Chapter 16

Page Sixteen.

He has found the books.

I'm twenty-one on this birth year, and I finally might have a life that is worth living. Hope still feels like a foreign intruder in my mind, in my heart, as I pace by the window, knowing that everything's going to change today. The queen is coming tomorrow, and hopefully, she'll distract Emyr from searching for me. Not straight away at least. We'll be long gone by the time he realises. I doubt he'll just be able to abandon the castle and his mother to chase after his lost blood slave.

It's all planned, everything's perfect and in place. As long as nothing changes, I will escape. I've spent weeks scouring over the maps with every second that I got. I barely slept with the mixture of excitement and fear that sends my heart beating too fast. Emyr hasn't noticed any change, thankfully, and keeping up the pretence around him has been difficult. Every time his teeth sink into my skin, every time he is inside me, I'm dreaming of freedom. Freedom that will never include him, never let him touch me again. There's a small drawn path in my pocket on scratchy paper, marking a line through the town, using vampyre gardens to hide ourselves in the shadows. I'm going to get to see my mother today, the first time in so long. I can't help but grin.

A knock on the door makes my smile drop, and I straighten, unsure who it is until I hear two taps. It's the way Kyrell knocks when he wants me to run the shower so we can speak alone. Lewin comes in, shutting it softly behind him. We haven't been alone before yet. I feel like I know him so well through Kyrell. His pin straight blond hair is neatly kept in a band at the back of his head, and his fangs are red, bringing out the red shine to his dark brown eyes. Vampyres don't usually keep so much colour in their features like he has, but his skin is still drained of light, and there is a way about how he moves that marks him as a vampyre long before I see fangs. He loves Kyrell, I remind myself, and his actions prove to me that maybe this vampyre can love. "Are you ready to go, Story?"

For a second, I glance at my room, at the prison. I won't forget this place. It will haunt me, but I am going to leave. The single word I breathe out might as well be fire, making my blood boil. "Yes." I go to my wardrobe, and I quickly yank a small bag out. It is full of some plain working fae clothes that I've stolen from the castle servants, enough to last me a little while until I can replace all the red dresses. He hands me a black cloak, a guard's cloak, and I clip it around my shoulders. I make sure to tuck my hair into the cloak so it can't be seen, and pull the hood up. Lewin looks me over. "Be careful not to show your hair." He pauses. "And it's great to finally meet you, Story. Kyrell, he loves you like a sister, and I know you mean the world to him. Thank you for coming with us, for risking it."

"I love him. He is my best friend," I quietly answer. "He is the greatest person I've ever known, and he is very in love with you. I'm glad we have met finally."

Lewin grins for a moment, our shared love of Kyrell linking us forever. He could be my friend too, even if I thought it was never possible for a vampyre. He goes to the door, stopping and looking back. "Follow me and stay close. The others are at the meeting point, and then we follow your plan through the city. We will celebrate freedom together, Story."

"This doesn't feel real," I admit.

"It is." Lewin touches my shoulder. "I've made sure the prince is distracted by the escalating problems in the city. He won't be back until morning, and it will give us hours to get away."

"Hours," I repeat with a big grin. Hours before he knows; it's enough time to get far away. Lewin opens the door, and we both step out of the room together, only to come face to face with a woman that I have never seen before. She's beautiful, eerily beautiful. Silver locks of her soft hair are pulled up into a complicatedly braided bun on top of her head and a tiara full of red shining gems is perched in front. A beautiful gown falls off her, a mixture of reds and silvers, all woven together to make the bodice. Tiny little flowers fill the skirt, mixed with sharp thorns. The skirt itself flows out between us, and her teeth, nothing but pure silver fangs, flash as she speaks.

"I came early to see my son only to find his favourite blood slave is in a relationship with this vampyre and trying to escape?" Her voice is velvety soft as she crushes my hope and terrifies me all at the same time. She shakes her head, and her hair doesn't even move. "That's disgusting behaviour for a blood slave held in such high honour. My son will be so very upset." She looks over her shoulder, and my heart pounds as guards fill both ends, blocking any chance of escape.

Sickness rises up my throat, and I cover my mouth. "Please."

"You will greet me as your queen. Shush now, shush now. I won't kill you. My son is far too fond of your blood and body, from what my spies tell me." She comes closer in the blink of an eye, pulling down my hood. She touches my hair. "I can see why now. You have a beauty about you, and your blood…I will taste myself." A sob wracks my throat, and my legs feel weak. "I will teach you a lesson. That is something I'm afraid is going to hurt. I've taught all my children how to be strong. I will do the same to you."

"You will not touch her." Lewin knocks the queen's hand away and steps in front of me.

I barely get to scream before they fight. "NO!" I'm pushed out of the way as the vampyres fight, and I can barely make out what is happening. They move so fast, and even though she's in a dress, I can tell she's stronger, faster than Lewin. It stops when her fangs are in his throat, and she wastes no time before she rips it out. He falls to the floor with a thud, so much blood pouring out of his neck onto the carpet as I plaster myself to the wall. His glassy eyes stare right at me, and he is gone. There is no light there. I can't stop crying, sobbing so hard my body is shaking with them, and I don't notice the queen until she is grabbing my arm, yanking me upright.

