Chapter 35
If eyes could kill, I’d be dead on the spot, courtesy of the look spewing from Eleni’s glare.
All that nervous tension subsides for a split second when I realize the hand gripping my forearm belongs to her. Then she drags me back through the grand Guardian hallway, in the direction I just ran away from, and it all comes roaring back.
Is she going to turn me in? We’ve never actually established that she thinks of me as a friend, too. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part, and she’s about to march me straight to the Third Guardian himself.
I stumble after her without much choice.
If I resist, the ruckus will attract the Guardians anyway.
Her hand only tightens around my arm with every step she takes until she stops abruptly in front of a particularly wide door, the nearest one in our vicinity, and presses her key into…
something. I still haven’t figured out how the doors work.
But nonetheless, the lock clicks, and Eleni pushes the door open to expose a massive kitchen.
Long, bright fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling in rows. I have to squint against the reflections bouncing off all the stainless steel around me. More unnerving is the amount of people—hundreds if I had to guess—toiling away without so much as a whisper in the air.
Dragging me behind her, Eleni mazes through the workstations, where we pass others chopping up an assortment of vegetables and stirring pots of boiling stew.
Without fail, each of their heads rise curiously as we pass, then their eyes go wide and their mouths gape, before they quickly cast their faces down and return to their task like they don’t want to know.
To my surprise, Eleni presses me into a corner. A young woman about my age turns her back to us and continues stirring vigorously, the slop in her pot squelching loud enough to drown out my next whispered words.
“I’m sorry, Eleni.”
Without the chatter of human voices, the sounds that follow already grate down my spine. Metal clinks against metal. Knives slice through meat. Food plops into bowls.
Finally, Eleni shakes her head like my apology isn’t good enough. Maybe it isn’t. Risking not just my life but hers without clueing her in might have been a little too reckless for me. I at least owe her the truth.
“I need to find something,” I start quietly, “in the palace.”
Her eyes stay trained on me intensely. She’s listening, albeit angrily. Even as the servants around us start to move as one, forming a line that winds itself through the kitchen like a multi-headed serpent, Eleni arches an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue.
“Do you know where the white drawing room is? In the north wing, exactly? There’s something I need there. Desperately. Something that could help all of us.”
Eleni shakes her head, pupils contracting in an emotion I can’t decipher. I don’t know if it’s fear or indifference or more hatred.
“Please,” I beg.
But Eleni shakes her head again, more insistent this time before she releases her hold on my elbow and points back to the servant door.
My shoulders fall. Like I’m right back in the Educational Institution getting scolded for not reciting the third Cardinal Rule word for word, I nod, defeated, and start to make my way to the door we came through.
Eleni follows closely on my heels, but I take my time observing the servants as I weave in and out of them.
At the front of the kitchen, each of them picks up a tray and files through what looks like an assembly line, where they scoop and deposit portions of food onto each section of the tray.
When it hits me, I trip over my own feet.
Those are our trays. The citizens’ trays.
The same ones that are slid through the slat in our housing complex doors each morning and each evening.
The same ones I’ve eaten off of my entire life, unknowingly delivered by the hundreds of servants of the Blood Moon Palace.
And somewhere in here, one of these servants delivers food to my housing complex.
To Malcolm.
Not even thirty seconds after Eleni drags me back through the corridor and deposits me back in my room with a huff, the door barges open.
Arad flows in with rage dripping off him. His eyes scour my room wildly before landing on me, and for a second, surprise widens them.
Like he didn’t think I’d be here.
“Saskia.” He slams my door behind him, causing the decorations on my shelves and side tables to wobble with the vibrations. “How very pleasant to see you still awake.”
I don’t say anything, so afraid that the tone of my voice will give something away. His gaze roves over to the tray on my bed—all the food untouched. His nostrils flare.
“Not feeling hungry, are we?”
I swallow the dryness in my throat. “No.”
“That’s funny.” He prowls closer. “Because I fed from you mere hours ago, and usually that makes you humans very hungry.”
The words are out before I can stop them. “Unfortunately, you just make me nauseous.”
Stupid Saskia. This is what Lucan meant by keeping my head down. It was an unnecessary comment that makes Arad halt, his hands quivering at his sides, as if he’s imagining wrapping them around my throat and squeezing tight.
But the moment passes. His hands calm, and a smile tilts up either side of his lips as something even more dangerous takes over his expression. I take a step back, and he takes one forward.
“Saskia,” he purrs. “That’s no way to talk to a male. Especially on Sunday.”
Sunday? What does that have to do with…
I know as soon as I catch sight of the gleam in his eyes. Sunday is the day every couple in Xantera is required to “keep their spark alive.” A glittering phrase to cover up how crude and disgusting the Guardians’ control is.
“Do you know why we chose that particular system, Saskia?” Arad asks with a tilt of his head.
“Because you’re a bunch of creeps?” I dare answer.
Again, his fists tighten for a breath of a moment before loosening again.
“On the contrary, it took years of patience and experimentation. Let the humans fuck whenever they want, and they start to develop feelings for each other—whether it be love or hatred. That seems to be the only thing humans fight about anymore—love and attention. Or lack of it. Some would want to go at it every day, while others would fight about the frequency. And then there would be passion and discord, and all the little lines…” He raises his hands, walking his fingers over an open palm.
“…that we’ve so carefully built would crumble. ” He smashes his fist into his hand.
Sweat trickles down the back of my neck as I try not to breathe or trigger him in any way. Because the truth is, the Third Guardian looks like he’s on the brink of madness as he steps even closer and I lean back.
“But… don’t let the humans fuck at all,” he continues, pupils zigzagging wildly over my face, “and their animalistic nature starts to come out. They hear whispers from the family-making couples about how good it is and wonder why they have to wait for that primal urge. They all decide they want to fight for their rights.” He shakes his head with a humorless laugh.
“So once a week was ideal. Give the couple their own bedrooms and one shared room, order them to rip each other’s clothes off for one day, and everyone is content. ”
“No,” I whisper back immediately. “Not everyone is content, or else you wouldn’t have to pick out the rebels from the crowd, would you?
” I watch the pale marble of his face actually flush with a mottled pink in anger, but I don’t stop.
“Forcing people to be together or not be together—regardless of the frequency—is an assault to our humanity and our choice.”
Arad laughs at that—actually throws up his head and laughs at my ceiling, his fangs protruding.
“Saskia, my dear, when will you learn that you don’t deserve a choice?
I let you waltz around this palace and deny me my pleasure because I think it’s fun to play games with you, but I could just as easily lock you up and let you wither away into a skeleton after I suck every last drop of blood from your body.
Because you’ve been a little too defiant now, haven’t you?
Like you know more than you actually should—more than possible. ”
He pivots and throws open the topmost drawer of my dresser. Flinging my undergarments over his shoulder, I watch in horrified silence. He moves on to the next two drawers, pulling out my clothes and shaking each folded piece of fabric before letting it fall to the ground.
Then he turns back around and sets his sights on me.
Tears spring to my eyes as he leans ever closer and glances down at my chest. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.
Or maybe I should scream. Maybe, somewhere over the Wall, Lucan will hear me.
But there’s nothing he would be able to do, anyway.
“Take off your dress,” Arad says quietly.
The tears flow down my cheeks freely now.
“Please,” I whisper to him. “Don’t make me do this.”
“I SAID TAKE OFF YOUR DRESS NOW.”
I flinch at the spit that flies from his mouth and sizzles when it makes contact with my skin. Each droplet is burning hot, fiery like poison—vampire venom. Something inside me stirs, raising its head at the sensation, but I don’t have time to think about it. Arad has no patience left.
He lunges forward and rips my dress by the hem, sending it to tattered pieces on the ground and leaving me standing before him in my undergarments. His frantic gaze roves over my entire body, every curve and dip, until his expression retreats back into polite contemplation.
With a fist to his mouth, he clears his throat.
And backs away.
“My apologies. I thought you might be hiding something underneath there.” With horror, I think about the necklace stashed underneath my mattress merely a few inches away. If I had put it on my thigh before I’d snuck into the servant corridors, Arad would have found it just now…
Instead, he swipes a finger along my cheek, collecting a tear.
“You will forgive me for that little outburst, won’t you, Saskia? It’s just that I have lost something very important to me, and I need to explore every avenue in order to find it.”
When I don’t reply, he clears his throat.
“You will forgive me for that, won’t you, Saskia?”
Every ounce of me begs my mouth to spit back in his face. But if I want to survive tonight, I have a feeling I need to be more patient than him. Get him to leave for now so that I can plan my revenge.
“Of course,” I force out.
He smiles. “Excellent.”
And giving my body a last sweep before twirling around, he bursts out the door in the same manner he came, leaving me alone.