Chapter 14

He wore black trousers and a dark shirt, the top buttons undone. His hair was still slightly damp, and his golden eyes moved from my face to the open book.

I straightened immediately.“No, Your Highness.”

I had to lie who knew what he would do to a human that was educated.

“Then why are you staring at it?”

“I was cleaning the table.”

His gaze dropped to the cloth in my hand.“With your eyes?”

Heat rose to my cheeks.“I was looking at the writing.”

“That much is obvious.”He walked into the study and stopped beside the table. I moved out of his way, keeping my eyes lowered.

He didn’t speak for several seconds.I could feel him looking at me, and the silence made me increasingly uncomfortable.

“Have you finished the shelves?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then finish them.”

I nodded and returned to work.He sat in the reading chair and picked up the book, opening it to the page I had been examining. For a while, the only sound in the room was the faint movement of paper as he turned a page.

I tried not to look at him.

It was difficult.

Not because I wanted to admire him, but because I couldn’t understand how someone so dangerous could sit so quietly, reading as though the world outside his door didn’t exist.

There were no guards hovering over him. No servants rushing to anticipate his needs. He didn’t even seem interested in whether I was still in the room.

He simply read.

I returned to the shelves, brushing away the dust while stealing occasional glances at the books. I had always liked reading, although I had never owned many books myself. My father used to bring home second-hand ones whenever he could find them, and Emma would sit beside me while I read aloud.The memory made my chest ache.

I wondered whether she was asleep.Whether Selene had managed to calm her down.

Whether Emma still believed I would return home with enough money to change our lives.

I gripped the cloth tighter.I had to get out of this castle.

I had to find a way back to her.

“You’re leaving dust behind.”

Vladimir’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.I looked at the shelf.

He was right. I had missed a section near the top.

“Sorry.”

I reached up and tried to clean it, but the shelf was too high. I dragged a small wooden stool over and climbed onto it.

The last thing I needed was to give him another reason to complain.

I wiped the upper shelf, moving slowly so I wouldn’t knock anything over. When I reached the end, I noticed a small object pushed behind a row of books.

It looked like an old pocket watch.

Its metal casing was dark with age, and a thin chain had been wound around it. I couldn’t see the face clearly, but the design looked different from the watches I had seen before.

I reached toward it, then stopped.

The guard had told me not to remove anything.

I wasn’t planning to remove it. I only wanted to move the books enough to clean behind them.

I shifted the nearest book a little.The pocket watch slid forward.I caught it before it could fall.For one brief moment, I held it in my palm.

It was heavier than I expected, and the metal felt cold against my skin. An unfamiliar symbol had been engraved on the back.

I turned it over.

“Put it back.”

Vladimir’s voice was quiet, but something in it made my fingers go still.

I looked at him.

He had closed the book and was watching me from the chair.“I’m sorry. It was about to fall.”

“Put it back exactly where you found it.”

I carefully returned the pocket watch to its place and moved the books back around it.

When I climbed down from the stool, Vladimir had returned his attention to the book in his hands.

That was all.

No explanation. No threat. Not even a question about why I had touched it.

But I had noticed something.

Before I put the watch back, I had seen a date engraved beneath the symbol.

The numbers were faint, but I had been able to read them.

1673.

I had no idea whether that was the year the watch was made or the year it belonged to someone.

Either way, it was old.

Very old.

And judging by the way Vladimir had reacted, it wasn’t an ordinary decoration.

I finished cleaning the remaining shelves without touching anything else. By the time I was done, my arms ached, and the candlelight had shifted across the floor.

Vladimir hadn’t spoken to me again.

He remained in his chair, reading the same book, occasionally making a note on a piece of paper beside him.

When I finished, I gathered my cleaning supplies and stood near the door.

“Your Highness?”

He didn’t look up.“I’m finished.”

“Then go.”

I hesitated.There were questions I wanted to ask, but I knew better than to ask them. I had already been warned about touching his belongings, and I had no intention of testing his patience.

I turned toward the door.

“Veronica.”

I stopped so abruptly that the bucket nearly slipped from my hand.

It was the first time he had called me by my name since the bathing room.

I looked over my shoulder.

He had finally lifted his eyes from the book.

“Tomorrow, you’ll begin with the eastern shelves. Don’t touch anything on the desk unless I tell you to.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I left the study and closed the door behind me.

A guard was waiting in the corridor to escort me back to the servants’ quarters. As we walked, I couldn’t stop thinking about the pocket watch.

The date.

The way Vladimir had watched me.

And the fact that his rooms were filled with objects that seemed to belong to another age.

I had always known vampires lived longer than humans. That was common knowledge, even among people who had never seen one.

But knowing something and standing inside a room filled with centuries of history were two different things.

I didn’t know how old Vladimir was.

I only knew that he had lived long enough to collect things from a world that no longer existed.

And somehow, I had the feeling that his books and antiques weren’t the only things he had kept from the past.