Chapter 41 Saskia #2
“The flags, the statues, the paintings everywhere in the city? That’s all you?” I ask loudly. So loudly, my voice echoes, and I hope all the cameras are pointed toward me.
He hums. “Of course.”
“Perhaps I underestimated you.”
“Creativity is important,” he says.
“For the select few,” I reply, voice strained.
Arad tightens his fingers against my back. “For the worthy.”
I swallow my scoff, but Lucan’s is loud and clear. And I can’t help but throw my next thoughts at him. For someone who’s supposed to be quiet, you sure do make a lot of noise.
I never promised I’d be quiet, actually, he quips back.
I swallow a sad smile. Looks like we both need to work on our promise-making abilities.
When we come to Arad’s door, I hesitate. It’s surprisingly simple. No elaborate design etched into the wood. My uneasiness heightens when he slips a key out of his pocket and into the keyhole, unsure if this is even his bedroom. Maybe he’s leading me straight to a dungeon…
I exhale in relief when the door opens to reveal the same place I saw in Sylvia’s memories—more like a sprawling home inside a palace than a bedroom, but definitely not a dungeon.
We step into a foyer which breaks off into multiple rooms where leather sofas surround thick mahogany tables.
Oil paintings hang in rows along the wall, and shelves upon shelves display a variety of objects: glass vases filled with dead flowers, animal skulls, sculptures that look carved from bone, and mirrors.
Mirrors everywhere, reflecting our trek into the room from a dozen different angles.
“I want you to be comfortable here,” Arad says softly over my shoulder. He crosses the room and settles into a brown, oversized leather loveseat situated underneath a stained glass window. He places a flat palm down beside him. “Come sit.”
Listening isn’t really my strong suit anymore. Instead, I meander along the perimeter of the room.
I stop and cock my head at a portrait hanging from the wall.
A young boy with short golden hair sits in a wooden chair with an imposing figure looming over him, a hand placed on his shoulder.
The man’s fingertips seem to dig into him like hooks, and the boy’s eyes almost have a haunting quality. Staring blankly.
I freeze, realizing—
“That’s me as a child,” Arad offers proudly. “With my father.”
Vampires as children? The thought is horrific—them learning to drink the blood of humans, to slowly kill them.
“No wonder you still force those pills on us,” I mutter, somewhat relieved.
“It’s rare for our species to have children together, but not impossible. Better safe than sorry.” He chuckles as if I’ve missed the punchline of some kind of joke. “Wouldn’t want a hundred other Guardians running around, would we?”
I can’t clamp down on the bite to my voice as I continue meandering throughout the room. “What, your eleven other brothers and sisters are too much competition as is?”
His teeth freeze in an icy smile. “The other Guardians aren’t my true brothers and sisters. We simply decided to come together to protect and serve you… valuable humans.”
For a moment, I stare at the blatant lie written all over his face.
The Guardians came together because one vampire wouldn’t have been able to defeat Lucan’s grandfather, more like.
Then I run my hands, as if absentmindedly, over an ornate box sitting on a tall, circular table and murmur, “Of course. And you protect us so well, don’t you? ”
I hold my breath and flip open the box by its little silver hinge. Disappointment floods through me when my gaze lands on a pile of small, flat objects inside—not a key like the one Sylvia stole from the Eleventh Guardian. Not the key.
“They’re coins,” Arad says when I pick one of the round objects up and examine the face engraved on its surface. “Money from a long time ago. Not that you need to worry about such things.”
I drop it back into the box with a clink.
Arad cranes his neck as I walk, lets me take my time running fingers over books, picking up stone carvings, and rifling through drawers before his voice takes on an impatient edge. “As amusing as it is to watch you touch everything that belongs to me, I said come sit.”
I slam the drawer shut, and without much choice, settle beside him. Trying not to let our arms brush, even though I’m so close I smell the chilled, minty scent wafting off of him.
Arad gives me a smile that makes me think he truly considers himself the god worth worshiping. “I’m very happy you finally came to your senses. This is so much better than simply taking it. After yesterday, seeing you…”
He picks up my hand, then examines my fingers where the doorknob pricked me. Little droplets of blood bead against my skin.
His eyes brighten. “...tasting you.”
With a crazed look, he licks his lips and then dips his head to do the same to my tiny wounds before moving down my palm and piercing my wrist with his icy fangs.
