Fated to My Vampire Lord novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Connecting Door

At Crowhurst House Tiernan's hand rests on Willa's back for the staff, and his grandmother Ottoline sees through the fake, gives her a room with a connecting door and warns her to keep it fake.

Crowhurst House stood at the top of a hill with every window lit.

The car stopped at the foot of the front steps, and a maid and two footmen were already waiting on the porch.

Tiernan got out first.

He came around and opened my door himself.

"They're watching," he said, so low I barely heard it.

Then he put his hand on the small of my back and walked me up the steps.

His palm was cool through the thin white dress, and it did not move.

I had been touched by plenty of wolves, always the way a pack touches, a shove or a cuff or a hand on a shoulder.

Nobody had ever put a hand on my back and kept it there, gently, as far as the stairs went.

I stopped noticing the stairs.

At the top he took his hand away, and the cold stayed on my skin where it had been.

"Good," he said, and went through the door without looking at me.

Otis came up behind with his duffel and breathed out through his teeth.

"He touched you and nothing happened," he said. "No lightning. I checked."

"It was for the maid."

"What maid?"

"The one on the porch."

"Willa, she went inside before he did."

I did not answer that.

A woman was standing in the front hall with both hands folded on top of a walking stick.

She had silver hair in a knot, a dark green dress and a face I would have guessed was fifty.

I knew who she was from the Renewal pages, which listed every Council elder with her age.

Ottoline Crowhurst, seventy-one.

"My grandson will show your friend to his room," she said. "You and I will talk."

"Grandmother," Tiernan said.

"Go, Tiernan."

He went.

I was shown into a library with a fire in it, and a chair that was too deep for me.

Ottoline sat across from me and did not offer tea.

"It's a fake," she said.

I kept my face still.

"Excuse me?"

"My grandson doesn't hold hands. In thirty-four years I have not seen him put a hand on a woman, because he thinks touching people is an imposition. Tonight he touched you on the porch in front of a maid who was already leaving."

"He was playing the part."

"He was overdoing it," she said. "Which is how I know it's a part."

She leaned on the stick and studied me.

"Don't worry. I won't say so to anyone. Clause nine was written for exactly this, a wolf nobody wants and a Crowhurst nobody can marry off."

"Then why not stop us?"

"Because the Council's chair has a niece, and I would rather you were in her way than that girl was in mine."

That, at least, I could understand.

"What do you want, Willa Bellegarde?"

"I'm not Bellegarde anymore."

"What do you want, then?"

I thought about it, and the fire popped.

"My name," I said. "In writing, on a roll, where nobody can take it off again."

"And a wolf?"

I opened my mouth and closed it.

"I don't have one."

"Give me your hand."

I held out my right hand.

She took it in both of hers, which were dry and cool, and turned it palm up.

She studied the palm for a long moment.

Her thumb pressed the inside of my wrist, where the numbness always began.

"Warm," Ottoline said.

"Wolves run warm."

"They do."

She let go.

She did not say anything else about it, her expression settling into a stillness that had not been there before.

"You have a room on the second floor," she said. "It was my husband's study. It has a door that connects to my grandson's rooms."

"A connecting door?"

"The household will talk if you sleep apart, and he will not spend a year explaining a locked door to servants. The key is on your side."

"That's generous."

"It is practical."

She rose, leaning on the stick she didn't need.

At the door she stopped, with her back to me.

"The last Crowhurst who brought a wolf into this house lost his seat on the Council in a single night," she said. "He lost it in front of the whole city. He lost more than that, afterward."

"What did he lose?"

"Be sure it stays fake, Willa."

She went out, and the door clicked behind her.

The fire popped again.

I sat alone in a chair too deep for me and looked at my warm hand in the firelight.

Then I got up and went to find my room.

The connecting door was oak, with a brass keyhole, and the key was on my side.

I turned it twice in the lock.

From the other side, very faintly, I heard him walk to the door, stop, and walk away.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend