Chapter 5 Disappointed
The stairs were endless.
They wound upward in a tight, suffocating spiral of black stone that seemed to suck the heat right out of the air. My legs, still new and trembling from the transformation, burned with every step. I stumbled twice, my knees cracking against the unforgiving rock, but Klaus didn’t stop. He didn't offer a hand. He just kept climbing, a dark, silent shadow ahead of me, his cape sweeping the stairs like a trailing wing.
He was testing me. I knew it. He wanted to see if I would break. If I would beg him to carry me.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, forcing my legs to move. I wouldn’t beg. Not to him. Not after he had dragged me by my hair in front of an audience of monsters.
Finally, we reached the top.
Klaus kicked open a heavy oak door reinforced with iron bands. He didn't usher me in gently; he grabbed my arm and swung me inside with enough force that I stumbled, catching myself on a heavy wooden table to keep from hitting the floor.
The door slammed shut behind us. The lock turned—a heavy, final sound of steel sliding into place.
I spun around, my chest heaving, adrenaline making my hands shake.
"You hurt me," I accused, my voice breathless. I reached up to touch my scalp, which still throbbed from where he had yanked my head back in the throne room.
Klaus didn't answer immediately. He leaned back against the locked door, closing his eyes. He exhaled a long, slow breath, his shoulders dropping just an inch. For a fleeting second, the terrifying Lord Falkenstein looked... human. He looked exhausted.
Then he opened his eyes. The blue fire was back, cold and sharp.
"I saved your life," he corrected, pushing off the door. He walked past me, stripping off his gloves with jerky, angry movements. He threw them onto the table. "You’re welcome, by the way."
"You humiliated me!" I shouted, the fear turning into a hot, blinding rage. "You treated me like an animal! You pulled my hair, you dragged me—"
"I saved your tongue!"
He spun around, his voice booming off the stone walls. I flinched, stepping back.
"Vespera collects them," he hissed, advancing on me. "She keeps them in formaldehyde jars on her vanity. She talks to them. Is that what you wanted? To be a conversation piece for a psychotic duchess?"
I hit the wall. There was nowhere else to go. The room was large, circular, and lined with tall, arched windows that looked out over the smog-choked city, but right now, it felt like a coffin.
"Why?" I demanded, pressing my spine against the cold stone. "Why risk the Emperor’s wrath for me? You said I’m just cargo. You could have let them take me. You could have let them carve me up."
He stopped inches from me. He was so tall he blocked out the light from the chandeliers.
"I don't know," he admitted. The words seemed to surprise him. He looked angry at himself, his jaw working as he ground his teeth.
He slammed his hands against the wall on either side of my head, trapping me. The sound made me jump.
"You are a problem, Nerissa," he growled, leaning down until his face was level with mine. "You are a chaotic, loud, infuriating problem. You have no survival instinct. You provoke the most powerful being on this continent because of... what? Pride?"
"Dignity," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"Dignity gets you killed here," he spat. "Obedience keeps you alive."
"I am not a dog."
"No," he agreed, his gaze dropping to my mouth. "You aren't."
The air between us shifted. It grew heavy, thick with a tension that tasted like electricity. He was too close. I could smell the storm on him.
He stared at me, his eyes searching my face. He looked at my lips, then my throat, then back to my eyes. The anger in his face began to fracture, revealing something darker. Something hungrier.
"I should have let them take you," he murmured, more to himself than to me. "It would be easier. Simpler. My life was quiet before I fished you out of the ocean."
"Then let me go," I breathed. "Open the door."
"I can't."
He lowered his head. He inhaled deeply, his nose brushing against the sensitive skin of my neck.
I froze. My entire body went rigid. This was it. The predator was finally going to take his bite.
"You smell like salt," he whispered against my skin. "Like deep water. It’s... maddening."
I should have pushed him away. I should have screamed. I should have tried to sing a command that would blast him through the wall.
But I didn't.
My body betrayed me. A shiver violently racked through me, and my head tilted back involuntarily, baring my throat to him. It wasn't submission. It was something more primal. A twisted instinct that recognized the monster in him and wanted to see what it would do.
"Do it," I whispered.
He went still.
"What?" The word vibrated against my collarbone.
"Bite me," I dared him, my voice trembling. "Take what you want. Isn't that what you are? A leech? A parasite?"
It was a taunt. A challenge. I wanted to hurt him with words, to make him lose that icy control he wore like armor.
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His pupils had blown wide, swallowing the sapphire irises until his eyes were almost entirely black. The veins in his neck were pulsing with that strange blue light.
"You have no idea what you are asking," he warned, his voice rough.
"I'm asking you to stop pretending," I said. "You want to. I can see it."
"If I bite you," he said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly low register, "I won't stop. I will drink until your heart stops beating. I will drain you until you are nothing but a husk in my arms."
"Maybe that's better than this cage," I countered.
He stared at me, a war raging behind his eyes. His hand moved from the wall to my throat. His fingers wrapped around my windpipe not choking, but holding. Claiming. His thumb traced the frantic pulse beating there.
He leaned in. His lips parted, his fangs lengthening, sharp and white against the red of his lower lip.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain. Waiting for the end.
His breath hit my skin, hot and fast. I felt the sharp points of his teeth graze my skin, a hair's breadth away from breaking the surface.
Then, he groaned. A low, frustrated sound of pure agony.
He ripped himself away from me.
He stumbled back as if I had burned him, turning his back to me. He gripped the edge of the heavy wooden table, his knuckles turning white.
"No," he growled.
I opened my eyes, gasping for air, my hand flying to my intact throat.
"That is what they want," he said, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. "To turn you into cattle. To make you nothing more than a meal."
He looked over his shoulder at me. The sapphire fire was back, blazing brighter than before, fueled by denial.
"I will not do their work for them," he said. "And I will not let you take the easy way out, Nerissa. You don't get to die. Not yet."
He straightened up, fixing his cuffs, putting the mask of the General back on. But I saw his hands trembling.
"Get some sleep," he commanded, walking toward the door. "Tomorrow, the real torture begins. I'm going to teach you how to survive in a tank of sharks without getting eaten."
"Klaus," I called out.
He stopped, his hand on the iron latch.
"Why didn't you?" I asked. "You were hungry."
He didn't turn around.
"Because," he said, his voice quiet and cold, "I don't eat things that talk back."
He slammed the door. The lock clicked again.
I slid down the cold stone wall until I hit the floor, pulling my knees to my chest. I buried my face in my hands, trying to stop the shaking.
My neck tingled where his breath had been.
I hated him. I hated this place. I hated the cold, the smog, the cruelty.
But as I sat there in the dark, high above the city of monsters, the only thing I could think about was the terrifying, electric heat of his body pressing against mine. And the realization that when he had pulled away... I had been disappointed.