Chapter 422: Breakfast with a Vampire
"Are you sure you don’t have a tower to lock me in?" Penelope mumbled as they both entered the dining room.
It was a room that she hadn’t been in before, but as far as she could tell it looked just like all the others—dark and dreary and depressing, frozen in a perpetual night—only larger. There was a long ornate table in the middle of the room, and she paused her steps not knowing where to sit until she saw the food already served for them at two neighboring chairs. Zagan walked forward and pulled the chair out for her before standing at his place at the head of the table. He was waiting for her before sitting, and it struck her as so odd that she chuckled out loud.
"What is it?" He asked, still poised at his spot.
She sighed and walked to where she was meant to sit, ignoring his question.
"Do you enjoy Brandt’s cooking?" He asked, finally sitting as she had next to him and pulling a napkin out to place on his lap.
"Yes, it is very good," she replied, taking a sip of the freshly squeezed orange juice that was already poured for her. "It is the only thing I have to look forward to while I am here. There is nothing else."
"It must be very boring for a scientist such as yourself to be stuck in that room," he picked up an empty glass and leaned back in his chair, looking for someone in the doorway. Brandt appeared and poured a red liquid from the carafe he was holding.
"Good morning, Brandt," Penelope greeted him with a smile as she brought the juice to her lips once again.
"Good morning, miss Penelope. I hope you enjoy what I have prepared for you today," Brandt answered with a boyish grin.
"I was just telling Zagan that your wonderful cooking is the only thing I have to look forward to. I am sure today’s will be just as good. You have a gift," she smiled.
"I am honored that you think so, miss Penelope," he bowed before receiving a sudden burst of frigid air from Zagan’s side.
He cleared his throat, his eyes going wide at the unexpected terrifying aura that Zagan rarely used unless he was truly about to kill someone. Brandt himself had never felt it until now, and he quickly left the room before he could displease the vampire any further.
Penelope frowned and looked at Zagan suspiciously. It seemed as if he had done something to scare the lycan into leaving rather suddenly.
"Wine so early in the morning?" She asked before picking up a fork and raising her eyebrows at him.
Zagan chuckled. "You don’t really believe this to be wine, do you?"
She stopped chewing, her eyes flitting to the glass again with the dark liquid. It was blood?
"Oh," she said simply, drying her mouth with the napkin and swallowing uneasily. Her stomach turned. "You drink it from a glass like that?"
"It is not preferred, but I am finding ways of accommodating this new... situation," he acknowledged, picking up his own utensils.
"Whose is it? I thought you wouldn’t... drink from anyone else," she mumbled, twisting the napkin in her hands under the table. She suddenly felt sick.
Zagan stopped chewing, picking up on the way she had grown uncomfortable and quiet. "Do you not feel well?" Her face looked pale. "Are you going to be sick?" He asked, pushing away from the table and bracing himself there as if he was preparing to get her some help.
His sudden movement surprised her, and her eyes darted to his. "I am fine. It’s just the... the blood."
"Oh," he replied, looking to the glass that sat next to him on the table. "Excuse me, then."
Penelope watched as he took the glass and walked from the room. When he was gone she took a deep breath and let it go before repeating the process several times—inhaling and exhaling to try calming her nerves or her stomach or whatever it was that had suddenly made sitting here so uncomfortable.
What was she doing here? How had she come to a place where she was sitting in a dark castle sharing a meal with a vampire? How could she just sit here and eat like it was the most natural thing?
She heard his steps approaching again, and she stared at her plate, afraid of what she might see him carrying into the room this time other than a tall glass of blood.
"It is okay now," he said quietly, sitting back in his spot and pulling the chair in.
Penelope smiled uneasily but still did not dare look at him. She stared instead at the omelet and hashbrowns on her plate and picked at them with her fork.
"Whose was it?" She asked, truly not wishing to know the answer but somehow needing to.
Who else was here on this island that he would be drinking blood from? Surely it was not August—at least she hoped not. What if he had August in a separate room somewhere? He had said she was also within his reach. What if he was experimenting on her or using her in some way that Penelope was not aware of?
Zagan heard Penelope’s heart speed up, and he guessed she could only be letting her thoughts run away with her.
"Rabbits," he said and watched as his answer had the desired effect—she finally lifted her eyes to find his, but they were not amused. They were angry. "You do not believe me?" He chuckled.
"You said it was rabbits when you were feeding from the alyko on this island. Who is there left for you to drink from?" She asked, a quiet fury replacing whatever discomfort had been there before.
"It is truly rabbits this time, I assure you," he told her.
She scoffed and shook her head before focusing back on her plate again.
"You have been in that room too long. Would you like to see for yourself that the alyko are gone? I will show you," he said, wondering why he had not thought to show her before. It would put her at ease to see that he had been true to his word.
"Yes, I want to see," she glared at him, apparently still not believing that it was true. "And if you know where August is, I want to see her too."
"I cannot take you to August. She is staying with Nedra, the only other alyko left here on the island who I kept," he lifted his hands as if requesting patience from her to understand his reasoning, "because she is the architect of this dimension. Without her, this world would crumble. I am sure you can understand."
"Why can we not see August if she is staying there?" Penelope asked, ignoring the information about Nedra. She already knew that much, because she had met Nedra herself, but she didn’t plan on telling Zagan that. If he was being honest about Nedra, then perhaps he was being honest about August as well.
"Nedra and I have an understanding. I do not go to her home in order to respect her privacy. It is an understanding I do not wish to jeopardize at this time," he told her.
"You said August was within reach," Penelope objected.
"I said the Star was within reach," he replied, a smirk curving on his lips as he challenged her with mirth in his eyes. "And the Luna is within reach. I could retrieve her if necessary, but I don’t wish to cause an issue with Nedra for her. At least not yet."
What was the difference between the Star being within reach and August? Penelope frowned. That was an odd distinction to make.
"Is August not the whole purpose of this? What are you waiting for?" She pressed him.
Zagan didn’t have an answer to that—at least not one that he could give her. He was waiting, yes. He was waiting because he was unsure of how to proceed.
"Are you afraid of finally dying?" She sputtered a laugh before catching herself, covering her mouth with her hand.
"I am not afraid of dying, that much I can tell you," he replied with an unamused glance her way. "I have been waiting to die for a very long time."
He took a bite of the food on his plate, trying to appreciate the brilliant way that Brandt paired the flavors. The omelet was smoked chicken and chorizo with a cheese that married the two meats in a lovely way, but it was still an imitation of the real sustenance he craved.
He had taken the rabbit blood into the kitchen and swallowed it in one gulp before returning to the dining room, but it was so little. He was getting by on so little in an attempt to keep his thirst at bay. It was not true that he was afraid of finally dying. He was afraid of what it would feel like to live, and that is what Penelope’s blood would demand of him.
