Blood and Wine - Margot Scott Page 0,17

quite reach him.

“Do you trust that I have our family’s best interest at heart?” Edward asks.

“Yes, sir,” Christopher shouts, trembling.

“That’s a lie,” Edward says. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t be questioning my choices or trying to speed up my process.”

My chains groan as I throw my full weight into them. Christopher’s knuckles shine white as he grips the bars.

A familiar scent hits my nostrils as urine pools on the floor at his feet.

“If Mariah possesses even a fraction of her mother’s abilities,” Edward says, “her blood could be a gamechanger. Imagine how much money we’d stand to make if we were able to see into the future. If we could predict the market before investing.”

“You want us to drink human blood?” Christopher asks.

Lilliana rolls her eyes. “Obviously, we’d have this one turn her first, idiot.”

Edward smiles proudly at his daughter. There it is, I realize. Edward’s petty, human reason for reconnecting with Mariah. Money. Power. The chance to acquire more wealth than he and his wretched family know what to do with.

The assumption that I could simply turn Mariah is ludicrous, considering my current state. It would require me to only drink a portion of her blood. The enzymes in my saliva would do the rest as her organ systems start to fail. However, even if I possessed the wherewithal to partially drain her, the process only works a fraction of the time.

Edward pushes a button on the panel, and I’m snapped back against the stone wall. Christopher slides down the bars of the cage into his own piss puddle. His father unlocks the door and eases it open, blocking the way out.

“Disobey me again,” he says, “and I’ll leave you in here overnight.”

Chapter Nine

William

Watching Edward’s children deliver their half-assed apologies is as entertaining as it is cringe-inducing. Lilliana’s efforts are about as boring and black-and-white as it gets, while Christopher’s are much more colorful.

“I am mortified by and deeply ashamed of my thoughtless actions last night,” he says. “Please allow me to apologize for my disgusting behavior. It was unacceptable and entirely unwarranted. I vow to be a better, more considerate version of myself going forward.”

I can tell from Mariah’s body language that she isn’t buying a word of it. Clever girl. She spent most of the day in her room, listening to music on her portable device. I hoped she might take a nap, but she was too anxious.

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat and says, “Thank you, Christopher. I appreciate your attempt at an apology.”

I wait for Mariah in the twilight realm after she goes to bed, hoping she’ll come look for me in the vineyard. I don’t want to come off as too eager to see her again.

The craftiest predators know to let their prey come to them.

Her footfalls sound in the grass about a quarter mile from where I lie between two vine rows. It’s odd how differently my vampiric abilities behave on this plane. My sense of hearing is just as sharp, but my sense of smell is so dulled it might as well be nonexistent. It’s for the best, really. Being able to smell Mariah’s blood, but not access it, would be torture even if I wasn’t starving. As far as physical restrictions go, I can pass through doors, but not the ground, and I can walk on floorboards, but my hand glides right through other physical objects like shelves and tables.

I pretend to be lost in thought as Mariah approaches, dressed in another one of her extra-long tee shirts.

“Hello again,” she says, smiling.

“Hello to you.”

She drops down beside me and crosses her legs. “What, you’re not going to grab my face this time?”

“I would hardly say that I grabbed your face the last time we met,” I say. Her bare legs glow in the low light, pale and smooth. I resist the urge to run my hands all over them, just to see if it’s possible. “As for whether it’ll happen again. Maybe later. If you’re lucky.”

She chuckles at this. I turn my gaze toward the sky and listen to her heartbeat. She fidgets with a blade of grass.

“I know what you are,” she says.

I tense. “Do you?”

“You’re a ghost. I saw an old picture of you in Edward’s office. The date said 1937.”

I roll onto my side to look at her. “Couldn’t have been me, sweet pea. I was already dead.”

“I’m sure it was you.” She rips off a fat blade of grass and rolls it into a ball that