Anathema (Causal Enchantment #1)(38)

And then she vanished, leaving me thinking I may have imagined her words.

Was she trying to pit me against Viggo and Mortimer now, too? Why? She was the one who had tricked me—cursed me. I obviously knew not to trust her. But Viggo—who was as blameless in all of this as I was—was asking for my help.

Is this even happening? I wondered as I walked toward my bed. Maybe this was the dream that I’d wake up from soon. I pinched my arm but only winced at the pain. This is real. Vampires exist. Witches exist. Viggo and Mortimer are vampires. Sofie is a vampire sorceress. The giant dog lying down on the other side of the room is … I don’t know what he is.

The three of them, fawning over me, a socially awkward stranger with no friends, giving me gifts and kindness … I should have known something was not right. I sighed. I wasn’t Nancy Drew—not unless Nancy Drew was blind and deaf.

An awful numbness was taking over. I’m sure anger was there, buried deep under a blanket of shock and confusion, but it was all rolled up and somehow encapsulated within the numbness. I never understood why anyone described it as a lack of feeling when, to me, there was definitely a sensation with being “numb”; not one I could describe, except to say it felt wrong.

A glance out the window showed night looming. If I could force myself to stay awake for the night, maybe Sofie’s curse wouldn’t work. But if not, if I did get pulled into this dream world that I now knew wasn’t a dream world, I had to prepare myself. They were vampires. They might bite me and drain me of my blood. Except that they hadn’t done anything like that yet. They had protected me. When I was lying in Caden’s arms, bleeding profusely, he could easily have finished me off, but he didn’t. None of them had. The more I tried, the harder it was to picture Amelie, with her bouncy curls and childlike smile, being murderous. Or Caden … perfect Caden. They couldn’t be bad. They had to be like Viggo and Mortimer—good vampires.

It was pitch black this time. I couldn’t see any shadows, any outlines, anything at all. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

“Hold on,” a male voice called out. A light appeared to my left. I turned to see Caden anchoring a burning torch into a wall bracket. Even with my spirit drained from the day’s revelations, my heart still skipped a beat at the sight of him, and I knew it wasn’t out of fear. The possibility that he was a vampire was trivial. That he was no longer a figment of my imagination, that I was standing in front of him … that made me jittery.

Oh my God. I had all but professed my undying love to him the last time I was here, when I thought it was a dream. Right before I insulted his taste in women.

Blood rushed to my head along with my mortification. The room began to spin. I reached out, searching for a support, and my hand grazed something cool and smooth and hard. I turned to see the statue. The conduit.

“Is that—” I began, but my voice ended in a croak when Caden appeared in front of me, gingerly reaching for my bandaged hand.

“What happened?” His face twisted with worry.

“Oh, nothing. It’s okay,” I stammered, melting with the feel of my hand cradled in his. His vampire hand. Without thinking, I yanked my hand away.

When I hazarded a look up, I found his jade green eyes watching me. He nodded slightly, a strange expression on his face, as if acknowledging something. He knows … he knows that I know.

We stared at each other for a long, silent moment. Then he thrust a set of clothes into my uninjured hand. “You should put these on, in case we have more visitors,” he said quietly.

I glanced down to see the same type of nondescript sweats I’d put on the other night. Heat crawled up my neck as I recalled the last time Caden had handed me clothes. It was right before he kissed me. I had made out with a vampire. And enjoyed it, immensely.

“Is this the same statue as in the woods?” I asked hoarsely, turning to point at the statue, desperate to change the topic. I looked back to find myself talking to an empty cave.

I fumbled slowly with the clothes, my injured hand awkward. I hadn’t bothered undressing earlier that evening, opting to cuddle with Max until the blaze of the pendant and the fatigue set in, the warning sign that Sofie’s curse was about to take me. I had held onto Max tightly, begging him to come with me, to protect me.

But it hadn’t worked and here I stood, alone. Alone in a cave full of bloodthirsty vampires. Were they really bloodthirsty, though?

Now wearing my disguise, I retrieved the torch and followed the sound of distant voices. I found the group circling a fire in the same giant cave as the previous night. Four faces turned to smile at me. Four beautiful faces. I looked around; Rachel was nowhere to be seen. Relief washed over me.

Okay, try to act normal. Small talk. “Is that my statue back there?”

Amelie nodded. “It was Caden’s idea to bring it here so we wouldn’t have to sit down in the valley, waiting for you. It worked! Clever.” Amelie’s springy curls bobbed as she turned her head to smile proudly at her brother. “We replaced your statue in the woods with an imitation that Fiona created, in case someone wanders out there.”

“It looks more like a fat, drunk ogre, but it should work—from a distance,” Fiona said with a nervous giggle.

Amelie walked over, reaching out to take my hand, her brow furrowed in concern as Caden’s had been. “What happened?”