38. Venetia
Venetia
I wake to silence, the bed feeling vast and cold.
A deep, pleasant ache settles between my thighs, a lingering reminder of their possession.
I stretch, a lazy, cat-like movement, feeling the pull of sore muscles.
I should feel exhausted, but I’m buzzing, wired with an energy that has nothing to do with rest.
I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I’m alone. The silence is unsettling but not unwelcome.
A pile of freshly laundered clothes sits folded on a chair, my jeans and a black top laid out.
A small smile touches my lips. Viper. The thought of him, the most brutal man I’ve ever met, meticulously washing my clothes, sends a strange warmth through my chest. It’s a quiet act of service, of care, that speaks louder than any declaration.
I head straight for the shower and wash off quickly but methodically before I climb out and dry off.
I pull on the clean vest top and jeans, the familiar fabric a small comfort in the madness of the last few days. My body feels used, claimed, but it’s a feeling of strength, not weakness.
The quiet of the room presses in. They’re out there, my generals, preparing for war, and I’m here doing nothing.
Fuck that.
I pocket my phone that someone thought to put on charge and strap my twin knife sheaths to my thighs, the familiar weight a comforting reassurance. This is my castle, my war, and I’ll be on the front lines when Cravenmoor eventually makes his move.
He won’t be hasty now that we have cut off his eyes inside. He won’t know what he’s walking into. He will be more cautious, which is a good thing. It gives us time.
Pulling open the door, I step into the corridor, my boots silent on the stone. I need to see what’s going on.
Viper sneaks up on me, making me jump as I close the door. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“Somewhere where I can be useful,” I reply. “Thanks for the clothes.”
He nods, a smile touching his lips. “You’re welcome.”
“Where are Raff and Blake?”
“Still in the tunnels. I was on my way to try and find out where the fuck they went.”
“So why are we standing around here chatting?” I ask with a sassy smile.
He snorts. “Good question. But I have no idea where they went.”
“That’s not helpful,” I mutter, hoping they’re okay.
I jump when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and answer. “What?”
“That’s pleasant,” Raff’s voice comes down the line. “Hello to you too.”
“Where are you?” I ask, ignoring him and switching to speaker so Viper can hear.
“Outside the gates.”
“Oh?” Viper asks.
“And what the fuck are you doing out there?” I demand, my voice sharp.
“The tunnels, trouble,” he replies, his voice laced with something I can’t quite place. Excitement? “They spit you out a good hundred yards past the moat. Blake and Peter are with me. We’ve got a delivery.”
Viper tenses beside me, his hand instinctively going to the gun tucked at his back. “What kind of delivery?” he growls.
There’s a pause on the other end, then Blake’s voice, calm and cutting as ever. “A message. From Cravenmoor.”
My blood runs cold. “How do you know it’s from him?”
“Stab in the dark,” Raff replies and switches to a video call. “What do you want us to do?” He points the camera at a small wooden trunk with the Cravenmoor Insignia emblazoned on the lid.
“Open it,” I say as Viper says. “Don’t open it.”
He glares at me. “It could be a trap.”
“So open it carefully,” I say to Raff, but not taking my eyes off Viper’s.
There’s a rustling sound, and the video bounces around a bit. We both stare at the screen as we see the end of Raff’s Glock lifting the lid slowly.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
“Oh, that’s not cricket,” Blake comments, and it takes everything I have not to snort with dark humour at his sophisticated calm.
“Definitely not cricket,” I say. “That’s Helena Fairfax’s head.” I can’t help but find it ironic that she threatened me with a beheading, and she is the one who ended up with her head in a box. Guess Cravenmoor didn’t miss that.
“This isn’t a threat,” I say, fury practically coming out of every pore. “It’s a gift.”
“Huh?” Raff says, showing me his face again, thankfully.
“Cravenmoor saw her threaten me through his little spying escapade. He did to her what she wanted to do to me. It’s a gift.”
“For what exactly?” Blake asks, “To get you on his side?”
“To butter me up, to make me feel grateful? Who the fuck knows or cares? He is deader than Helena when I get my hands on him.”
“That’s pretty fucking dead,” Raff mutters.
“Get your arse back behind the gates and block that entrance off. Now.”
“He wants a reaction,” Viper says as Raff nods and hangs up.
“Oh, he’ll get one,” I reply. “But not the one he’s expecting.”
My phone buzzes with a text message from Raff: One floor down, tunnel entrance. Meet us in the middle.
I show it to Viper, and he nods. We hit the stairs, taking them two at a time, and march down the hallway to the tapestry that has been pushed to the side.
