Chapter 26
B uttoning up my pajamas, I step out of the bathroom and turn to the fireplace that has become my personal nemesis. I prod the dying fire with the poker.
I’m about to pick up another log, hoping it catches alight, when my room is suddenly invaded by a person I least suspect.
“Get dressed!” Carina’s command slices through the tranquil silence, her voice as cold as the icy draft that seeps into this room each night.
Her entrance is abrupt and uninvited, unsettling the peace I’ve cocooned myself in for the night.
Her appearance is unlike anything I’ve seen before.
Not only that, but her mascara is smeared, giving her an almost spectral look.
Her usually well-contained hair is a disordered mess, and her eyes…
her eyes are the personification of torment.
I can see unshed tears glistening, making them seem more glassy than usual.
This isn’t the composed Carina I’m accustomed to, and it fills me with a chilling dread.
She wanders over to my dresser, plucking some tissues from the box and cleaning up the mess of her mascara.
A question forms on my lips, and I swallow it down as I catch the dangerous glint in her eyes as she peers back at me in the mirror.
The tension in the room is electric, charged with Carina’s unpredictable wrath.
My fingers fumble with the buttons of my pajamas, my heart pounding wildly against my rib cage.
“Why? What’s—?” I stutter. She cuts me off.
“Did you hear me? I said get dressed. We’re going out!” I scramble to my closet, pulling on the clothes closest to me, my hands trembling.
Once dressed, I turn to find Carina hunched over the minibar. She uncorks a bottle of Xandros’s whiskey, pours herself a glass, then another, which she shoves into my hands. I instinctively pull back, and her icy glare has me swallowing hard, taking the glass from her.
I balk at the offering, but her cold, hard gaze leaves me no room for refusal, as I down the glass choking on its harshness.
“Are you… alright, ma’am?” I dare to ask, my voice wavering slightly from the burn of the alcohol.
Her answer is a scornful laugh, one that leaves an icy trail down my spine.
“Ma’am? Makes me sound so old and worn out.
Well I guess I am old, that’s beside the point, I am nobody’s ma’am,” Her voice fades into a bitter whisper as she takes a hefty swig straight from the liquor bottle. “We’re leaving.”
The words leave me stunned, and I barely have a moment to process before her hand clamps around my wrist. Her grip is ironclad, dragging me along as she strides with purpose through the castle’s grand hallways and out into the open air.
Her impatience manifests in the form of her foot, tapping rhythmically against the cobblestone floor.
Her demands for a car echo around us, making the guard nearby jump into action. I feel like a lamb being led to slaughter.
“But…where are we going?” I ask, my words getting swallowed by the night.
Carina doesn’t answer, her stony silence causing the icy tendrils of fear to weave their way around my heart and twists knots in my stomach.
Carina impatiently taps her foot, scanning the area for something.
“My Queen?” the guard asks hesitantly.
“Where’s a fucking car when you need one?” she grumbles, rounding on the guard standing nearby, “You, fetch me a driver, now!” The poor man scurries off, leaving me standing there with Carina under the dim moonlight that is being obscured by the clouds.
“Where are we going?” My question falls on deaf ears once again as Carina continues to ignore me, pulling me further away from the castle toward the fountains, her grip never loosening.
Panic rises in my chest as we move further from the castle.
I’ve yearned to escape this place, although right now, I feel far from safe with Carina.
A few heartbeats later, a sleek black car pulls up beside us, and without releasing her death-grip on my wrist, Carina yanks open the back door and pushes me inside. She slides in after me, her harsh breaths filling the air in the confined space.
The driver takes off, and I gaze out the window, the castle’s imposing structure growing smaller in the distance.
My throat is dry, my heart pounding with fear.
My chest tightens at the sight of the castle, which had been both my cage and my sanctuary.
Now, it’s just a distant silhouette against the night while Carina fixes her makeup, using a small compact from her clutch.
The city lights begin to blur as we race through the silent streets.
The tension inside the car is palpable, a volatile mix of fear, uncertainty, and the stench of Carina’s alcohol-tinged breath.
I can barely focus on anything else, the overwhelming sense of impending doom wrapping around me like a cloak.
