Page 50 of The Vampire's Guide to Wooing a Curator
Felicity felt her eyebrows rise. “Mate atrophy is real?” She’d read about it but had assumed it was a fable told to hunters-in-training to reinforce the idea that vampires were more animal than human. If the tales her parents had told her as a young woman were true, there were four stages of the illness, with the first being the longest and least severe, and the last…
The last stage was always fatal.
“How far has it progressed?” she asked.
Winifred didn’t answer, but the way she pursed her lips told Felicity everything she needed to know. A knot formed in her throat. She’d assumed Jonathan’s only goal had been to ensure his own safety and so had felt no guilt in selfishly demanding his help.
But even if Mordecai had been wrong and the owner of the dagger was still alive, killing her would not bring Felicity’s parents back.
It was time to let the past stay in the past.
Winifred laced her fingers with Felicity’s. “I’m sorry, Fel. I know it’s not fair to ask this of you, but… Jonathan won’t listen to me or Marcus. Will you talk to him?”
Felicity stared at their joined hands. Even through the glove, the chill of Winifred’s skin seeped into Felicity’s palm. She’d done that to her friend, sent her flying out of a window to her death. If their positions had been reversed, and it had been Felicity who had been impaled on a fence post, would Jonathan have turned her rather than let her die?
“Your husband,” Felicity said. “Is he your…” She couldn’t say the words.
Winifred chuckled. “Yes, we mated shortly before you—before my human life ended.”
“You can say it. Before I killed you.”
The room fell silent until Felicity could no longer bear the discomfort. She dropped her friend’s hand and changed the subject. “What’s it like? Being a vampire, I mean. Did it change how you felt about humans? About me?”
She met Felicity’s gaze. “You’re my best friend, Fel. I never stopped caring about you.”
Felicity swallowed back her tears. “They why did you stay away for so long?”
Six years. She’d thought Winifred had hated her for six years.
Winifred sighed. “Marcus insisted if you knew how I’d changed, you’d become as obsessed with killing me as you were with getting revenge on him. But hearing Jonathan talk about you… One day, I simply couldn’t bear it any longer. Being a vampire makes everythingmore. I love with an intensity I couldn’t have fathomed before Marcus turned me, but I grieve the loss of my humanity, and my family, just as keenly.” Her lips curved in a sly smile. “But that’s not really the question youwanted to ask, is it? You want to know how Marcus recognized me as his mate.”
Felicity chewed the inside of her cheek. Thinking about what she felt for Jonathan was like staring into the sun. Her emotions were so raw and intense that they left her wincing. So, rather than allow Winifred to peel back the protective layers of doubt and fear she’d built around her heart, she shoved to her feet and changed the subject.
“I can’t stay here.”
Winifred beamed. “I agree. That’s why you’re going to come with me.”
Twenty minutes and one awkward exit out of a window later, Felicity walked through the front door of a squat building she’d passed hundreds of times during her patrols but had never looked at twice. While the exterior was stained the same sooty black as the neighboring structures, the inside was completely different.
A Kidderminster rug woven in a geometric pattern of red on black covered most of the floor in the entryway, leading to the base of a steep staircase. She ventured farther and peered into a carpeted parlor stocked with a piano and a matching set of upholstered walnut chairs around an oval table. It was far more comfortable than she’d expected from a temporary lodging.
“How long have you lived here?” Felicity asked.
Winifred gave a tight laugh. “A few months.” Then she rushed ahead of Felicity and took her hands. “You are welcome to stay as long as you need. The staff is discreet and familiar with my nature.”
A terrible thought struck Felicity. “Is your husband in residence?”
The last time she’d seen the Earl of Kingsbury, she’d tried to kill him.
Winifred shook her head. “He is staying in a different haven. I thought that would be better for everyone.”
Felicity forcibly relaxed her stiff shoulders. “I see.”
She was prepared to reconcile with Winifred, given their shared history, and she would not speak poorly of Winifred’s husband, but the earl had killed Vincent and Uncle Ethan. That was not something she could easily forget. Even if it had been self-defense.
“How did you know I would come with you?” Felicity asked suddenly.
“I know you, Fel. I could tell the last time we spoke you were struggling.”
