Alexia's nightmares become reality: a dead baron, red-eyed wraiths, and forbidden love with a man hunted by these creatures. After an attack close to home, Alexia realizes she cannot keep one foot in her old life and one in this new world. To protec...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Eleven
Another of Our Kind
Alexia walked the perimeter of the house with Mother at her side, bored from the silence between them.
Father had refused to elaborate on what he'd said about Alexia "coming of age". Mother had ignored the question. Alexia wrote Aunt Sarah a letter, impatiently hoping for answers. She hinted in every conversation with Father that she would love to go traveling, and what better excuse than to visit her aunt?
While wearing Father down, Alexia watched for the blue-eyed stranger to appear. It seemed she'd escaped him, but what had become of Bellezza? How did no one recall Baron Galedrew's death? No one but her? She regularly snuck into Father's study and thumbed through his letters, searching for a return correspondence from the baron. Father had written only because she'd insisted that Galedrew had been murdered. Finally, a letter arrived: House vacated. The baron had simply disappeared—no forwarding address.
Alexia had questioned every aspect of the assassination: was it possible she'd dreamed the whole thing? The ruffles of her new nightgown said otherwise. Could Bellezza have executed the baron rather than the stranger? No child could shove a ladle clean through a man's chest. And then there was her nightmare man. How could Mother fear him and Father despise him, unless they knew the stranger? Alexia fought to banish those mind-consuming eyes from her meditations along with Bellezza's voice, but the terrifying girl's words remained:
...another of our kind...
The clomp of hooves turned her head. A stable boy had rounded the far corner of the building behind them, tugging the tethers of a speckled grey horse.
She stopped dead.
Mother continued on, shoulders stiff.
"I, I must excuse myself," Alexia dismissed, and hurried toward the boy and steed. From the shimmering white mane to its unique markings, this was the beast of her nightmares.
"How did you obtain this horse?" Alexia asked.
"From a caller, m' lady."
Blood pounded in her ears.
You could buy or sell a horse. The stallion's appearance meant nothing definitive—or at least she wanted to believe that.
She wetted her lips. "And where is this caller now?"
"Meeting with your father, m' lady."
Her heart plummeted to her knees.
Father was in danger.
Dodging back into the house, she sprinted down the hall. Had the stranger finally tracked her here because she was the only living testament of his crime, or because Father had inquired about the baron's disappearance? Would he harm Father?
