Page 93 of Thirst
Or maybe that was just what I wanted to see. The same way I’d once mistaken my father’s crumbs of approval for anything but manipulation.
I gave my head a hard shake. I’d never felt more confused, more alone.
Eventually, I moved back to the counter, picked up the spoon and took a mouthful of bisque. It had gone cold.
So had I.
25
Cain
A stillness settled over the castle, like the thick, oppressive calm before a nor’easter.
Four nights since I’d brought Nyx back to Lilith Island, and Nazaire still hadn’t come for her. We’d laid the bait: the texts I’d sent him, posing as Nyx; the breadcrumbs we’d scattered, carefully planted lies about the castle’s supposed vulnerabilities. Security was on high alert, the ferry watched on every run to and from the mainland, and the few inlets where you could beach a boat without shattering it against the rocks were under covert surveillance.
As for me, I didn’t go anywhere without a couple of blades.
What in the name of the Dark Gods was the bastard waiting for? He wouldn’t go away quietly. Not Nazaire.
No, he was plotting something. I could feel it like a spider crawling under my skin, making me twitchy, tight.
Gods, I hated these waiting games. But the next move was Nazaire’s. I just hoped we’d done enough to provoke him.
To add to my tension, Nyx had blocked me. Those flashes of emotions I’d been getting from her? They’d stopped, like she’d thrown up a wall between us and locked the gate.
And I missed it. Missed her.
She seemed further away now than when she’d lived in Quebec.
Monday bled into Tuesday. When I awoke that evening, I took Nyx a box of chocolates and her favorite blood-wine. Like the night before, she was hunched over her sketchpad, laying down a drawing with fast, urgent strokes, like she couldn’t get it on the page fast enough. This time she didn’t even register me, and when I returned later that night, the wine and chocolate sat untouched on the kitchenette counter and she was still hunched over the pad.
I was pretty sure she hadn’t moved since I’d left her.
I studied the drawing over her shoulder. Castle Leclerc crouched in the fog like the photo I’d taken, only transformed. Vines rose from the mist to snake their way up the black walls, winged creatures flapped against a midnight sky, and a sliver of a moon lurked behind a tower like it was keeping a secret.
It was so her, classic The Haunt—dark and moody as an old-style fairytale.
She finally noticed me standing there. She jumped and slammed the pad shut before pasting on one of those bright smiles that didn’t touch her eyes.
It made me want to punch a wall—again.
“Hey,” I said. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, so polite my teeth clamped together.
I loosened my jaw and scanned the living room for something else to say. At the French door, Demon was on her hind legs, batting at the glass in a frenzy of feline indignation.
I glanced at Nyx. “Wanna go outside?”
“Outside?” she echoed, her gaze going to the specially darkened glass. “The garden, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
She bit her lip—hard enough to leave a dent—and I caught myself holding my breath. When she said, “Yes,” it felt like I’d won something I hadn’t known I was playing for.
“C’mon then.” I thumbed open the security app and unlocked the door.
Outside the castle walls, the March wind shrieked off the ocean, but inside the enclosed garden, the air was cool, almost gentle. Nyx walked beside me, taking everything in—the early buds, the tiny lights threaded through the bushes, the narrow stream ending in a frozen waterfall above a small, ice-covered pool—but her shoulders stayed tight, her expression guarded.