“Where are we going, Carina?” I manage to ask again, my voice barely more than a whisper. The words hang heavy in the silence of the car. Carina seems lost in her own world of thoughts.
She leans back in the plush leather seat, her eyes closing as she takes a deep, shuddering breath. The veneer of strength she usually wears has all but shattered, revealing a woman on the brink. For a moment, I forget she’s the one who’s been tormenting me.
“The city,” she whispers after an agonizing silence, her voice so soft I almost miss it. “We’re going to the city.”
As her words sink in, a cold shudder ripples through me.
The single word resonates in the tense silence.
The city. With Carina… at night. A place I spent my human years fearing.
Night is when the monsters come out to play, yet now I am one of them.
However, that doesn’t make me feel any better, since Xandros has ordered me never to shift.
I might as well be human still, just with heightened senses.
The moonlight casts an eerie glow on Carina’s face, revealing the lines of worry and the sheen of tears her foundation couldn’t quite cover.
A newfound fear grips me. If this woman, who prides herself on her strength and ruthlessness, is this broken, just what kind of terror awaits me at our destination?
The car pulls up in a part of the city I am not familiar with, though it doesn’t hold the same seedy edge that Mal’s or Toby’s held at night. We stop outside a nightclub.
Stepping into the club is like entering a world I never knew existed.
Neon lights flash across the darkened space, casting a surreal glow on the patrons.
The bass from the music is a tangible entity on its own.
Jazz music playing from speakers drowns out every sound except the beating of my heart.
It seeps through my body and syncs with the pulse of fear that’s beating within me.
Carina’s hold on my arm is firm, leading me further into the depths of the club.
An aura of power radiates off Carina, causing patrons to part and give way.
Their eyes linger on us, a mix of curiosity and wariness.
I can’t shake off the feeling of being blind to the danger as we navigate through the crowd.
I glance at Carina, her icy exterior seeming to take pleasure in the control she commands.
Carina is a force, captivating and terrifying, while I stand beside her like a shadow, her presence eclipsing mine, which I am perfectly okay with; I don’t want the attention she is getting, I can practically feel their eyes boring into us.
It’s clear she’s respected; out of awe or fear, I am unsure.
The thought does little to alleviate my worry.
I’m the outsider, the unwanted tag along on a night that feels like a twisted version of a girls’ night out as she downs so many drinks at the bar that it would leave me on the floor.
I sip mine, but as soon as I finish one, she is pushing another in front of me.
Her phone continuously rings in her bag, each time earning a growl from her that has the barmaid jumping.
After a few hours, Carina suddenly halts her drinking and her gaze meets mine, a predatory glint in her eyes. “You remind me so much of your mother,” she says, the words slurred with the alcohol she’s been consuming.
I can’t hide the surprise that washes over me at the abrupt conversation; for the most part we have sat in stony silence.
I never knew my mother, though her ghost seems to haunt my every step, tarnishing the ground I walk on with her ghostly shadowed footsteps.
Cursing me to a fate that was destined for her, punishing me every time I try to step out of the image of who she was.
“I suppose you hated her as much as everyone else?” I ask, the bitterness evident in my tone.
I brace myself for her response, expecting the same scorn and distaste I’ve become accustomed to hearing.
She surprises me when she answers. “No, actually, I find it oddly comforting, though I must admit, I do hate you. Your presence is set to ruin everything, just like my father claims. Still, you remind me of her,” Carina rambles, her words slurred and eyes glassy from the copious amounts of consumed alcohol.
My heart pounds in my chest. “You knew my mother?” I manage to ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
Carina laughs, the sound off-kilter and out of place in the tense atmosphere.
She stumbles off her stool, and I am quick to reach out and steady her.
Her skirt has ridden up during her stumble, and I quickly adjust it for her, when I notice a table of nearby men watching her with their leering gazes.
The gazes of the men are like hungry wolves, watching their prey, it unsettles me.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Carina whispers into my ear, her breath carrying the sweet, intoxicating scent of the margarita she has been drinking. “I loved her,” she confesses, her words sending a jolt through me. “Which is making it extremely difficult to hate you.”