Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
And just like that, Valtu turns into my professor again, charming and cordial and not at all telling me he’s going to push me past the point of terror.
I turn to put my keys in the main doors and pause, glancing at him over my shoulder. “This might sound silly, but do you mind waiting around until I’m in my room. I’m just on the end there by the water.”
“Of course not,” he says. “I would have done it anyway.”
“You wouldn’t have known which room I was in.”
“I would have figured it out.” His smile flashes in the night.
Somehow I’m comforted. I go inside the building, then up the stairs to my apartment. I wait outside the door and take in a deep breath. If there’s still a demon on the other side, I’m going to be very, very upset.
I quickly put in the keys and push the door open, hard enough that it does so with a bang.
The lights are on.
The lights are on and my floor is clean. No candles, no chalk, no crystals.
And the window is shut.
“What the fuck?” I walk inside carefully, looking around.
On the kitchen counter is a note.
I pick it up.
Don’t mind me but I let myself in. I hadn’t heard from you but then I saw you with the target. I’m not sure what happened but judging by the state of your place, I have an idea. BTW I did a cleansing in here and put up a protective spell and some wards because I’m pretty sure that there was a demon in here when I first got in. Charge your phone and call me in the morning. Livia.
What’s funny is that with all that she wrote, the thing that sticks out is that she referred to Valtu as a target. Though I know it’s true, it’s not sitting right with me.
Speaking of Valtu, I quickly put the note away and run to the window, looking outside. I see Valtu standing below and to the side, a shadow in the night. I raise my hand to let him know I’m okay. He raises his, gives me a nod, then stalks off into the darkness of the city.
Chapter 11
Valtu
It has been painful to remember those days, to keep writing them down in this journal. There was so much joy in them at the time, so much hope for the future. In so many ways I was young, because we are all younger before love shapes us and changes us. I was naïve in thinking that finding Mina again would make all my problems go away. All it did was make things worse.
But at the time it was heaven. I didn’t think that far ahead, about the fact that she didn’t know I was a vampire, and that if I were to marry her, that she would be doomed to live a mortal life. That she would one day die and I would keep on living. I didn’t let myself think that far because the present tasted far too sweet.
Now, though, all these memories taste like death.
* * *
THE VICTORIAN AGE
London – 1888
“I probably shouldn’t come in,” Lucy said to me in a small, apprehensive voice as we approached my front door in Marylebone, the gas lamps outside my house flickering.
“And why is that?” I asked, letting go of her elbow.
She dipped her chin, staring at me demurely. “Because I’ve never been alone with you. Not in your house.”
“And?” I wanted to hear her say it, for her to tell me my intentions.
“And I know what you want, Count Aminoff.” I stared at her to go on. She took in a deep breath. “A lady never gives her body to a man before marriage.”
“And who told you that?” I asked, taking off my hat and holding it under my arm as I peered at her, trying to hide a smile. “Your parents? Your friends? God himself?”
I had been courting Lucy for about two months. Back in those days, you took your time in getting to know one another, and in this case, it was all for her benefit. After all, I already knew Lucy. I knew her as Mina. And even though she seemed to have zero recollection about her past life, at that moment in time it didn’t really matter. I knew that one day she would have to remember. One day I would make her remember.
I figured sex would be the way to do it. That does seem to be my solution for all things. I thought that the moment I came inside her would be the moment she’d really recognize me. All of me. But ravishing Mina in the fields of seventeenth century Finland proved to be a lot easier than trying to get Lucy naked in my bed in Victorian England.
That said, tonight I could tell she was waning. Months of innocent dates to museum exhibits and plays and walks in the many gardens and parks of London, and she was starting to bend to my whim. I did my best not to compel her, as I wanted her to want me on her own accord, but I admit there were a few times I managed to push the logic out of her head and let her sensual nature come forward.