"My guards have already gone to get my son, and together we will correct your behaviour. It is not your fault—my son has clearly been too kind to you. We will make sure that anyone that was going to help you is dead. He has not trained you well enough. That's my fault. I should have been around and come to see you sooner."

I begin to scream long before she begins hurting me, before my life truly gets worse, worse than it's ever been, and there is nothing but blood left in that room of nightmares.

My body shudders as I snap back to the present. My eyes drift away from the blood pouring from Marcus's mouth, and the memory goes with it. Hours have passed since we got trapped in here. Ziven helped Marcus onto the couch in the one room that we have. It's a small, cozy room with three couches and an enormous fireplace. There are some plates of food on a side cabinet and a jug of water we can refill in the sink in the bathroom we have. There's nothing else in this short corridor area, and we can't leave. Marcus looks worse, and I wish there was something anyone could do for him. I head to the bathroom, getting some cloths and soaking them in cold water before coming back. Ziven's warning echoes to me from his spot near the fireplace. "You shouldn't go near him."

I ignore Ziven and lay the towels on Marcus's head and his chest, and he moans in either pain or comfort, I'm not sure. "If I'm going to get sick, I'm already going to be sick at this point. He deserves to be looked after, and I don't think your nursing skills are up to par."

Ziven frowns at me, and I don't even need to look to know he is. I can hear it in his voice. "Why would you look after him? You don't know him."

I don't know how to answer that. I would help him even if I knew he was a monster when he was in this state. "Why are you not in danger of getting sick? How are you immune?" Ziven doesn't bother to answer me. "Daegan told me this affects everyone here, so why not you?"

"Because I caught it before, when I was a baby. So did my twin, but only one of us survived." His answer is clipped, and I regret asking him.

"I'm sorry. I never had a sibling, let alone a twin. I couldn't imagine how hard that must have been."

"I was a baby. I do not remember." His answer isn't as cold as usual. I take it as progress. Ziven sits on the floor near the couch, and I sit down next to him. He glares at me for a moment, but eventually, he looks away. Marcus is fast asleep in some kind of fever, and I really don't think there's anything we can do for him except be here. Ziven moves his collar down and shows me his shoulder where the scar I've seen before is. This close, I can actually see it is scaled. "Considering you'll probably die, I'll tell you. This is what it looks like to survive. It's rare, but sometimes children do live. No one really understands why that is."

I pick up a strand of my hair, messing with it. "Where did it come from? I've never heard of it outside of here, and I'm pretty sure if there was a sickness this extreme, it would have come up at some point."

"We do not know. It wasn't listed in any of our ancestors' books, notes, or stories. Mazzis has looked and had people search, but there is nothing." He turns his gaze on me. "It started infecting us over a hundred years ago, and there isn't a fae in here that hasn't lost someone to it. Except you." He looks up. "We've lost a lot of people, but my dynasty was hit the hardest. There are currently twenty-seven of us left, but there used to be well over three hundred."

Deities above… "I'm sorry, Ziven. Hettie…"

"Hettie spends far too much time with you when I've told her not to." His growl makes me laugh.

He blinks at me in surprise. "I get the impression Hettie doesn't do anything that she's told, and she gets that from you." After a moment, I ask, "What happened to her mother?"

I really don't expect Ziven to tell me, but maybe he is feeling sorry for me because I might die so it doesn't matter what he tells me at this point. "She's my niece, my sister's only daughter." He pauses. "She caught this when Hettie was one. There was nothing any of us could do but watch her die, and I was left with a one-year-old, who is the heir to the Moon Dynasty. If anything happens to me, with my siblings gone…Hettie is all the family I have left. I'd do anything to protect her."

"She loves you, looks up to you," I admit. "When she sneaks in to speak to me, she makes that very clear. I'm sure your sister is proud of you both."

Ziven shakes his head. "She would hate me if she could see me now, Storm. You don't know anything."

We sit in pure silence for a long time, and I don't know what he means by that—I have the feeling I shouldn't want to find out. After a while, Ziven checks on Marcus, and I pour myself a drink of water, watching as the scary Moon Dynasty king tucks a blanket around one of his people and gently tells him he will survive this. He lies to him to give him hope. When he straightens and Marcus has once again fallen asleep, I hate the broken look in his eyes. "You know, if I catch it and die, at least you can be finally happy that your traitorous enemy is dead without you even needing to lift a finger."

Ziven crosses his thick arms. "What makes you think that dying is going to make me happy, Storm?" He glowers with his silver eyes as a flush crawls up my neck. "Even dead, you would haunt me."

"I would," I agree with a touch of a smile. Marcus starts coughing up blood, and we both look right at him. Whatever moment that was is gone. Ziven uses the cloth to clean him up, and I sit on the edge of the couch, right next to him, and pull Marcus's hand into mine. He opens his eyes for a moment, looking up at Ziven, who rests his hand on his shoulder. "Rest. You're safe."

"Look after her." His voice is croaky but easy enough to understand. "Vow it."

