“What did I do?” I repeated the question, the insult of his question piercing me in the heart, offending me at my core, “You should be asking what he did,” I insisted, pointing at the Duke, still muttering quietly for mercy but his face now facing us. I glared at him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were listening, biding his time. I could see that his shoulder had started to heal, along with his mouth as his pronunciation was getting better. The still vacant eye sockets made me smile though.
Smiling at the image of the maimed Duke probably wasn’t helping my case. I looked back at Sebastian to find he had inched much closer than I had thought and quickly, too.
“We have to turn him over to the other court,” said Sebastian, “Robert insists that the Duke is one of theirs-”
“Robert,” I spit his name out and then spit on the ground, “He’s a monster. They’re all monsters. You left me alone with him and he got loose!”
“I tied him myself,” insisted Sebastian, pointing down at the ropes that held the Duke’s legs and hesitating, “I didn’t tie those knots,” I heard him mutter.
“See,” I said, a high pitched note I hadn’t hit in a while slipping from between my lips, “He broke almost every bone in my body,” I whined quietly, wrapping my arms around myself and looking down at the ground.
Sebastian walked over and placed a hesitant arm around me, pulling me close, slowly.
“Then how did you fight back if you were so very hurt?” Sebastian whispered, argued, “How are you standing,”
“I don’t know,” I whispered back, looking up into his eyes and wishing he could make me clean with his kisses, “I don’t know. I just know it hurt. It still hurts,”
Sebastian wrapped both of his arms around me and pulled me close, placing his chin on the top of my head. I melted into his embrace, happy that his eyes had lost sight of the monster he had seen come out of me. I closed my eyes and swore I would never say the word monster again. At least not to Sebastian.
“We have to release him,” said Sebastian, “I don’t know how we’re going to explain this,”
The dungeon door slammed open and John Campbell came bounding in through the door, out of breath but carrying a sloshing pitcher of water. I wiggled out of Sebastian’s embrace immediately and took the pitcher from John Campbell without a word. John didn’t argue but recoiled away to avoid coming into contact with me. I ignored his fear of me and put the pitcher to my lips, letting the cool water cascade down the back of my throat in waves. I didn’t sip. I didn’t gulp. I opened my throat and consumed the water as quickly as I could without so much as a breath. In a matter of seconds I had emptied half the pitcher and then came up for air. I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve and smiled at Sebastian and John, both standing together at a safe distance, warily.
The dim dungeon became bright as every flicker of light expanded. Everything I saw became brighter, lighter, and sparkled. In a rush, the pain of my broken body became a more bearable dull ache. I crossed the dirt floor dungeon, kicking straw happily with my feet as I walked to the table. I set the half-full pitcher on the table among the tools I hadn’t had a chance to use and next to the pile of bloody tools I had used on the Duke.
“No,” I said, firmly to Sebastian with a smile.
“What?” asked John Campbell, looking at Sebastian for an answer as I took several paces towards the Duke and looked back at Sebastian.
The fear in Sebastian’s eyes was instantaneous as he watched me reach out to touch the Duke. I didn’t have a weapon. I didn’t even ball up my fist. But just seeing me reach out to touch the Duke filled Sebastian with fear and knowing that, watching that reality cross his face, hurt. I watched John lean over and whisper something to Sebastian whose face only became longer with sadness as he stood watching me. I frowned at Sebastian and turned my attention back to the Duke.
“What are you doing?” asked Sebastian, as I held my wrist out to the Duke and let the Duke rip into my flesh with his fangs.
“I’m letting him get a taste,” I said, “And once he’s had a taste…I’m going to let him drink his fill,” I said with a smile on my face.
“That will kill him!” said Sebastian in a low, horrified whisper.
“He’ll stop,” said John Campbell, wincing at the ravenous chewing sounds coming from the Duke as he fed, viciously, from my wrist, “…every vampire knows when to stop,”
“He won’t stop,” insisted Sebastian, pointing at the Duke still feeding eagerly at my wrist, “You wouldn’t be able to stop. I wouldn’t be able to stop. It’s her blood,” said Sebastian with a voice of frustration.
“She’s…somehow bewitched him?” asked John Campbell, turning a critical eye to my face, still covered in blood.
“Something like that,” said Sebastian, as he crossed the room to try and pull the Duke’s face away from my wrist as he drank thirstily.
“That hurts,” I said, my hand going to my hip as I watched Sebastian try to save the Duke, “Why do you even care? He’s betrayed the Queen, all of you, us,”
“You don’t know that for a fact. The Queen will let him choose to go or stay,” said John Campbell, standing up straight and taking the defensive for the Duke.
I pressed my hand against the Duke’s forehead and peeled his face off of the gaping wound he had made of my wrist. My eyes flicked to John Campbell as he sucked in a sharp breath, both of his hands going up in front of him as if he could shield his view of the Duke. The Duke’s long, sharp fangs were clearly visible as his mouth remained wide open, trying his best to clamp back down on my wrist. I waved my wrist in front of the Duke and watched as his hollowed eyes followed, as a dog trained to find the scent of a steak.
