Chapter 4
Lucifer
The sound of heavy chains rattling makes my eyes snap open.
I find myself in an unfamiliar space, yet it all reeks of her.
The herbs, the potions, and every single thing Yvonne uses for her witchcraft wafts up my nose.
If I were human, I’d definitely be nauseous from all the scents mingling together.
It’s most likely the basement in that little cottage of hers, since she wouldn’t risk taking me elsewhere. The small window to my left gives me a clear view, and the forest is the same as the one I came through.
I don’t know how long I was asleep. It could’ve been another two hundred years for all I’m know. She seems to love cursing me and putting me to sleep. I don’t feel any different, so she might not have used any more magic on me.
There’s a shit ton of magic on these chains, though.
They’re too heavy to be human-made, and they’re fucking glowing.
The glow is faint, but it’s there. Traces of magic are all around me, from the chains and the ingredients she has, to the damned walls.
She vampire-proofed this entire basement, specifically for me.
I almost feel flattered.
I fist my hands at my sides and yank on the chains as hard as possible. They move a little, but it’s not enough for me to break free entirely. I keep going, repeating the process over and over. It takes me a while, but I eventually manage to rip them off the wall, it’s enough to walk freely.
I’d stay here for a while longer and snoop around, but I don’t have the time for that. My whole being is screaming at me to walk up the damned stairs, pull her heart right out of her chest and feed on it.
Once I reach the door, of course I find it bolted. A low chuckle slips past my lips, without too much effort, I break through the door, the force of the impact forcing the door off its hinges. It falls to the ground with a loud thud, and I waste no more time in searching for her.
And, oh, do I find her.
She’s just sitting in a chair, eyes closed and sipping tea.
The bitch is actually sipping tea.
“Do you not have any sense of danger?”
She slowly opens her eyes, then chuckles. “I don’t see any danger here, though. Come,” she says, patting the seat beside her, “take a seat.”
The words irritate me beyond belief, but I swallow down the anger, a little curious as to what she actually wants. She’s so composed; almost too relaxed, for someone who has a monster in her home. She’s dressed in her pyjamas, a pair of black, silk shorts with a matching top.
The fashion truly has changed over the past two hundred years.
Back then, this would’ve been too provocative, too much.
“You do realize I’m here to kill you, right?”
“Too bad,” she chuckles. “You can’t kill me.”
Momentarily, I falter. She didn’t say it to test me, or to challenge me.
No, her words are laced with a level certainty that I don’t quite understand.
Where is all that arrogance coming from?
How is she so confident that I won’t be able to kill her, when just a while ago, she was trying to hide the fear in her eyes?
So, I sit down, staring into her.
“You see,” she starts speaking, lowering the cup down onto the saucer. “My friend, Octavia, will likely kill me for telling you this, but… to ensure my safety, I have to.”
“Bold words. Ensuring your safety from the man who’s here to kill you?”
“I knew that would be your reaction,” she chuckles. “You see, I came to realize that the curse I put on you worked, a little too well.”
I blink. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that I didn’t do it properly. Instead of using a proper spell, I improvised.”
“Cut to the chase,” I urge. “You’re beating around the bush, and it’s pissing me off, Yvonne. What did you do?”
“So, funny story,” she laughs, but it’s not humorous. If anything, I’d say she’s anxious and nervous beyond words. “We may or may not… be connected now.”
“Excuse me?”
The next scene plays too quickly. In one moment, Yvonne’s looking at me sighing, and shaking her head. In the next one, she’s grabbing the knife on the table, and throwing it at me. It’s not too much of a threat, so I don’t avoid it and it slices through my right shoulder, falling to the floor.
It doesn’t hurt. I don’t even flinch.
But my eyes widen when I see that the wound on my shoulder, then appears on Yvonne’s too. She winces in pain, gripping the hem of her pyjamas and taking a deep breath. The wound is identical to mine — from the depth, and size, to the amount of blood that drips from them.
Once my wound heals, hers disappears too. Like it was never there to begin with.
“What the hell did I just witness?”
“We’re connected now,” she admits through gritted teeth. “That means if you kill me, you die, too. Do you honestly think I wouldn’t have already killed you, if there wasn’t a reason for me to keep you alive?”
In an instant, I’m in front of her, grabbing her by the throat, just like I did earlier. However, this time, she doesn’t flinch. In fact, she doesn’t react at all. She expected me to react like this.
“Go ahead,” she croaks. “Test it out.”
“I can’t die by strangulation,” I grit out.
“But I can and if I die, you die.”
Her eyes hold mine, she’s not trying to wiggle out of my grip. She remains there, my hand tightly wrapped around her throat, staring at me, daring me to test the theory. I know it in my bones that she’s bluffing.
But what if she isn’t?
That means I’ll die before I get my revenge on her and I can’t have that.