Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Crymson
The ground I stand on is charred and potholed, nothing left to tell me where I am.
No greenery survived, whatever fire took it, leaving nothing but ash behind.
Bright red pools spill across some of the blackness, here and there, inconsistent but still obviously blood.
I see no bodies, but something tells me there were a lot of them.
When I look up, I can’t see the sky. It’s completely shrouded in smoke, and the moment I realize it, my eyes begin to burn.
A tickling starts in my lungs that forces me to cough, my hand going up to cover my nose and mouth in the hopes of keeping the ash and smoke away. It doesn’t work.
In the distance, I can make out charred skeletons of what used to be trees. They’re spindly and reaching, remnants of a time where ash and sparks never touched them. Monuments of death. With no light save for the few small fires around me, they fade into darkness only broken up by floating embers.
“Hello?” I call, looking for evidence I’m not alone. I shouldn’t be out here. I don’t even know where here is. “Is anyone here?”
My voice echoes with a strange reverberation, as if it bounces around in my skull after I speak.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a voice answers from behind.
I whirl but still only see darkness. No one’s there. I appear alone, but something tells me I’m far from it.
“Where is here?” I ask, searching the darkness and finding nothing. An awareness unfurls in my chest and my eyes focus on a particular point within the darkness, just past the skeleton trees. “Who are you?”
“The realm between sleep and awake,” he answers.
It’s not a voice I recognize, and yet, it feels as if I know it. Whoever this man is, something beneath my skin reaches out toward him, desperately wanting to see him, but he never steps into the low light of the flames. I’m not even sure he’s in the darkness.
This feels a little bit like Seven’s magic, but this feels infinitely more powerful.
“How strange to meet you like this,” he hums. The darkness shifts and I focus on it. “I was told you’d be beautiful. You look. . .” His voice cuts off. “Are they not feeding you?”
I blink. “I, uh. . . don’t think they know how often humans eat honestly.” A frown tugs at my lips. “Who the hell are you?”
“A question I’m not ready to answer yet, beloved,” he purrs. I can feel him shift within the shadows, but I can’t actually see him. I turn, following his path, and he chuckles.
“Why have you brought me here?” I demand, angry that he would dare laugh at me. “Why do this?”
He stops, a dark chuckle echoing around me. “Oh, beloved. I didn’t bring you here.” The flames closest to him flicker. “It is you who brought me here.” I catch sight of a single strip of fabric as it catches the light, green. “See you soon, Crymson.”
The flames all blaze so suddenly, I stumble back with a shriek and begin to fall. . .
/-/-/-/
I come to violently, my arms flailing to catch myself, but instead of charred ground, my hands sink into the soft, silken sheets of Christian’s bed.
The black cat that had apparently been sitting curled up on the bed beside me yowls and leaps away, avoiding my flailing hands.
My chest rises and falls with my panic until the room slowly comes back into focus, until I realize that the scent of smoke lingering in my nose isn’t from this room. Strange that I can still smell it.
Strange that there’s a smudge of ash on the back of my hand.
The black cat slinks closer again and presses its head against my elbow.
I sigh and stroke him under the chin. “I’m fine. Just. . . a nightmare.”
Was it a nightmare? Was it real? Glancing around the room, I don’t see Seven. So then what was that?
Fatigue hovers on the edge of my consciousness. I’m tired despite sleeping for however long, but I’m still coherent. My stomach grumbles but I press my hand to it and ignore it. It hardly matters if I’m going to die soon anyways. Might as well die hungry.
The cat moves along the bed and shifts between one blink and the next. The bed dips with Rorrick’s weight as he settles on the edge of the mattress and studies me.
“You get those often?” he asks, his voice gentle.
“What? Nightmares?” I tilt my head. “Yeah. They’re not uncommon.”
In fact, I’d say the nightmares outweigh the good dreams, but I hardly want to announce that sad fact.
He hums under his breath, his eyes tracing my face.
Of the three men, Rorrick has a sweetness about him I would have never expected of a vampire.
Unlike Christian’s coldness, Rorrick is warm and solid, like the heat from a forge.
From the way care shines in his eyes to the careful space he gives me, this is a man I could fall for.
Not that I’ll be allowed to fall for any of them.
It’s probably foolish of me, but considering I’ll be dying in a few days, it hardly matters.
I know it’s likely the high stress situation, or the fact that the three of them have shown me more care in the last couple of days than I’ve ever been shown in my life.
I understand they likely can’t save me, and I certainly don’t know if I can save myself, but.