“Did you,” I began asking the Duke, “Betray the Queen, our Queen, Victoria?”
His attention focused sharply on me. Then his face turned to Sebastian and John with disgust. Turning his attention back to my wrist, the Duke ignored my question and began struggling against the hand I had pressed against his forehead that kept him from reaching my wrist. He struggled and got nowhere, his mind solely focused on feeding in a frustrated frenzy. I used the heel of my hand to smack him on the forehead and then continue to hold him back.
“Answer,” I said, “Or you won’t get another drop,”
The Duke bared his fangs at me aggressively, saliva dripping from the corner of his open mouth and dripping into his own lap. His need to feed, which I knew would help him heal, had kicked in as a survival instinct. It was raw survival fueling him now.
“Victoria was never to be Queen,” said the Duke with a bloody smile, “Patricia is the rightful heir to the throne, everyone knows that. Well…” the Duke’s hollow eyes looked in the direction of Sebastian and the corners of his mouth turned to up in amusement, “Anyone that’s done any digging,”
I rolled my eyes. Just the sound of the Duke’s voice made me wish I had cut his tongue out of his head.
“And,” I prodded him, “And a few names as to who has sympathized with Patricia’s cause?”
The Duke growled loudly, shaking his restraints and the entire chair he sat in. His mouth snapped closed violently several times but only chomped on air as I continued to keep his head at bay using the flat of my hand. I smacked him on the head. He snarled blindly up at me and licked his lips, tilting his head up towards my other wrist that was holding his head back, just out of his bite.
“You already have a list of names…” said the Duke, his mouth clamping shut and a low growl rumbled from deep in his chest, resonating loudly enough to vibrate the metal of the chair he had been strapped to.
“Good enough?” I asked, wiping my wounded and bleeding wrist on my dress.
“More!” bellowed the Duke, the saliva developing into rabid streams down the corners of his mouth and over the edges of his lips.
John Campbell’s eyebrows shot up. He ran his hands over the shadow of stubble across his face that I hadn’t noticed before and he walked towards the door of the dungeon, pacin
g in front of it. Sebastian’s eyes focused on the blood I had smeared on my dress when I had wiped my wrist. I stood, waiting, for either of them to say something. John Campbell turned and walked out, striding quickly down the passageway towards the castle.
“He confessed while you were alone?” asked Sebastian.
The Duke struggled against his restraints and rocked his chair violently, clearly unhappy that I wasn’t going to let him continue to feed on me as I had implied.
“When he was kicking the shit out of me,” I said, looking down at the mangled and furious face of the Duke, “He must have thought I would be dead shortly,”
The Duke growled and snapped at me, his skinless neck muscles taught as he stretched as far as he could, trying to get into range to get a bite on me, anywhere. I smiled down at him and the hair on the back of my arms stood on end as he returned my smile. His hollow eyes only added to the impact of his menacing fangs that had pieces of my skin stuck to them. His fangs reminded me of the damage the Duke could do if given half a chance.
“You’ll be dead soon enough,” said the Duke, his laugh starting in great gasping fits of hysterics as it gained momentum, “If I don’t finish you, Josephine will find out soon enough,”
“You didn’t tell her?” I asked, I couldn’t help but let the smile creep into my voice.
“When she finds out…she’ll make your death so painful,” the Duke’s laugh filled the space of the dungeon, echoing down the long passageway towards the castle.
“I can’t die,” I said, still smiling.
The Duke’s laughter evaporated off of his lips. He tilted his face sideways, his smile wide and gaping open, mocking me with his missing eyes.
“Everything dies,” said the Duke, his fangs on full display, “Everything,”
Where normally I would want to flee, not wanting to hear the words, or acknowledge the very real possibility that Josephine would come for me and do her best to inflict as much pain on me as possible…this time I didn’t. I didn’t flee or have any desire to. I looked into the place that had once been his eyes that I had re-crafted with my bare hands and brought my face closer to look deeply into them.
Though dark and hollow, bright red tissue remained clinging to the bone of his skull. My mouth fell open, in awe of the damage I had inflicted on my enemy that was also well deserved. I let my breath hit his cheek so that he knew that I was near him. I felt the frenzy of feeding dissipate off of him as I studied the curve of his lips while he failed to hold up the corners of his mouth into that psychotic smile that had adapted so readily to his face. He knew I was close. He knew it. I came within inches of his face. I wanted him to hear me. I didn’t want to have to yell.
I whispered softly into the Duke’s ear, “I’m immortal, truly immortal. And I can’t be killed…ever,”
I slowly pulled my face away from his, waiting for his reaction to my greatest secret, waiting for him to lunge for my throat or face. I anticipated, ready to move quickly away from him, but he didn’t move. All that moved were the corners of his mouth, still wide open. The corners turned upwards so high that it looked entirely painful, unnatural, and horrifying. What I had intended as a painful truth for the Duke became a memory that would be forever ingrained in my mind. He laughed, quietly, almost too quiet to hear.
