Playing Dead: Book One of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 37

"Tell me about her."

My words hung in the air, momentarily suspended by the chill in the dark room, as if the electricity of the storm had seeped inside and was crackling above our heads, waiting to burst through the great rain clouds.

I felt Harper's body stiffen as I lay against him, nestled into his chest with his arm wrapped firmly around me.

"What do you want to know? She was my wife and she was murdered. What more is there to it than that?" The cold tone twisted his voice and I knew I was treading on very dangerous ground.

I took a deep breath. "Vampires can marry?"

"They can if a priest doesn't know they are vampires and seeing as some priests are more concerned with lining the pockets of their illustrious robes, then they'd marry practically anyone for the right amount."

"Where was the ceremony?"

"Valencia. In a small church on the outskirts of the city."

"You married in a church?" I said, wide-eyed.

"No Megan, we married in a supermarket." He sighed. "Of course we married in a church. Did you think the light of God would pulverise us to nothing but ashes? Rest assured, we were perfectly safe from His disapproval and damnation."

"Why Valencia?"

"Why not Valencia?"

"No, I mean, why not here?"

He shifted and pulled his arm out from underneath me, sitting up and resting his elbows on his raised knees as he ran his hands through his still-damp hair. The tail of the dragon snaked around the small of his back and I resisted the urge to touch it, although I wanted to. I wanted to run my fingertips along his skin and forget I had ever started this conversation.

It was Harper who broke the stagnant silence.

"We had run away. As if anyone of our age could have run away. But we did. Like teenagers we snuck off, leaving everything we knew behind us. We headed across Europe and finally settled in Valencia for a short time. There, we decided to marry. A mighty fuck-you to everyone and everything if you like. It's not usual for vampires to marry, trust me, but then again there was nothing remotely average about our relationship."

I heard the yearning in his voice and pain; a raw, blistering pain that still embittered him to the core. And I couldn't help but feel a sharp stab of jealousy towards this girl I had never known and I bit my lip hard as it crept around my heart and tightened its hold.

"Why did you run away?"

"It was just easier. London was....claustrophobic...suffocating. Too many people with too many opinions. I needed to be free of it all."

"You did?"

"We both did," he snapped and I immediately saw the nerve, raw and exposed and knew there was more too this than he wanted to say.

"Your father and Garrick didn't approve?" I remembered something in the way that Garrick spoke about Jenny and of how Harper's love for her had destroyed everything that made me think these were the people with too many opinions.

Harper laughed now but it was a cold sound that made me shiver. "And why would they? She was the runt of the litter after all."

I sat up straight, mouth open in surprise. "Wait, she was family?"

"Yes. She was our sister although that was never Benjamin's intention," he sneered. "She was made by Benjamin for Benjamin."

"I don't understand?" I frowned.