Page 57 of Silent Stalker
“You had mentioned a hundred years when discussing him.”
Emerick smiled a sly smile. “No, I said trauma was treated much differently a hundred years ago. You assumed he had been injured then.”
What a sneaky, cunning vampire. “Okay. That’s on me. You tricked me.”
“While I may have tricked you, I told you nothing but the truth. When I intervened with Ben, accidents like his led to death or a vastly shortened lifespan. In his case, he would have died. I still grieve that his wife could not accept what he was, but that is part of why the brides broods came to be. At the time, it allowed the women to have a fresh start. She could abandon the cruelty of a bad husband. While the mistresses mostly dictate the selection of grooms for their brides, the bride does have some say in her fate. The mistresses will not partner a woman with a man she hates, for example. Change was a long time coming, but I think it will be what’s best for us. But we will see. If your mother rises, then we have another option for how to safely make our women into vampires. When combined with the changes to be made to the brides broods, we all benefit.”
“But what about the mistresses of the brides broods? What will become of them?”
“If more women rise, especially to become vampire hunters, enforcers, and so on, they will still hold their positions—and they can still arrange marriages for those who wish for their marriage to be arranged. Some women do. But, as you correctly mentioned, there are not as many in this era. Sometimes our age blinds us.” Emerick eyed the door, heaved a sigh, and muttered, “I’ll start redirecting the party to elsewhere so you can come out of the bathroom sometime tonight. I’d expected you to join one of the smaller groups rather than flee.”
“There are no smaller groups. There are people everywhere.” I gestured to the spacious bathroom. “They get sweat and body heat. I get paradise.”
“I can’t argue with paradise, so I won’t. Enjoy your soak. I’ll come join you as soon as I’m done with the eviction. I will even bring some books, and should they get wet, I will have them replaced without regret. Perhaps that will help you unwind. Might I tempt you with some hot chocolate?”
“If you were not intending on that offer to be a date, it is now a date. You get to make sure I don’t drown after the sun comes up, because I don’t know if I’ll willingly leave the tub.”
“I believe I can handle that without incident, although I suspect my wife is using her wits to try to secure her place as the victor of a certain wager.”
I leered at him. “I don’t know why you might think that. As it seems most of the brood showed up, I want a good report in the morning on the vampires we rescued, a status update on my mother, and anything new we have on my father’s activities. We won’t get anywhere if we sit around and do nothing.”
“We need stakes before we can hunt. While we have some in reserve if we need to hunt, we’re mostly tapped dry. If these vampires wanted to reduce our supply of stakes temporarily, they’ve succeeded.”
“I can carve and listen at the same time,” I promised, wondering what kind of stakes my latest branches would become. The branch with the bird’s nest I’d rescued, including its collection of smaller branches and twigs, would be the first I worked with, and I meant to use as much of the wood as possible. “I don’t know if I can carve them quickly, though. It could be a few weeks. But honestly, I’ve never carved in such a nice setting before.”
“You’ll be fine. It’s you that makes your stakes potent, not where you carve them. If anything, having the ability to carve in a time of peace might make them even more potent for what we want to use them for. Anyway, vampires play the long game,” Emerick reminded me. “I think we’ll have a while before this brood starts making another move. We’ve missed whatever they planned this time, and frankly spoken, I’m of the belief their mistake was due to ignorance about what happens when a vampire is starved beyond the brink of bloodlust. Had they been released at an earlier stage of starvation, we would be in a far different situation. I suspect the dumping of those vampires was the conclusion of their plan rather than the beginning, a plan years in the making. I do believe Breckenan is involved. It fits well with the discovery of the women buried in shallow graves and your rising.”
“Him,” I grumbled.
“Him. It disgusts me that I am, in part, grateful for his actions. For all his evil against you, he is part of why you’re here now. My gratitude is quite limited, however. I would merely thank his corpse once finished with it.”
“You mean once I’m finished with it.”
“We can fight over his body,” he replied.
I considered that, and after a moment, I nodded. “Go evict everyone so you can come bathe with me. I must wear down your resistance through temptation. I expect a long battle between us.”
“I will do my best not to disappoint.”
One day,I might stay awake through an entire sunrise. My efforts ended in typical failure, although I blamed Emerick for some of my problems with resisting the sun’s rays. Safety, warmth, and comfort conspired against me, and he held responsibility for all those things. Keeping me company on one of the comfortable couches near a window contributed to my failure as well.
Rousing due to an excitable child bouncing on the bed went to the bottom of my list of ways to start a night. Rather than voice a complaint, I observed Edgar do his best to drag my beleaguered albeit amused husband out from under the covers.
“Sorry,” Annora said from the doorway, not sounding at all sorry for her method of disturbing our rest. “We haven’t figured out the blood supply issue for him yet, and all the Wagyu is here. Then Salania expressed some concern, as you both slept in. The sun has been down for two hours. I was sacrificed, along with little Edgar, to get you up.”
“I have no excuse beyond not wanting to get out of bed while Pepper enjoyed her sleep,” Emerick admitted, stretching with a yawn. “She did a little better trying to stay awake for the sunrise.”
“Were you measuring in minutes or seconds?” Annora asked with a grin.
“Unfortunately, I was measuring in seconds this time. I may have contributed to the situation. We were on the couch, and I encouraged her to be comfortable. Comfort does not keep young mistresses awake at sunrise.”
I yawned, checked to confirm I wore pajamas, and escaped bed, staggering in the direction of the bathroom. “Why am I so damned tired?”
“You gathered branches for stakes,” Emerick reminded me.
I halted in the doorway to the bathroom and turned to face him. “I don’t get why that means I feel like I was kicked by a mule.”
“The entire process of making stakes takes magic and energy. You were only retrieving one or two branches at a time before last night, so you likely didn’t catch on to how tiring it can be. You brought in many branches, and you took care with each one. It’s natural for you to be tired.” Emerick got out of bed, caught Edgar in an arm, and carried the child in the direction of the kitchen. “Soak for a while, as you’re probably sore, too. And I solemnly swear I didn’t do anything nefarious during the day. After I carried you to bed, I was lured into sleeping due to your peaceful slumber. You are such a bad influence, Mrs. Lowrance.”
