Page 41 of The Vampire's Guide to Wooing a Curator
She trailed off, but he understood. Mr. Sorrow’s disapproval had been evident when Jonathan had met him at the museum. “That grizzled, old man doesn’t want his lovely young grandniece to join the murderous family business? I cannot fathom why.”
She rapped his forehead with her knuckles. “That’s not the reason. Or at least not the only reason. I think… I think it’s because of my parents. Before they died, Great-Uncle Ezra had supported their decision to have me join the ranks of the hunters. I saw the letter he wrote to my mother. She received itthe day I was branded.” She peeled back the sleeve of her dress to reveal a section of raised skin on her inner arm near her elbow in the shape of a stylized sun.
He ran his fingers over the initiation mark. He’d seen them before, on the bodies of the hunters he’d killed. It was a barbaric ritual her kind performed before they began training. “But if they went this far, then why weren’t you trained?”
“I was, starting that day until—” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “My uncle educated me in the hunter arts until my parents were murdered. Then Uncle Ethan died and when Great-Uncle Ezra arrived, the first thing he did was forbid me from patrolling. He… He told me it’s what my parents would have wanted.” She sniffed. “What theywantedwas for me to be a hunter. Not a pathetic scribe.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, and her lap was rather comfortable, so he waited. After a few minutes, she began speaking again, in a voice so soft, he almost didn’t hear. “Sometimes I wonder if I’d been sleeping, if I hadn’t been there when that woman had burst through the window, maybe Great-Uncle Ezra wouldn’t treat me the way he does.”
Realization settled over him like a blanket tossed over his legs. “You think he holds you responsible for their deaths?”
Another sniff. “Yes.”
Her story was uncomfortably familiar. His siblings had adapted to Marguerite’s absence quickly, but it hadn’t been as easy for him. The weeks and months after she’d left had carved a chasm in his heart that had remained stubbornly empty, no matter how he’d tried to fill it with sex or alcohol. Even restoring vampiric artifacts to their rightful owners hadn’t worked. He’d become the brother his siblings had watched carefully, as if prepared for him to vanish at any moment. Not that it had mattered, as every time Jonathan had escaped, Marcus had sent Cordon or Helena to drag him back. At first, Jonathan hadassumed Marcus had been torturing him because his brother had blamed him for Marguerite’s decision. After all, Jonathan had been the most vocal in his opposition to her tales of mate atrophy. It had taken years before Jonathan had realized Marcus had isolated him not out of anger, but fear that Jonathan would embrace death rather than live without their maker.
Mr. Sorrow likely had no idea how badly his actions had backfired. Instead of pushing Felicity away from the danger of his family’s occupation, he’d drawn her so deeply into hunting that Jonathan was surprised she hadn’t yet been killed during one of her foolish patrols.
But just as his grief had prevented him from understanding Marcus’s decisions after Marguerite’s abandonment, Felicity was too set on revenge to believe him if he told her she saw malice where there was likely only concern.
She rubbed her eyes with her fists. “I wish they would stop treating me like I’d fall apart with the slightest touch.”
Her words resonated so strongly with him that he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He couldn’t do anything to ease the ache in his own heart, but perhaps he could bring her solace.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to her hair. “Comforting you. Do you have a problem with that?”
“I suppose not.”
As her ragged breathing eased, her honey-sweet scent wreathed around him and made his fangs throb, although he wasn’t sure if it was her blood, her companionship, or her body he craved. Perhaps all three.
If only she weren’t a hunter.
A hunter who had tried to kill Marcus, had shoved Winifred out a window, and had bound Jonathan into servitude.
He had to get her out of his haven before his siblings discovered what he’d done.
He stood and walked to the window. “It will be dawn soon. We can resume our search tomorrow night.”
She scooted upright and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Why bother? We don’t have the cane, and we barely got out of the brothel alive. If we go back for it, they’ll kill us before we get through the door.”
“You’re going to give up that quickly?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the dagger, having separated it from the cane before he’d thrown it at the werewolves.
She looked up, and when she spotted it, her eyes widened. “You have it.”
He tossed it to her.
She held the weapon as if it were a priceless artifact. “Look at this.” She ran her thumb along the hilt. When she lifted it, the pad was stained black. “What is that?”
He walked closer and sniffed her finger. “Tar.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Opium.”
“Correct.” A very particular kind of opium. He recognized it from the days when he had been so lost to despair that he had become an addict. Clear, as the drug was called, was significantly more potent than the human equivalent yet elicited little more than a mild euphoric rush in most vampires.
And there was only one place in the city that served it.
Chapter Nineteen
