Page 86 of Eternal Devotion

“Hello?” My voice carried and vanished in the trees.

Only then did I realize the birds had gone quiet, no longer filling the sky with their evening song.

I listened for a while longer before deciding I was too jumpy and startling at chipmunks and field mice.

Entering the house, I made for the kitchen. Nothing was amiss. It all appeared as it had earlier that day. Map on the worktop table. Abandoned water bottle. Discarded towel. Broken door.

Bracing for what I might find, I descended the stairs, preceded by the flashlight beam, noting how they were sturdier than the ones to the second level.

In the cellar, I rounded the corner and shone a light on Mordecai’s human-size crate, half convinced I would find it empty.

He was there, as still and peaceful as when I left earlier… only changed.

His face was whole and well. A radiant twenty-seven, not sixty-seven. The open wound and blistered skin had healed. His chest, smooth and flawlessly pale, showed no sign of injury. A wave of relief nearly buckled my knees as I approached and examined him head to toe. No indication of his earlier peril. Not a lingering scar or blemish of any kind.

Crouching, amazed at the transformation, I pressed a hand to his face, yet flinched at the icy quality of his skin. It was not something I was getting used to. Oddly, when tangled in bed in the heat of passion, I never seemed to notice.

“Mordecai?”

He didn’t stir. I wasn’t sure I could sit by and stare at his unmoving form while my active imagination played tricks on me. I needed proof he was alive. I wanted him to wake up and open his burgundy eyes, be privy to his reserved smiles.

I patted his face and jostled him, calling his name again to no avail.

“Come on. The sun is going down soon. Wake up.”

No response.

Frustrated, I paced the basement, unwilling to leave, yet unable to look upon him in this state. Twice more, I stopped near his… box and tried to wake him. Checking my weather app to see if the sun had officially set, I discovered it wouldn’t happen for another seventeen minutes.

“Is it that specific?”

It couldn’t be. We’d gone out during the day.

“Fine. I’ll wait, but you’d better wake up in a talkative mood because I have a lot of questions.”

A sound upstairs made me catch my breath and peer at the ceiling. Was I hearing things again, or did someone open the door? The creepy house liked to mess with my head. It was probably my imagination.

As I was about to dismiss the noise, the tired complaint of aged wood floors under the weight of a grown adult made my skin crawl. Someone was moving along the upstairs hallway.

“Shit.”

Darting my attention to Mordecai, prepared to shake him awake if it meant giving him whiplash, I gasped and jolted back a step.

Mordecai was no longer asleep. His wide burgundy eyes were fixed on the ceiling, moving ever so slightly as he tracked the intruder. “They found me.”

21

Mordecai

Although rejuvenated and injury-free, my level of depletion was of great concern. A deeply seated hunger pulsed through every extremity, monopolizing my thoughts and affecting my ability to concentrate.

But I couldn’t deal with that in the present moment. Someone was in the house. They had found me.

“Who is they?” Ensley hissed, deep lines of fear painting his features. He clung to his phone, the beam cutting harshly into my retinas. It would give us away before long.

“Turn off the light and be quiet.” I got to my feet and taxed my ears, tracking the guests.

The murmur of voices overhead suggested more than one intruder, and I easily picked out their conversation. Three voices. All familiar.