Book 1: Welcome to Shadowmanor

Ainslee

“Why didn’t he just reveal himself to me in the middle of the night?” I ask Zeke as I sit in front of him on his horse. His arms are around me, but only so he can reach the reins. It’s a little uncomfortable, but we are getting to be decent friends, I suppose, so it doesn’t bother me too much.

“He couldn’t tell you without striking panic in your friends who would’ve flown out of the crypt and ended up captured by the likes of Kris,” he tells me. I can tell by the way he’s talking he doesn’t want to be the one who explains this to me and answers all my questions.

He keeps sighing, urging the horse to go faster. I don’t know why I’m not on the same transport vehicles as the other feeders. That is what I am now, after all. But I have decided not to ask that question when there are so many others I need answers to.

“Why even hide in the first place? He could’ve just grabbed me in the woods.” None of it makes sense to me. None of it.