The air that hits us from the passage is stale and cold, carrying the scent of wet stone and decay.
Viper goes first, his broad shoulders filling the narrow opening, his torch cutting through the oppressive darkness.
I follow close behind, my hand brushing against the rough-hewn walls, the weight of my knives a familiar comfort against my thighs.
The silence is absolute, broken only by the sound of our quiet footfalls and the distant drip of water.
Viper’s presence is a solid wall in front of me, a shield against whatever horrors this ancient place holds.
But my mind isn’t on rats or ghosts. It’s on Helena Fairfax’s head in a box.
It was a move in a game, a calculated piece of psychological warfare designed to unbalance me.
He thinks I’m a child who can be wooed with gruesome gifts. He’s about to learn how wrong he is.
We round a sharp bend and see the bobbing lights of two more torches ahead. Rafferty, Blake, and Peter are waiting for us, their faces grim in the flickering light.
“Welcome to the shittiest shortcut in England,” Raff says, his voice echoing slightly. He’s holding the Glock he used to open the trunk.
“Did you block the entrance?” I ask, my gaze flicking to Blake.
He nods, holding up his tablet. “Peter found an old mechanism that threw a mini portcullis down. No one is getting in. Out, depends on your knowledge of the mechanism.”
“Nice,” I say, giving Peter an appreciative nod.
“So that was one way,” Blake says. “We should head left just to see where it leads. If there are interconnecting tunnels, we could be down here for a while, but it all needs to be mapped.”
“Great,” I mutter and turn to the left, where a gaping maw of blackness greets me.
I take the lead, not waiting for one of them to tell me to stay back. This is my war. My castle. My fucking tunnels. The beam from my phone torch cuts a shaky path through the suffocating black. The air is thinner here, colder. It tastes of secrets and forgotten blood.
I feel Viper’s heat at my back, a constant, possessive presence. Blake is behind him, mapping this place on his tablet. Raff is the rear guard, a silent ghost I can barely hear. My kings. My weapons.
Helena’s vacant eyes are burnt into my memory. Cravenmoor thinks he’s playing with me, sending me trophies like I’m some kind of fucking barbarian queen. He’s right about the queen part. He’s dead wrong about who’s playing whom.
The tunnel widens. The floor slopes downwards more steeply. The smooth, hewn stone gives way to something older, more natural. It opens into a cavern.
“I think we are directly under the old Keep,” Blake says.
“The Admin Building?” I clarify.
“Yeah.”
“Is this part of the tunnel system we already found?”
“Yes. We went that way.” He points to the right.
“Okay, well, we have blocked that door off,” Raff says. “Only one left to discover.”
“And the other one I found,” Peter chimes in.
“Where is that?” I ask.
“Under the chapel.”
“Oh, we found that one,” Viper growls.
“Blake says you only found the dungeons. There is also a tunnel that leads outwards.”
“How does that make sense in a dungeon?” I ask, shining the torch in Peter’s direction.
He grins. “Ever seen Shawshank?”
I blink. “You mean a prisoner carved his way out?”
He nods excitedly. “At least that is what the stories say. We need to go and look for ourselves.”
“Oh, grim,” I mutter. “More skeletons.”
“And rats,” Viper growls. “Don’t forget the fucking rats.”
“Let’s not,” I say, my voice flat. “I’ve had my fill of dead things for one day, thanks to Helena. We finish what we started here first.”
Blake nods, his gaze sweeping the cavern. “Venetia’s right. We finish mapping this sector, secure it, and then move on to the chapel. Systematically. No surprises.”
“Surprises are how you find weaknesses,” Raff says, but he doesn’t argue. He just checks the magazine on his Glock, the click of metal echoing in the vast space. He trusts Blake’s strategy, even if his killer’s instinct craves a more chaotic approach.
“Whatever,” Viper mutters, kicking a loose rock. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I shine my torch into the last unexplored passage. It looks narrower than the others, more like a natural fissure than a man-made tunnel. “Well, what are we waiting for?” I ask, stepping towards it. A hand on my arm stops me. Viper. His grip is firm, possessive.
“I go first this time,” he growls.
“Yes, Daddy,” I murmur, hearing Peter’s scandalised grunt. I grin in the dark, feeling free despite the rock and darkness closing in around me.
Viper brushes past me, his body a solid wall of muscle and heat, and plunges into the darkness. I follow, the others falling into single file behind us. This is our rhythm now: the push and pull of command, the unspoken trust, the dance on the edge of a knife.