Four
Adelasia
“Wait!”
I say quietly, but frantically. He turns, staring back at me almost with the same bewilderment as I have.
He’s taller than anyone I’ve ever seen. The top of his head hitting just below the top of the cell door. His silver-toned white hair is halfway tied back and falls just above his shoulders. He’s wearing a pitch-black tunic and an equally dark cape. It hangs over his shoulders and brushes the floor slightly. The light from the single fire outside my cell reveals that the material looks to be raven or crow feathers. They bellow slightly from the draft in the hallway.
“What is your name?” he asks.
The question makes me stiff, but maybe this tiny shred of humanity he’s showing by asking my name is the only saving grace I have to cling to. Carefully, I crawl to the iron door. I grip the bars and pull myself up slightly. I give him a pleading look and something in his chiseled face softens as he squats down to be closer in height to me.
“Please let me out,” I beg.
“Your name,”
he replies. Not a question this time.
“Adelasia,”
I tell him.
“Adelasia,”
he repeats slowly, as if to savor all four syllables. His glowing red eyes flicker to mine. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He nods curtly and then moves to stand up. My hand reaches out to grab the edge of his cape, afraid he’s going to leave me in here to die and rot. There’s another man across from me in a different cell, and he looks to be in horrible shape. Malnourished. Covered in dirt and his excrement. I don’t want that to be me.
This vampire, Kaius, pauses mid-squat and eyes me with curiosity.
“Please,”
I beg. “Please don’t leave me here.”
“Do you know why they took you, Adelasia?”
I shudder. “So you can…feed?”
He laughs quietly to himself as if I’ve just told him a joke. “No. That’s not why you’re here at all.”
He fully stands and with minimal effort, he grips the iron bars of my cell door and rips the entire thing off its hinges. The door falls to the ground with a loud clang. He removes his cape and holds it out for me. “Come. Quickly.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Does it matter? You asked me to let you out of your cage and that’s what I’ve done.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“The probability of that grows every second you keep me waiting here. Stand up.”
I do as he says and stand. I dust off my skirt before letting him wrap the cloak around my shoulders. It’s warm. Much warmer than I imagined feathers would be, and it smells…spicy in the best way. Though I’m tall, I’m nothing compared to him, and the cloak bunches around my ankles.
He grabs me by the wrist and pulls me along with him. He leads me out of the small prison, and we emerge from underground, allowing me my first glimpse of the mysterious vampire settlement. The demons of the night have always kept to themselves here. I suppose the tall ridges of the valley provide some protection from both the sun and demon hunters.
I never expected the city to be so…civilized. I suppose I imagined corpses and skeletons. Feral vampires that hiss as we pass. Blood spatter and gore littering the streets.
But much to my surprise, the buildings are unlike anything I’ve ever seen, erected out of the ground in thick, black marble structures that are ornate and beautiful. Gold, silver, and copper inlays make the sunlight that hasn’t quite crested over the jagged valley glimmer off the buildings, masking them in a pretty glow.
The man pulling me seems unconcerned with the impending sunlight.
The pavement is perfectly aligned charcoal gray stone. The street lamps are intricate wrought iron.
After only a short walk, a massive marble palace appears in front of us. It’s directly in the center of the settlement and the biggest structure I’ve ever seen.
It’s a beautiful, gothic masterpiece, but there’s something sinister about it. Something unholy and corrupted. I may no longer be in that cell, but I am still a prisoner.
I gulp, swallowing the burning, aching lump in my throat. Kaius leads me leisurely through the palace, straight to a bedroom. It’s large but filled with uneasy emptiness. The only furniture in the room is a small bed in the center, pushed against a blank wall.
No lights. No trinkets. No paintings. Nothing more than a single pillow on the bed and cold loneliness. There isn’t even a quilt.
Kaius finally releases my wrist, and I immediately put distance between us. It’s so dark here that I can only see the glow of his red eyes. My stomach drops when I notice him taking a step closer to me. And then another and another until I’m flat against a cold marble wall.
“Turn around.”
I don’t. Instead, I whimper.
I hear him sigh. “Let me be clear, little human girl: I am not known for my patience. If I need to ask twice, I won’t be asking. I’ll be taking.”
He roughly grabs my arms and twists me so I’m now facing the wall. He removes the cloak from my shoulders, and I’m instantly shivering from both fear and how painfully cold it is. So cold that my bones ache and my toes are numb.
He rips the fabric of my costume down my back, and I begin to sob as his fingers trace down the length of my spine, right over my scar. It’s still pitch-black in the room, so he must be able to see in the dark.
I wonder how clearly he can see the tears dripping down my cheeks.
“This mark–where did you get it?”
Sniffling, I tell him the truth. “I was born with it.”
“And how old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven,”
he repeats, almost sounding disgusted.
I feel him step away, and his footsteps recede until he leaves the room, and the door gently closes behind him. The distinct sound of a lock clicks in place.
He didn’t even leave me with a light.
Several long hours pass, and I make it through them by thinking of home–of my friends–of dance. I can’t imagine what it was like for my mother to watch me get taken right in front of her eyes by two monsters.
I’m so cold I think I’ve permanently turned a shade of blue. Kaius left his cloak draped over the bed. I found it as I was feeling around for anything to use as a weapon, a lockpick, anything to help me out of this predicament.
I found nothing.
So instead, I curled up into a ball and used the cloak as my only source of warmth.
I don’t know exactly how long it’s been, but judging by how tired and hungry I am, I guess that it’s probably what I would consider dinnertime. I’ve been in this bedroom since dawn, but I have no way of knowing if the sun is still up because there are no windows.
The door opens, and the groan of the heavy metal sits like a rock in my gut. Red eyes stand tall in the doorway and stare at me as I cower behind the cloak for some semblance of protection.
He steps closer. My heart begins to beat wildly in my chest and in the dark, I once again feel around for anything I can use as a weapon. There’s nothing, but the door is open.
Can I really outrun a vampire? Most likely not, but I have to try. He finally reaches me, and I feel his cold hands grip my shoulders to pull me to my feet.
I do the only thing I can do. I lift my hand and smack him across the cheek. I think I’ve startled him, because he lets me go, and I run. I run for my life. I run as fast as my legs can carry me.
But when I reach the first turn at the end of the hall, I run into a cold chest and instantly, the braziers along the corridor light themselves, allowing me to see Kaius standing in front of me with a wicked grin on his face.
He grabs my arms again and pins them to my sides. I struggle against his grasp, but then dense red magic wraps around my body, holding me completely still.
I shudder when he brushes my messy hair out of the way and nuzzles into my neck as he inhales deeply.
“Careful, Adelasia.”
I feel a slight prick in my skin and then his tongue licks along the column of my throat until he reaches my ear before he sensually whispers, “Fear makes your blood taste better.”