In Which I Do Not Lie

In November, a storm tore one of the shutters loose from the drawing-room wall. It struck the stone with a report like a gunshot.

The narrow screwdriver in Clara’s hand slipped from the screw head and scored across the pad of her thumb. I smelled her blood before she drew breath to curse.

Everything stopped.

One small bead had welled upon her thumb.

It should not have mattered, it was scarcely a drop, but my body disagreed. 

The room contracted around her. I heard the quickening of her pulse in her throat as she examined the cut. I could smell the soap upon her hands, the wool of her dress, the machine oil caught beneath her fingernails, the brass she had been handling and suddenly, heat and skin and blood. 

Living flesh beneath cloth. Close enough to take into my arms. I had crossed half the distance between us, though I did not remember moving. That frightened me more than the hunger.

My teeth descended.

“Severin?”

Her eyes dropped briefly to my mouth.

I stopped.

For one dreadful instant, I could imagine precisely how little effort it would require to close the remaining distance. I could kneel beside her, take her injured hand, put that small wounded thumb between my lips. The thought came with such hideous tenderness that I recoiled from it.

I turned away so violently that my hip caught the little table beside me and sent it crashing against the wall.

“Cover your hand.”

Behind me there was no movement.

“Clara.”

She flinched at her name.

“Cover it.”

Cloth rustled at last.

“It’s covered.”

I had rules. Once, I had been precisely the thing men feared beyond the firelight. It had taken centuries to become otherwise.

I fed from the butcher. I did not hunt. I did not touch the living. However, none of it made Clara’s blood smell less sweet.

I braced both hands against the mantel above the fireplace. A crack sounded beneath my fingers.

Clara drew a breath.

“What are you?”

There were lies available to me, I had survived centuries by means of them. I found, to my considerable misfortune, that I could not tell one to her.

“A vampire.”

The loosened shutter struck the house again.

The front door is unlocked,” I said before she could speak. “Take the lamp.”

“Are you asking me to leave?”

“I am advising you to.”

She gathered her tools in silence and left.

I remained before the fire until I heard her cross the gravel, lift the gate latch, and disappear beyond the reach of even my hearing. Only then did I start gathering the broken pieces. 

I found a splinter driven deep into my palm, I pulled it free, and watched the wound close before the blood could fall.