Stone Cold

Chapter 42

“Ares!”

Her heart was threatening to jump out of her throat by the way it was drumming frantically inside her tightening chest. Her frenzied gaze was moving in every direction following an invisible haphazard trail as her mind allowed only one word to leave her lips every time she parted them,

“Ares?!”

‘Where did he go?’

After placing a small bowl of her blood in front of a stoic Henry, her unsure heart had started beating uncontrollably in fear of facing the consequences of her abrupt confession, but the moment she returned to see the cold empty spot in front of the fireplace -the injured lord nowhere to be seen- the reason behind her fright had changed altogether.

‘Cyrus cannot enter the castle without permission. Is it.. Ruth?’

She was getting hysterical by the minute. All kind of thoughts were swarming her head yet one thought dominated them all,

‘I won’t be able to handle it if something happened to him.’

“Ares!”

Calling his name at the top of her lungs, she wandered from room to room in search of those familiar emeralds, her quest eventually landing her into his own bedroom. Seeing its semi-parted door, with a barely visible impression of a bloodied hand, lead her to hurriedly push it open.

A soft material touched the sole of her foot as soon as she stepped inside the bedroom making her whip her head down in its direction. There, in a bloodied mess lay his bunched up satin shirt right in front of the entrance,

‘He removed his shirt. He must be in there.’

Her eyebrows scrunched as she picked it up gingerly before looking around the room to find more traces of him. Soon enough, her eyes fell upon a fading trail of blood disappearing behind a door she had a fair idea about—the fourth door, where she had spent her last night in future.

Sauntering forward with light footsteps, she followed the subtle trail, reaching forward to place a hand on the door’s handle to push it outwards, producing a low creak.

Instead of the cream coloured marble she remembered from her memory, a beige coloured beer stone lined the walls, paving the floor she walked upon. Her astonished eyes were dancing across the murky room, dimly lit with the help of a few torches nestled safely in the grasp of sconces bordering the walls on her both sides. The multiple bulbs decorating the ceiling to give it a starry night appearance were no longer to be found, bathing the room in an even darker, mysterious look.

The pool she had let herself lose on a similarly dark night was devoid of any reflection of twinkling stars, instead the burning flames in her surroundings produced their own hazy images in the pit of the still water making it look like a stream of red hot lava nestling a sleeping beast in its core.

“Ares.”

For the umpteenth time, the name left her fluttering lips as her gaze settled upon the bare chested man partially submerged in the fiery water. His head was leaned back, making the shadow of his Adam’s apple pop more against his pale skin as he rested his head on the raised border of the pool.

The vampire looked like he had jumped straight out of an artist’s darkest imaginations.

Pursing her lips to get her raging hormones under control, she took quick strides to reach the vampire lord, kneeling before him to place a gentle hand on his ice cold cheek,

“Are you okay?”

Slowly, the dark shadow cast upon his hollow cheek bones lifted up as he raised his thick eyelashes to reveal ruby coloured irises,