Sleep deserted Larkin throughout the short night. It slinked along the absolute darkness of her room, creeping on the corners, edging towards her. It slowly sunk from the tips of her toes upwards and just as her lids grew heavy with exhaustion, she shuddered awake out of terror.
At dawn’s first light, Larkin was up and drenched in night sweat. She did not sleep, she could not sleep. The thought of shutting her eyes when something such as Kade - inhuman, slept within the same walls as her not only terrified but denied her body of any rest.
The night’s events remained clear as day in her mind. Kade’s nude body, the blood that slicked his skin, tufts of fur that had not fully sunken during his transformation. His canines hard barely retracted, slicing the sink of his lower lip and drawing blood during the process. It was maddening. Unreal.
He approached her still mid-shift, and Larkin could do nothing but stare.
When his hand touched her shoulder, she swung the stick reflexively - anything to keep herself safe from the beast.
Kade caught it with ease, a low growl rumbling from the cavity of his chest. “Stop,” he commanded darkly as she struggled to hit him again. Behind, Oscar was dragging himself to his feet.
“Don’t touch her beast!” The boy yelled, almost threateningly, as though he knew exactly what Kade was. “I have told her father! They will return for her!”
Kade rolled his eyes in exasperation, his back still turned to Oscar. With his gaze circuited on Larkin’s, he spoke; “Every second you linger here is borrowed time, child.” It was a warning, one he would see to the end should Oscar not take heed.
Larkin’s frightful gaze darted past Kade’s shoulder, silently pleading with Oscar to remain and leave at the same time. Oscar too seemed conflicted. He was far too injured, he would not hold up well in battle with Kade. The result was inevitable.
With one last dangerous glare cast at Kade’s back, Oscar bowed his head and limped towards the woods. Away from him. Away from Larkin.
Left just the two of them, Larkin’s eyes darted from the spot where Oscar had once stood to now Kade. His stare was imperturbable and unwavering, a darkness swallowing his pupils whole with each fleeting second.
Larkin swallowed; “I’m sorry-” she began, her voice something close to cracking, the trembling in her hands resumed. “I had to- I can’t- please don’t kill me.”
Her pleads fall on a silence that draws itself out, long and torturous. Kade takes a step forward and she pushes back, “Kill you?” He mused, entertained by the prospect. “If I wished to end your life, Larkin, I would have the moment you left the bar.”
Larkin blinked, angling her face away when his hand rose towards her neck, fingertips gently stroking skin. Her eyes begin to sting, “I just want to go home,” that was all she wanted. Home. And Kade did not make it any easier as he too was nothing short of his brother. Charming yes, but deadly all the same.
“Please Kade-” she begs, “just let me g-”
His finger presses on her lips, “Hush.”
Obediently she falls silent. The hand languidly drops to her throat as he closes the final breadth of space between them, “I should have you punished for running-”
“But-” The hand that stroked her neck seized it, temporarily denying her speech. Kade squeezes with gentle caution; “I will not punish you, Larkin, but never try that again, Do you understand?”
Between the threat and his hand, Larkin had no choice but to comply. Her nod is stiff, eyes lowering in deference and fear.
“Good girl,” he pulled away.
Once they arrived back at the mansion, Kade disappeared, leaving Larkin to mull over the situation as her own adrenaline began to subside.
She rose from the bed and bathed in frigid ice water, combing through the knots in her hair before tying it up into a ponytail. The mansion was graveyard silent, Mathilde having yet to wake.
Larkin wandered across the kitchen listlessly, then began to make breakfast. Her mind ran amok with thoughts of Kade and his deception. His actions made her question everything up until that moment - he had intentionally led her to a bar despite her protests.
Salem had allowed him to take her even after he firmly stated that she would never leave the manor lest it be with him.
Larkin’s hand froze mid-pounding the dough for bread. She grew stiff at the realization that Kade had deceived her.
Salem had not permitted him to take her. And yet he did. She walked out of the mansion foolishly following him like a sheep would to slaughter.
“He doesn’t have to know,” Laekin whispered in pitiful self reassurance.
Kade was good at keeping secrets. Salem had no inkling of the events that surpassed whilst he lay in slumber.
If she could remain just as passive-
“Slave,” the familiar sonorous and resonant voice, like the ringing of deep crystal glass, startled Larkin out of her trance. She glanced over her shoulder hastily, stilling at the sight of Salem hovering by the door.
He was dressed for outside, a pressed navy blue coat with golden stitching, sleek obsidian hair pulled back into a ponytail. His liquid sapphire eyes watched her keenly, “Startled so early in the morning.” Salem remarked dryly.
Larkin cleared her throat, “Good morning, Master.” She turned back to the dough, unsure of how to proceed. “Breakfast should be ready in-”
“I did not come for breakfast,” Salem interrupted, drawing her attention back to him again, “be ready within the next ten minutes, we have somewhere to be.”
We.
Larkin blinked once then twice, struggling to fully process and decipher his words. She licked her dry lips, hoping to ask but he had already departed from the kitchen, leaving her.
Wasting no time, Larkin hastily made for her bedroom and pulled on the nearest semi-clean dress she owned. Her gaze dropped to Kade’s clothes which she had worn the previous night. She tucked them beneath her mattress then rushed out of the room.
Salem stood by a horse-drawn carriage. She hovered by the front door in uncertainty, watching his stoic marbled features move from one end of the horse to another. Without glancing up, Salem curls a finger, gesturing her forward.
Larkin tugged at the sleeves of the thin frayed sweater, pursing her lips to falter the staggering of her heart. The carriage was exotic-looking and quite expensive with gold plated edges and navy blue velvet covering. A man dressed in a pressed tail suit sat at the forefront, to guide the horses.
Salem held the carriage’s door open and Larkin hastily climbed in, taking short moments of awe as her gaze swept through the interior. She sat opposite him and pressed to the window, peering past the shades at the land beyond.
The carriage lurched forward once the door slid shut and she gripped the seat as a result, smiling sheepishly when Salem took note with a sardonic arc of an eyebrow.
“Is this your first time.” It was not a question.
Larkin nodded, “Carriages aren’t for middle class people,” she explained then fell silent. Throughout the ride she dared not glance in Salem’s direction, fearing that if she lingered too much he would notice.
Still, it was nearing impossible to resist the temptation. There was tragically attractive about the cruel man… even if he was not that scary. Larkin pursed her lips into a thin line and glanced sidelong at him.
Her attention immediately flickered back to the window upon the realization that he too was watching her, less subtly and more openly. She puffs her cheeks petulantly as the minutes tick by and a slight gnaw in her belly reminds her of the lack of breakfast.
“Where are we going?” She finally asked, gathering enough confidence to meet his gaze.
Salem flicked away an invisible lint from his otherwise pressed pants, “Town.”
Larkin nodded.
Silence.
“Why?” She asked again then quickly backtracked, “if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I do not,” Salem’s stare lingered on her clothes, “you will need a new wardrobe.”
A new wardrobe.
Was that it?
He was bringing her into town for new clothes? The prospect of it surged a thrill through her, yet at the same time she grew wary at his outright kindness. It was unbecoming of the man.
“Oh,” Larkin muttered, attention drifting to her hands on laps, “thank you.”
This time, the silence was comfortable. One in which she allowed herself slight reprieve. That is, until Salem spoke;
“Larkin,” she blinked at her name, meeting his gaze. “I will ask something of you, and in return I expect complete honesty. Do you understand?”
Fear leaped into her throat then, trepidation at the thought of what he was yet to ask. She hesitated for far too long. “I do.”
Salem studied her face a moment longer, then spoke;
“Where were you last night?”