Chapter 2 Valemor Manor Swallowed Me Whole

Elodie

The carriage door shut with a heavy thud and the once warm air turned cold as Roman sat across from me. Moments later we lurched forward, the wheels crunched over gravel, then became smooth as we left Spring River behind. The river’s gentle whoosh became stronger as if we were following it. The forest closed in around us, branches scraped faintly against the roof like claws.

I nervously folded my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking. It’s here in such small quarters of the cabin that it became impossible to escape his heavy gaze. No matter how much I tried to make myself small or cram into the corner, I still felt the burn of his leer. He was sizing me up, calculating how long it would take to drain me.

Silence stretched on between us, thick and nauseating. The carriage rocked gently with the road, the sway made me lightheaded and dizzy. My quickened pulse, the rush of heat pooling at the top of my skull, I was aware of his stare, the tightening of his jaw.

He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped tightly together. When he spoke, his voice was rough as he taunted me, “you can only ignore me for so long.”

I trapped my snide remark behind my clenched teeth, not giving him what he wanted. My attention. If I can refuse him one thing, it’ll be just that.

“Taking the hard way, Elodie, won’t make it any more painful.” His words held truth that pricked at my skin like pins and needles. But if it was painful it would prevent me from falling into the depths of his gaze. From drowning in his needy stare. He wanted something from me and I refused to give it to him.

“I don’t mind painful,” I muttered. Painful was living in a town that treated you like shit. Painful was running to a different town owned by a different vampire after your mother died with false hopes of starting fresh. Painful was to look a monster in the eye and know that he was going to kill you one day and there was nothing you could do about it.

Ignorant of my torment, Roman chuckled as if my defiance amused him. “You always chose the hard way.”

“What?” I replayed his words over and over in my head to make sure I heard them correctly. “How do you know, an assumption by the way, that I always choose the hard way?” I asked sharply, shocked at the truth of his statement.

His expression shifted. Just slightly. “I meant it as a question.” He repeated himself, this time carefully, emphasis placed where it hadn’t been before. But it lacked emotion, it lacked truth.

My eyes narrowed. Suspicion curled low in my stomach.

He turned his gaze away, fixing it on the dark stretch of road ahead. The silence that followed was deliberate.

Time stretched thin. The farther we traveled, the colder it became. The cool night air crept through the seams of my dress, biting at my skin. I wrapped my arms around myself, jaw tightly clenched to keep my teeth chattering despite my effort to stay still.

“Are you cold?” Roman asked. Concern threaded his voice so convincingly that for half a heartbeat, I believed it.

As he began to shrug off his coat, I lifted my hand abruptly, “don’t.”

He froze. Something unreadable flashed across his face before he let the coat fall back into place. “Right,” he muttered. “The hard way.”

This time, it wasn’t a mistake. He watched me after that, not with restraint, blatant and filled with dominance. There was no escaping it, only enduring it.

His false compassion wouldn’t be the death of me, but hypothermia might.

I could praise God when the carriage finally slowed, but that would be foolish of me, praising a God that has unmistakingly punished me.

Through the small window, I watched us approach iron gates that rose from the mist, tall and ornate, flanked by stone pillars carved with winged figures frozen in silent agony. Just beyond was Valemor Manor. It was shadowed by the lingering thick foggy mist, except for the faint glow of candlelight placed in windows, but as we rolled through the arched entrance it became clearer. Vast and looming, all spires and shadow, those tiny little lights now glowed vibrantly in the upper windows like watchful eyes.

The slow crunch of gravel beneath the carriage wheels finally came to a stop. Without a word spoken, Roman exited and stood below, his hand extended. It wasn’t a request.

It was a demand.

I stared at his open palm, my heart pounding, every instinct screaming to not take it, but what other choice did I have. Reluctantly, I placed my hand in his, his fingers squeezed mine as he helped me make my way down. Our hands remained locked together as he made sure my feet were steady on the pebbles before letting go.

As we approached the front steps, Valemor Manor swallowed me whole, looming over me like a daunting dream. A nightmare I was unable to wake from. If it wasn’t for the gentle nudge of his hand, I don’t think I would’ve been able to step across the threshold.

The doors shut behind us with a heavy definitiveness that reverberated through the stone beneath my feet. Warmth rushed in to replace the night’s icy chill, thick with the scent of burning wood and something I couldn’t quite place. An incense, a herb maybe.

Immediately, we were met by an older woman. She moved with practiced precision, head bowed, eyes never once lifting as she reached for Roman’s coat. He shrugged out of it without breaking stride, the fabric sliding into her waiting hands like this was a ritual performed nightly.

Then she turned to me, her gaze finally lifted only for her to falter upon meeting my eyes. She took in my coatless body, my spring dress that did nothing to keep the cold at bay. There was a flash of sympathy in her gaze before she quickly turned back to Roman. “When would you like dinner prepared, Sir?”

“Two hours,” Roman replied, his voice was smooth, controlled, but when his dark gaze shifted to me, something changed. His words were measured and clipped with irritation, “should be an adequate amount of time for Elodie to settle in.”

The words hit harder than I expected. Two hours. A sharp, burning ache crept up my throat and I was desperate to force it back down. In two hours, he expected to be fed. And I was on the menu. Not metaphorically. Not politely. Literally.

Day one of my three hundred and sixty-five was off to a great start.

The woman inclined her head and disappeared down a side corridor without another glance at me, as if I was just another woman occupying the manor.

Roman turned toward the staircase. “Let me show you to our room,” he said.

Our. The word lodged itself beneath my ribs like a splinter. My feet refused to move, keeping me stuck in place, close to the door as if I could swing it open and run. “I didn’t agree to share bed with you,” I spat.

Roman paused at the base of the stairs. Slowly, he turned back to face me. His expression was carefully blank, but his eyes, those endless, needy eyes, burned with something dangerously close to restraint that was on the verge of snapping. “There are many things you will be doing that you didn’t agree to,” he replied. “Things that were decided long before tonight.”

“The others, they shared a room with you as well?” For some reason I was more repulsed by being the hundredth girl to warm his bed more so than actually sharing a bed with him.

“No, but they didn’t choose the hard way.” He either was testing me or punishing me, even though it all felt the same. Taking slow calculated steps, he stalked in my direction, “they willingly gave me what I wanted and I won’t expect anything less from you.”

“And if I refuse?”

A heavy pause settled between us. Then, softly, devastatingly honest, “you won’t,” he said before he straightened and offered his arm, not as a courtesy, but as a command that was expected to be obeyed.

Being led deeper into Valemor felt like crossing a line I couldn’t uncross, a place where I wasn’t just a guest or a prisoner, but something far more dangerous. Something remembered.

The manor was massive with rooms branching off of corridors, hallways for miles, some dead ends that led to large arched windows while others led to more hallways. But there was a sense of familiarity, like I knew where those neverending halls led or the fact that I took deliberate steps forward toward the room up ahead, his room, as if I knew where it was.

Roman stopped just before the doorway. “Welcome to the master suite.” He easily caught on to my apprehension as I walked past him and entered the room.

The high ceilings made it feel vast and boundless. The large bed that was draped in dark linens took up most of the space. Across from the bed was a fireplace that burned brightly trying to bring warmth to the cold room.

Lurking behind, standing in the doorway, Roman was leaning against the doorframe, his eyebrow arched in curiosity, “unless you want to change your mind. It can be quite easy. You come, when I call. No fighting, just submission.”

It would be easy to give into him. “I don’t take orders very well.” I refused to let him shake me. He picked the wrong girl, but for some reason it feels as if he knows he picked the right one.

“You will,” he said with a slick slyness as he took a step back, “settle in, get some rest. I’ll send Marianna to get you for dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“But I am.” The door closed behind him with a soft, irreversible click leaving me alone.

Time moved rapidly after that. I paced. Sat. Stood again. Every surface felt tainted. Every mirror felt like it was watching me back.

The fire did little to warm me. Maybe I was cold for reasons that had nothing to do with temperature. I imagined Roman below, counting seconds the way I was, but instead of untamed mania, he would be filled with tainted temptation.

A knock came, a soft tap against the wood of the door, but I was so tightly strung that I flinched from the sudden sound. Seconds later the door opened to reveal the same older woman from earlier, her face composed, eyes expectant.

“Lady Elodie,” she said, dipping her head. “Dinner is ready.”