He drinks and drinks. So long that my worry knocks around in my chest, and I can feel Lucan’s presence surrounding me, holding me close because that’s the only thing he can do.
The venom heats my bloodstream, stronger than the laced doorknob, flooding into my heart with a potency that feels dangerous.
Until finally, Arad pulls back with lust-filled eyes, drunk on my blood.
A hum forms in the back of his throat as his eyes drift down to the gold strappy heels I’m wearing. “May I?”
I nod, gagging in my throat as I lift my leg up.
Arad takes his time undoing the little buckle resting against my ankle bone. He dips his head further when the strap releases, unable to restrain himself.
One of his fingers trails along my shin, followed by his nose. Smelling me.
“Saskia, you are my most delicious prize,” he murmurs, his tongue sweeping out along my knee. Then he slowly undoes the other shoe until I’m barefoot. “Something about you… I’m consumed.”
He smiles, his lips against my skin. His head exactly where I want it.
Saskia, no! Lucan pleads with me a millisecond before my decision is solidified in my own mind. His entire being seems to shatter into a million pieces within my heart.
“And finally, I’m going to bite into that precious neck. When I’m finished with you, you’ll be completely devoted to me—”
Picking up the heavy vase on the table next to me, I smash it over Arad’s skull and run straight for the door.
Out in the hallway, through the Guardian statues, I burst through the open doorway at the very end, feeling a gust of fresh air against my face for the first time since Sanctuary Sunday.
Now, though, I’m not leaning over a balcony from up high but panting on the ground floor, in some kind of outdoor courtyard bordered by hedges and overflowing with rosebushes—the same garden from Sylvia’s memories.
When I look up, the underside of a balcony blocks my full view of the sky, boxing me in.
Like I just ran straight into a trap.
With my heartbeat shooting up my throat, I streak down a cobbled path that winds between perfectly pruned shrubs, searching for the back of the courtyard… but stop when I come face to face with a barrier too great to surpass.
Not just any wall, but the Wall, looming over me with those same spiderwebbing veins that I came face-to-face with down in the catacombs.
Permission granted to speak again, I say, attempting to distract both of us from the fact that I’ve solidified my death sentence. His voice will be the last thing I hear—the only way I want to go.
I can smell you again, little nightmare. Roses, Lucan says in a voice that has every hair on the back of my neck standing on end for him. I’m right on the other side. Right here.
Our connection pulls taut, as if we’re trying to reel each other in, but Arad’s voice drifts out from behind me on the next gust of wind.
“Saskia. Oh, Saskia.” His voice drips with barely-suppressed wrath. “I’ve been so patient with you, but I’m afraid you’ve gone too far this time.”
Shit. I glance around, desperate for a place to crouch and hide. But I can feel his presence strolling closer, and my eyes land on a marble staircase on the far side of the garden, vines crawling up the railings as it twines up to the balcony above.
I sprint toward it and take the steps two at a time.
My least favorite thing in the world, I remind Lucan, trying to breathe through my panic. Fucking stairs.
Focus for me, Saskia. Don’t…
His voice catches and crumbles, like he doesn’t even know what he can say in these last few moments before I finally meet my doom. At the same time, Arad’s footsteps quicken behind me, and I muster a burst of strength to throw myself onto the terrace above. Please be a way out. Please be a way out.
There’s not. Instead, this second level of the garden tinkles with fountains and smooth, lifelike statues situated between hydrangeas every few feet, just as boxed in as the first level was.
The Wall still surrounds the back half, while yet another terrace hangs above us, cutting off everything but a few ribbons of sunset that streak through the gaps.
The overlapping of light and shadow makes the whole space look like a backgammon board.
With me as a pawn.
And Arad the hand reaching in to grab me.
“You can run, Saskia,” his voice drifts out from behind me again, heavy footsteps clunking up the stairs, “but I will catch you. You can hide, but I will find you. You can scream, but no one will hear you.”
I WILL, Lucan roars through our bond. I’LL HEAR HER SCREAM!
And then the world trembles as he slams himself into the Wall and a roar tears out of his throat, sending a flock of birds bursting from the nearest hydrangea bush.
Arad’s footsteps pause on the marble staircase, and I’d be willing to bet I’d see surprise flicker across his face if I looked back. But I don’t.
I shoot straight for a second staircase on the opposite side of the terrace, blurring past all those fountains and statues and taking these stairs even faster.