block of stones opened, revealing a dark passage.

Luke gestured for me to enter first, and I snorted. “As if.” I peeked my head in and heard the scuttling of some unseen creature. With a shiver, I refused again. “There’s a whole lot of nope in there.”

“My apologies. In such close proximity to my home, I forgot that you don’t possess the vampiric ability to see in the dark.” My fiancé held out his hand. “If you’ll trust me, I promise to get you through to the other side in perfect health.”

I adjusted my purse to sling it across my body and accepted his offer. Taking reluctant steps behind him, I followed into the dark chasm. Once we crossed the threshold, the door closed on its own with a crunch of stone and gravel.

“Would it offend you if I cast an orb of light?” I whispered. “I literally can’t see where I’m going.”

An eerie silence followed my question, and I wondered if Luke answered by shaking his head. Which I’d never know.

“It may be too risky to cast a spell on the castle grounds,” he replied. “Since I haven’t been here in ages, I don’t know what security measures they’ve added. And I’d prefer to get inside without too much notice.”

We hadn’t even gone a foot inside the castle and already the first issue of me being a witch reared its ugly head. “But if vampires didn’t create your little magical secret passageway, then who did?” I hissed. “It had to have been witches.”

“Our family wasn’t always averse to your kind,” Luke said, tugging on my hand to pull me forward.

My stomach twisted at his unintentional line drawn in the sand between vampires and witches. “So, they’re happy to continue using the fruits of our power but won’t entertain that their children might fall in love with someone not of their kind,” I pushed to make my point. The last word echoed off the walls.

Drips of water and other various creepy noises kept me on edge, and I yelped when my foot stepped into a puddle.

Luke stopped our progress. “Listen, would it offend your female empowerment sensibilities if I were to pick you up and carry you the rest of the way? At the rate we’re going, it’ll be tomorrow before we get there.”

I wanted to tell him I could handle it, but when I opened my mouth to answer something scurried over my foot. “Nope, nope, nope. No offense. None at all. Go ahead and pick me up,” I declared loud and fast, hopping from one foot to the next to try and minimize the chances of something else touching me.

Luke’s amused chuckle reverberated off the walls, and he scooped me into his arms. His lips brushed my forehead. “It’ll be much faster this way.”

A light wind blew against my face as Luke sped through the corridors in record time. Despite not being able to see where we headed, I could still sense our movement, and I cuddled into his chest, closing my eyes and waiting for the journey to end.

My body jerked a little when he put on the brakes and slowed down to stand in front of another doorway. Light blazed around the edges of the barrier, providing a little illumination for me to see the immediate ground in front of us.

Expecting him to put me down, I tapped on his shoulder. He lay a finger against my lips to warn me from saying anything too loudly.

“What’s wrong?” I uttered in the quietest whisper I could. “What’s on the other side?”

Luke remained as still as a statue. “My room.”

His answer befuddled me, and I wiggled in his grip. “Isn’t that where you wanted to go?”

My fiancé’s chest expanded and contracted when he sighed. “I guess I was trying to avoid what comes next.”

“What do you mean?”

With my eyes partially adjusted, I noticed him nod in the direction in front of us. “The second I go in there, I can no longer pretend I’m just Luke Manson, a mechanic who works with a pretty relaxed boss and has a gorgeous and feisty girlfriend.”

I tightened my grip around his neck. “You’ll still have me no matter what.”

He planted a quick peck on my lips. “I know, and I love you for reassuring me.”

It took me a second to catch onto his hesitance. “Luke, you’re going to have to face your family at some point. It might as well be sooner rather than later. Plus, I’d really like to stand on solid ground where I don’t have to risk stepping in something icky or having something take a bite out of me.”

His body stilled under mine, and I worried I’d pushed him too far, too fast.

“You’re right,” he agreed after a long silence. Shifting my body to hold me in his left arm, he reached out and yanked on something.

With a click, the door gave way. Bright light flooded the darkness, and I blinked my eyes to adjust. Luke placed me down on solid stone, and it took me a moment to compose myself. When I stopped adjusting my clothes and my purse, I looked up and gawked at the scene unfolding in front of me.

“Most of my whole cottage could fit in this room, Luke,” I exclaimed, turning in circles to take it all in. “This belonged to just you?”

Every which direction I turned, I saw items that looked like they belonged in some movie. Intricate tapestries hung from the walls. A shiny suit of armor complete with a sword and shield stood at guard in one of the corners. All of the dark wooden furniture of the room matched, and I imagined the hands that carved every curve and decoration into the grain. A large ornamented mirror hung over the dresser. My head pinged back and forth from admiring everything to calculating the worth of it all in my head.

“It’s uh…” I started, still too bewildered to come up with the right words.

“Exactly how I left it,” Luke stated

Вы читаете Vintage Vampire
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату