The Vampire’s Feeder

Save Yourself

[Yara]

I had named my pet lizard Pip.

I was aware that naming him was a mistake and would make losing him hurt more than it should.

And things in my life had a pattern of being lost. He had appeared on my second night in the basement and by the time I thought to stop myself I had already said the name aloud. He was Pip. He lived in the crack in the far wall and came out when I set crumbs near the edge of it, and he was warm when he sat on my hand, which was more than I could say for most things in this castle.

Rey brought me food twice a day and sometimes I was suspicious of what sort of meat he was feeding me. Still, he always claimed that they were from the Alpha's reserves.

I had learned his footsteps and his silences, which were more varied than they first appeared. There was the silence that meant he was not going to answer. And the rarer one which meant he was considering doing so.

A few weeks in, he had set down my tray and asked, almost as an afterthought, "Where did you learn that melody"— the one I had been humming when he found me, the one that had made him stop dragging me toward the cliff edge. I told him I had always known it. He looked at me with eyes that did not entirely believe me, picked up the empty tray, and left.

He would not let me leave but never said so directly. When I pressed the topic, he became vague as if managing a difficult conversation for longer than I had been alive, saying things like "in time" and "when circumstances allow" and once, memorably, "you can't make it down the mountain yourself" which silenced me more effectively than anything else.

The Alpha King, he had told me, was dead. His master had taken control of the castle the day I arrived.

He never answered when I asked who exactly his master was to defeat werewolves. Or rather... what exactly?

Yet somehow, he expected me not to worry and simply eat and rest.

I ate, rested but did not stop worrying, knowing that the best time to escape was before his master returned. And with the Alpha dead, Valley Town wouldn't be punished once I returned.

Pip disappeared on the day I planned to leave after saving up what food wouldn't spoil so easily and some water to last the descent.

He had been on my knee when I fell asleep. By the time Rey had brought and cleared the meals, I had begun to listen for him. The strange thing about the top of the mountain was how sunlight never reached it, hence making it terribly cold on many days.

I heard a scratching sound behind the loose stone at the back of the staircase—a place I had examined in my first week and dismissed. I pressed my ear to the wall and listened. Unmistakable, my lizard friend was moving through a space that connected the basement to whatever was above it.

He did not come back down.

I waited longer than I should have, sitting with my hands in my lap, telling myself he would find his way. The crumbs sat untouched, the light shifted and then, I heard him again, there were louder patters of steps chasing after him!

"Oh no!" I panicked, hearing him make his way into the main castle.

I got up without thinking and rushed to the door, ascending the steps. Rey had never locked it and I had understood from the beginning that this was less an invitation than an assessment of my character—or maybe just the fact that the lock was bad...

I eased it open and went out.

The corridor was longer than I had imagined and darker, lit by bright lamps hanging from the ceiling that only wealthy people could afford to have scores of. I did not look too closely at certain marks on the walls; scratches, stains. Rey's master was anything but human if he was capable of killing werewolves and overthrowing an entire castle. That much was clear from the onset.

I kept my eyes forward and scurried without direction, looking for traces of my little companion, and then I saw him. He was standing at the centre of the corridor, just away from where it linked with another corridor.

I moved slowly and went to my knees to avoid startling him. I'd always had a calming effect on animals. "Pip," I breathed. "Come here."

He looked at me the way lizards always did, communicating nothing and everything simultaneously, then turned and walked two steps further away.

"Pip."

He stopped and I crept forward, hand outstretched, almost sticking out into where both corridors met.

Just then, a foot came down.

A dark boot descending from above, splattering Pip.

My eyes went up slowly. Boots first; dark, well-made. Then a dark coat, hands still at his sides. I kept going: a jaw not designed with approachability in mind, a nose sharp and fine-boned, dark hair falling just below his jaw in loose uneven layers. His bushy brows were drawn together almost condescendingly.

He looked at me the way I imagined he looked at most things. Like something below him and I felt goosebumps form up my arms.

Instinctively, my eyes averted to stare at the ground as I remained kneeling before him like a child being reprimanded.

His gaze moved past my shoulder. Behind me came the footstep I knew. It was Rey's.

"Reynolds." Was all he said and all the sound it took for me to recall that voice. The man who'd ordered that I be thrown off the cliff.

"My lord." Rey's voice was exactly as composed as always, which under the circumstances was almost impressive.

The man looked at me again. Then back to Rey. "What is this?"

"A human, my lord."

The brows drew together slightly further. "I am aware of what humans look like." He grumbled. "What I'm asking is why one is in my castle? And one I specifically instructed to be disposed of."