Page 80 of Nightshade

Without warning, Anya’s hand struck fast, cracking against the brunette’s cheek. The startled woman held where she’d been struck, eyes wide, as if in disbelief.

“This stray, as you say, happens to have remarkable command over the dogs. If you’re not careful, I may just have her command them to devour you whole. We’ll not be rude in this house. Do I make myself clear?”

At first, the woman didn’t answer, but glared back at me.

“Do I make myself clear!” The anger in Anya’s tone sent a shiver down my spine.

Still cupping her cheek, the brunette nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Like a switch, the vexation on the older woman’s face vanished, and she clasped her hands together with a pleasant smile. “Very good, dear. Now, I’ll let you return to your work.”

With a tempered expression, the woman slunk back toward the counter where she’d been washing dishes.

“Anyone else have something to say?” Anya asked in an eerily pleasant voice.

The rest of them shook their heads, lowering their gazes to the floor.

“Splendid. As you were.” Departing with a smile, Anya led me out of the kitchen and down a hallway.

En route, we passed a room from where Aurelia waved, as she stood on the second step of a small ladder and dusted the mantel of an expansive black fireplace. “Oh! Wait! May I speak with you one moment?” Climbing down the step, she stumbled, and something shattered, sending my heart shooting up into my throat, but Aurelia caught herself before the fall. “Just one sec!”

Groaning, Anya turned to me, resting a wrinkled hand on my shoulder. “One moment. Always something breaking in this place.” She breezed into the room on an air of grace, heading toward whatever had broken, as Aurelia hobbled up to her.

Thinking it was something she didn’t want me to hear, I kept on a short way, down the corridor, where the wall turned to ceiling-high dark windows, with beautiful, wrought iron grills in swirled leaf patterns. Beyond the dark windows stood what I could best describe as a breathtaking grotto, with low, rounded ceilings and stone walls carved with figures that looked like something out of the Roman era. A pool with the clearest, bluest water I’d ever seen took up the entire width of the room, its reflection against the surrounding dark stones making for a dim glow, like in a cave.

It was through a waterfall that cascaded over the rocks that I watched a figure emerge, rubbing the moisture from his face, over the eye patch still strapped there. The well-defined planes of his bare, muscled chest bore a dewy glisten that seized my attention. The silvery, metallic-looking tattoos glinted in the light, anchoring my eyeballs to his toned arms and torso. Inhumanly perfect. As he strode closer, the water receded down his body, until he stood along the pool’s edge, at what must’ve been its most shallow depths, and there was no waistband indicating he wore swim trunks. Only an impressive V that disappeared into the surface of the water.

Completely nude.

Dear God, I couldn’t begin to imagine what the lower half of him looked like, given the striking construct of his upper half.

Keeping to the edge of the wall, I dared myself not to watch for the moment when he’d step out of that water. Chiding myself, I turned away.

Childish, Farryn. What are you, fifteen?

But not a second later, I peeked again, watching him splash water up onto his fit stomach. It wasn’t entirely out of lustful admiration that I continued to ogle the man’s physique, though. I’d simply never seen such perfection in my life. Even with the scars that I could discern from where I stood, he looked like an Adonis, with muscles sculpted and grooved by such precision, it was hard to look away.

“Shall we continue, or would you like to stay another moment?” At the intimacy of Anya’s voice, I wheezed an alarmed breath and jumped to the side to find her standing behind me, a knowing and expectant smile on her face.

“Pardon me. I was just admiring the muscles. Pool!” Swallowing back my humiliation, I inwardly cringed at myself, trying to ignore the nausea roiling in the pit of my stomach.

“Mm-hmm. Well, it is quite impressive, isn’t it?”

Lips tight to avoid saying another asinine response, I nodded.

“I should probably inform you that Master Van Croix likes to take a swim around this time every day,” she said, clearly mocking the fact that he was the most glaringly obvious reason to stare in the first place. “On we go.” With a jerk of her head, Anya stepped past me, and when I glanced back to the grotto once more, I caught Van Croix’s unreadable gaze, as he stood patting his chest dry with a towel, fully emerged from the pool. Even with his lower half shielded, I quickly looked away, with the same discomfort as if I’d seen it.

One thing was certain, for as intriguing as he was, nothing seemed to move him. He may as well have been as stony as the statues that lined the walls behind him.

The final stop on my tour of the cathedral took us out past the maze of gardens behind the estate, to a stable that could’ve been a house, for all its extraordinary stonework. Its keeper, Garic, whom Anya introduced me to, was about as friendly as a hornet trapped in a bonnet. The older man, with graying hair and deep tan wrinkles, didn’t offer so much as a hello, before he stormed off, grumbling for having been interrupted from whatever he’d been doing.

Once our meeting was over, Anya turned to face me, arms crossed. “Perhaps you might feed the dogs their supper, then wash up for your own. You’ll find fresh dresses in your chamber.”

“Dresses? We’re to dress up for dinner?”

“Oh, yes. It’s important to maintain some semblance of mannerisms. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course.” For all the charm of this place, there remained a sliver beneath the skin, a reminder not to trust it entirely. After all, I had watched a man get mauled by dogs earlier. “You’ll need to bathe after tending the dogs.”