“Princess…” said the Duke, the hiss of his voice carrying the chill I had intended to give him but had apparently failed to deliver in my whisper, “Whether or not you can die is no matter. When Josephine gets her hands on you, you’ll wish you could,”
And there it was. My greatest fear thrown into my face and I couldn’t deny or hide it. The Duke had plunged truth like a dagger into my chest and twisted it, ice cold and expertly delivered. I took a step back, stumbling more than stepping, and caught myself on the edge of the table as my thoughts went to Josephine. I didn’t wonder if Josephine would catch me. I knew she would catch me. My fear was when she caught me and how quickly I would sink into insanity from whatever terror she inflicted on me.
“Still want a drink?” I spit the words at him in anger as my face twisted up in disgust with him.
I shoved my wrist forward and gritted my teeth. The Duke didn’t bother to answer but clamped down, lips sealing around the wound on my wrist and reopening it with vicious determination as if he were starving.
“No,” said Sebastian, “We might still get more information from him,”
“No, then?” I asked, pushing the Dukes face away from my wrist with my other hand and watching the Duke blindly chomp at the air, following the scent of my blood.
“Prussia, this is insane,” yelled Sebastian as I waved my wrist back and forth in front of the Duke, “and it’s sick. It’s just sick,” he shouted, putting his hands on his head and tugging at the soft tufts of hair that had become ruffled as his fingers pulled at the strands.
“Don’t tease him?” I asked, still toying with the Duke.
I put my wrist closer to the Duke and he bit so aggressively at the air that his mouth made a sharp snapping sound, loud enough for me to wonder if he had broken a tooth or two.
“Just one more sip,” pleaded the Duke, his eyebrows relaxing and his mouth forming into a pitiful frown, “Please…”
“Since you said please…” I said, smiling as I slowly stretched my hand out.
The Duke crunched into my wrist so hard that I cried out from the pain, wondering if he had managed to break it. I felt the blood gush out of my wrist into his mouth like a flood.
I watched closely, ignoring the pain, the twinges from his gnawing teeth and the sharpness every time he adjusted his bite to sink deeper, harder, into my wrist. I watched. I knew the Duke was an old vampire and I could tell that he had an appetite. But even an old vampire with an appetite had to become full sooner or later.
Just moments after the Duke had snapped my wrist and unleashed a river of my blood into his mouth, guzzling for every drop he could manage, I saw it. It started in his empty eye socket. Like the birth of a firefly, the ember sizzled to life and took off, bursting into several smaller embers and moving over every millimeter of the Duke’s face as though a flame caught in dry grass.
His eyebrows relaxed, his mouth went slack and I smiled slowly, watching the embers seek out and destroy every trace of the virus in the Duke. His skin turned gray before my eyes. The blood still trickling through his lips and down his throat streamed down a pile of ash in the shape of the Duke, until the disruption of the liquid on the dry ash caused the image of the Duke to implode into a pile where the Duke had once been. I felt a rush of hot air whoosh by my face. What had once been the Duke now had been transformed into piles of hot ash and warm blood.
I wiped my wrist on my dress again, keeping my eyes on the piles of ash as I tried to get the feel of the Duke’s gnawing teeth off of my wrist. But all I could wipe away was the blood, my blood, still trickling out of my wrist. The memory remained. I stopped trying to wipe my wrist and stared at the floor, small pieces of ash still floating down and settling among the dirt.
I felt the blood still streaking across my skin but it felt familiar now. I had spent so much time bleeding, wounded, injured, covered in my own blood, that it felt like I was still all together. I had more blood outside of me than inside of me anymore. And the blood continued to flow, the gash in my shoulder still oozing and the scratches along my arms still streaming steadily.
“Now there will only be half-truths, not whole lies,” I said, the Duke’s blood dripping from my elbows to my wrists, “He attacked me and ultimately died from overfeeding on me,”
I walked over to the table, the pitcher that John Campbell had brought still half full and began to drink it as quickly as I could, my thirst unquenchable, my throat drier than sand in the desert. Even as I finished the pitcher, I wished there had been more. I looked into it, empty now, with disappointment and returned it to the table. The room was very quiet. I looked over at Sebastian, still standing over what remained of the Duke but looking at me.
“Prussia…” said Sebastian, shaking his head and covering his mouth, eyebrows raised in horror, “What has happened to you?”
“When?” I snapped, “When you left me alone with him or when I was only half a dozen feet from where you stood in the castle and he managed to drag me all the way back into here and break nearly every bone in my body and drink half of my blood before you showed up. I saved myself. Is that what you mean? What has happened to me? What would have happened to me if I wasn’t immortal? You weren’t here. It was just me and him,”
“But torture? Murder?” asked Sebastian, his hand motioning to the still smoldering piles of ash that had taken up residence in the metal chair, “This isn’t you…”
“I…” I wanted to slice him with my words, to cut him down with my words but he was right. I looked at the chair, streams of my blood trickling throughout the piles of warm ash. The floor was littered with streaks and streams and pools of blood, both mine and the Duke’s. I looked at my hands, dripping in blood. Some was mine, some wasn’t.
Deadly Lovers (The Prussia Series) Page 6