. . I want these little breaks from reality they’ve given me.
Even now, the places they’d bitten me throb with awareness.
“Can I ask you a question?” I murmur.
Rorrick nods. “Go ahead.”
“Why do you stay?” I gesture to the room, but he understands I mean the castle. “The three of you. If it’s so bad, why stay?”
“I stay because Christian stays,” Rorrick answers truthfully.
“And why does he stay?”
He shrugs. “That you’ll have to ask the prince himself. But I suspect it has to do with loyalty, just as mine does.”
“And you’ll continue to stay here, living forever, while I become nothing but a bad memory,” I whisper, tugging my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.
I lay my chin on my knees, mostly because I need the support, but also because I feel so vulnerable.
The poor regal gown wrinkles around my frame.
Somehow, I’ve accepted that I’m going to die here.
After years of struggle, years of fighting, I’ve allowed myself to embrace the end.
I don’t want to, but it’s hard to see a way out of this.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a bad memory,” Rorrick replies, his lips quirking up. “I could think of a few ways to make it better.”
“Yeah?” I ask, smiling even as I don’t move. “You going to kiss me, kitty cat?”
He grins, and those fangs lengthen. “I’ve killed someone for calling me that before.”
“So kill me. Slay me,” I murmur, watching him.
He pauses, but then he moves so fast, I don’t see him move. One second, I was wrapped around my knees. The next, he’s above me, pinning me to the mattress, his large body pressing down into mine. “Why would I kill you when … I could just kiss you?” he asks, his pretty gaze slipping down to my lips.
There’s a war in his eyes and I feel it in my chest with each second that ticks by.
Then his lips crash down onto mine, claiming me.
My heart rate skyrockets as I wrap my arms around his neck, kissing him back as if I’m trying to steal his soul.
His lips move over mine, gentle and rough at the same time, and it’s difficult to match his energy when I’m so lacking in strength.
Already, my arms begin to burn. Already, I feel as if I’m going to collapse at any moment. At least I’m lying on the bed.
His hand trails down the bodice of the dress, over my hip where he jerks the skirts up around me to reveal my core.
Nothing separates my flesh from his and I moan against his tongue the moment his hand cups my sex.
When his finger dips through my folds and he feels my wetness, he growls hungrily against my mouth, his fangs almost pricking my lip.
He leans back, his bright eyes on my face as he strokes his fingers through my wetness before raising them to his lips. My breath stutters as he slides them between, as he sucks at the taste of me. His eyes close and he growls once more in pleasure.
I throb at the sound of his rumbling appreciation and clench my thighs ever so slightly together to ease the sensation building there.
“I’m going to consume every inch of you,” he snarls, but as he goes to lean down to my neck, the bedroom door flies open.
Both of us freeze, my head turning to get a good look at Christian highlighted in the doorway.
With the lighting coming in from the hallway, it makes him look like he’s on fire, like he’s the devil come to collect.
It feels like that when I get a good look at his perfect face and the deadly glare he holds there.
“We have five minutes to hide her marks,” he announces, barely sparing Rorrick a look where he covers me. “The King expects his future Promise to be paraded around the court tonight.”
Rorrick growls. “Why?”
“So everyone knows what he’s to be gifted tomorrow,” he replies. His eyes settle on mine as Seven appears. “They won’t heal in five minutes.”
Seven holds a small jar in his hand and I sigh, already knowing what it’s for.
“Then why bother trying to heal them?” I ask.
“Just so we can stall while they actually do heal,” Rorrick answers for Christian. He gets off the bed, and I feel the loss of his warmth like a baseball bat to the head.
“He won’t see them with my dress--” I peer down at the very obvious bite mark kissing my upper breast that I don’t remember being there last night…
“You likely won’t be wearing it,” Seven answers, the only one with the guts to tell me. Though he doesn’t say it, I can see the guilt on his face, the sadness at knowing he can’t save me.
Delilah’s words about Christain telling his father I wasn’t yet a Promise doesn’t seem to have lasted long. Christian can’t protect me.
No one can.
I tip up my chin and Seven steps forward with the salve already on his fingertips. “That’s okay. I’ll do what’s necessary. I’m safe for tonight, right?”
Christian’s eyes meet mine.
“For tonight.” Those words sound hollow against the prince’s tongue but they seep into me with a weight that lays leaden in the pit of my stomach.
I nod, hearing the words he doesn’t say. Only tonight. Tomorrow…
I die.