"I vowed to care for my people when I took the crown. I will care for her always," Ziven firmly answers. "Be with the deities, warrior of the Moon Dynasty. May the dragons and kings welcome you to their hallowed gates."

He nods once before his eyes slowly shut. I don't know who she is that Marcus wants protecting, but I know Ziven will keep his vow because it's Marcus's last words. The moment he's dead, I feel it like the embrace of a cold fog. His heart has stopped and the gold scales softly fade on his skin until they are no longer glittering gold, but drained into a grey colour, almost matching Ziven's scars. Ziven pulls the blanket over his face, covering him up. "Move away." The lack of anything in his voice makes me immediately move away.

"I'm sorry," I whisper when I'm a few steps back. My eyes widen as he holds his hand over Marcus, and his whole body starts burning in silver flames. The silver fire is mesmerising to look at as it completely engulfs the body in seconds. Within a minute, there's nothing but ash on the sofa, on the burnt sofa cushions, and the fire instantly disappears. It didn't even make smoke. Ziven lifts the entire sofa with one hand and flings it in the air, slamming it against the wall as he roars. "Fuck!" He stops by the fireplace, places his hands on that mantelpiece, his muscles straining as he looks down into the burning fire.

"Ziven." I don't move closer. I know what men are like when they get angry, and I don't want to risk getting hurt. My hands shake and I clamp them to my thighs to stop it.

"Get comfy. We cannot leave for five days." He doesn't look back.

"What do you mean, five days? That would just be right before the test."

"You and I are contagious," he carefully answers, but there is such a lethal undertone that I can't ignore. "Think of Hettie dying like that if it makes you feel better about staying in here with me. I think of all the people stuck in this mansion who could get sick and die. Neither of us can leave until the five days are up. That's if you don't die before then too and end up like him." His voice is quiet. "Everyone fucking dies on me."

My heart cracks in half, and for a moment, I actually feel sorry for him. I glance at the sofa, broken in half now by the wall, Marcus's ashes spread all across it. If we stay in this room, we are both going to do nothing but annoy each other. "Why don't we train? Out there in the corridor?"

I get the feeling he needs to get out of this room just as much as I do. He looks over his shoulder. "I thought you hated training, Storm."

"I've grown to like it," I admit. "I even train on the days I'm not here. My body feels stronger than it ever has before, and I want that to continue."

"I'll train you on one condition," he murmurs, moving away from the fireplace.

I clear my throat. "What?"

"Tell me something true about yourself." He watches me closely. "And I will know if you're lying to me."

"Do you have Etena's powers?" I joke, but he doesn't laugh. "Fine. Like what?"

"How many lovers have you had?" he asks. I'm surprised by his question.

I can't look at him as I answer, so I go to the cabinet by the door, searching the drawers until I find a hair tie and pull my hair up. "My master, the second I had, was the only lover I had. I wouldn't count him as a lover when it wasn't my choice and I was owned by him." When I lift my eyes, I can't read Ziven's expression. "You have your answer. Train me."

"Alright, Storm." He tugs off his cloak and shoes, meeting me in the corridor. The silver light of the walls he has made makes it bright, and I wait for him to tell me what to do. "Show me what you learnt from reading those books." He tilts his head. "And not the romance books Daegan gives you."

"How do you know about those?"

His counter is immediate and concerning. "I know about everything." He spreads his arms out. "Stop delaying and attack."

"Fine," I mutter. I go to attack him in the way that I read about in the books, but he easily grabs me, turning me around and pinning me against the wall. His entire body presses into mine, and he's holding my arm bent backwards against the middle of my back. He leans into my shoulder. I don't know what it is about this position or him holding me like this, but my body feels like it's on fire, completely and utterly alive under his grip. I feel like I'm burning everywhere he touches me. "Get out of this hold. I know you read about how to do it."

I do know, but reading it and doing it to a massive, bulky king are two very different things. I suck in a breath to steel myself before I lift my leg and hit his knee, punching my elbow into his stomach and at the same time swirling round to hit his throat. Effortlessly, he stops me, pulling both my hands above my head, but I wrap my leg round his, smacking at his knee. We both go tumbling to the floor, and he lands on top of me, never hurting me with his weight as his hands brace himself. He smirks. No smiles. I think it's one of the first times I've ever seen him sort of smile at me. "Where did you learn that?"

"I found another book on training and read it in the library on my lunch," I breathlessly say. "It was all about how knees can be an easy spot on anyone, big or small." Now he is actually smiling at me, and I realise how much more dangerous he is when he smiles. Dangerous for my beating heart, for my body, which reacts so easily, forgetting the fact he made himself my enemy. Our lips are inches away and he's resting right between my legs, his entire hard, toned body pressed against mine. Do I like him? Have I gone mad? I'm sort of with Daegan, and this is a bad idea. His eyes fix on my lips, and I wonder if he is thinking about it, too. He leans back and I'm glad he does. He rubs his hand over his face, stepping away from me, and I climb to my feet. "Running. We need to warm up and then you can do that again until you've perfected the move."

He starts jogging up and down the corridor, expecting me to follow, and I do, knowing that if he kissed me right then, I wouldn't have stopped him.