars, herbs, and healing… potions, not just tonics. Actual potions. Potions made by a witch.“What didn’t they do is a better question,” she murmurs, turning away. “Emelda–”“I was a girl,” she whispers over the simmering water and c
MichaelThree hours later, in the dead middle of the night, I stand in the doorway leading into the cozy guest room I brought Faye into what must have been weeks ago. I guess that much time has passed since then. It feels like seconds, honestly. I feel like I haven’t had a chance to catch my breath
MichaelAlma and Lowe speak in quiet tones in the foyer while he helps her into her thick coat. The usual, ceaseless sprinkle of rain has finally turned to sleet–a vicious mix of freezing rain and the first hints of snow that’s going to make the village an icy mess when day turns to night. Lowe pus