The Phoenix Witch

Chapter 5

Christine's P.O.V

A rustling sound distracted me from my snooping of the kitchens, My muscles tensed in anticipation as I turned towards the sound, nothing but darkness surrounded me. I searched as well as my human eyes could see in the dark, sensing nothing I turned back to my search for chocolate.

'Can't sleep?' A baritone voice asked, I jumped startled, and turned to the voice, I saw an outline of a man and those enticing emerald eyes. Vampires, I cursed in my head and reprimanded myself for forgetting they were here.

'No, uh I was just looking for water' I lied, not wanting anyone to know my obsession with chocolate.

He raised an eyebrow and pointed towards the shelf of chocolates I had found just before he made himself known. I looked up at it and cursed at my foolishness, my cheeks turning red from embarrassment, I cleared my throat and said
'Ok fine, I was looking for chocolate, it helps me sleep. Why are you here anyway?'

'I couldn't sleep, I was here for coffee' he said raising his cup of steaming hot coffee.

'Oh,' I answered, I was curious and wanted to ask more but was still wary of him. He sensed my hesitation and said 'Go on, I don't bite ' with a straight face. I tried not to laugh at his pathetically bad joke and settled for a half-smile.

'Well, do vampires need to eat human food? Don't you get your nourishment from blood?' I asked feeling a bit disgusted from the thought of drinking blood but tried not to show it.

'We do get our nourishment from blood but human food helps dull our never-ending hunger. It's different food for different vampires, for me it is coffee' he answered without missing a beat, either not noticing or ignoring the slight disgust in my voice.

'But don't you sleep?' I asked and immediately racked my head for my father's lessons on the supernatural but before I could remember he spoke.

'We don't sleep every day but when we do we sleep like the dead' he paused searching my face for any change in my face but only saw the thinly veiled curiosity and continued 'I thought the royals educated their children but you seem to know very little about vampires, I wonder why princess?' he asked carefully probably trying not to offend me.

I stared at him and saw nothing but sincere curiosity in his eyes, I smiled surprised, and was going to answer just as a yawn slipped out my mouth.

'It's late, princess You should get some rest, we can continue this conversation tomorrow ' he said noting my tiredness.

I gave him a slight smile and turned to walk out but I paused at the threshold, glanced back at him, and said 'It's Christine please, Mr. Clairemont I'm barely a princess' in a polite tone but there was an edge that wasn't very well hidden. I'm, sure he heard it but again he did not pry and instead answered with a small smile ' As you wish Christine, but you must call me Mathhew '.

I nodded at him perplexed but too tired to care and said 'Goodnight Matthew' and left without waiting for an answer. That night sleep came to me with its usual nightmares but unbeknownst to me, a small crack had appeared deep in a part of my soul.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I stood astonished at the room around me, it had a woodsy but neat theme with bookshelves covering every wall except one. The middle wall had a huge touchscreen computer, and the middle of the room had a circular table with chairs, but the room wasn't the thing that shocked me the most, it was the stunning woman in front of me. She had a mix of luscious brown-black hair, and sparkling blue eyes, and god was I jealous of her makeup, it was perfect just like her. No doubt was she a vampire but she was one of the more beautiful ones I'd ever seen, all three of them were, I realized. She cleared her throat and I snapped out of my trance trying not to turn beet red from embarrassment and said 'What?'

'I am Aderyn Clairemont and you are?' she asked her voice, a beautiful melody but filled with a coldness that gave me chills. Well, she doesn't like me, I thought wryly and answered 'I'm Christine, I'm here to help you guys with the investigation' in a polite but detached tone.

She turned as Mathhew and William came in and hissed 'We're letting a witch help us?! and the princess nonetheless, What were you thinking Matthew?'

'She insisted and we could use her help, She is the princess' he said calmly and slowly like talking to a petulant child. 'But Matthew she is a witch!' Aderyn practically screamed, Matthew only raised an eyebrow and she huffed a breath before turning to me with a blank face and saying 'Welcome to the team, Princess' sounding as cold as Elsa's frozen castle.

'OK now that Aderyn is finished with her dramatics, let's start our meeting' William said grinning like an idiot while Aderyn rolled her eyes at his comment. 'Come on princess, we'll show you what we have found until now.' he continued beckoning me to a chair next to him.

I walked further into the room and looked at the snippets and bits of information placed on the table. Untold questions were floating in the air and I knew I had to answer them before we could do anything as a team, so I took a deep breath and looked at them, Aderyn and Matthew had seated themselves opposite to us. ' ok first off, please don't call me princess, Christine is fine, we're going to be working together and titles is just too formal and secondly don't keep any information from me, however sensitive it may be ' I said and got two blank faces and a very happy one from the vampire next to me, he beamed at me almost blinding me with his sparkling white teeth and said ' of course Christine, we would love it if we dropped the titles too, we're going to be amazing friends'. I tried to fight my smile at his adorable anticipated expression and lost, smiling brighter than I had for days, and said 'Im sure we will be William '.

Matthew nodded and said, ' Of course, Christine', I turned to Aderyn, and she nodded too, her face still blank but I suppose it was enough. He then stood up as I sat down and started explaining what we knew 'the late king of Terra was murdered in his summer palace, the attack had sounded the alarms and the family was safe in the panic room but the king was found in a secret room attached to his study' he paused turning to the computer screen, clicking a button showing the layout of the room and said 'there weren't any layouts of this room present in the layout of the palace, so we have to figure out what he was doing there and how did his attacker know it and not us'

'It could be an inside job, someone here at Cadrill tip anybody off maybe?' Aderyn said. 'Yes that's definitely a possibility we will be looking into, so we have to keep this as quiet as possible, I hope you all understand' he said. We all nodded and he asked 'Any more questions?',

'Yes, uhh could it be that he was killed over the important issue he had to come over to the summer palace for?' I asked, now fully concentrated and curious about the case.

'Yes that is a possibility but it is not of our utmost importance right now' he said effortlessly as if knowing that I was digging for information.

'But we should know why he came here right? This issue almost lost me, my family, and the king's life?' I said maintaining my call voice.

' I'm sure we will be informed when the time is right Christine, best not to pry' he said continuing his perfect indifference.

I stared at him for a moment with hidden defiance in my eyes before I said 'Fine, I'll stop prying, let's continue shall we?'

The meeting went on for two more hours with Matthew telling the facts and our plan of action for the next steps. And Willaim making hilariously dumb jokes I tried and failed not to laugh too while Aderyn looked like she would love to be anywhere else.

'This was going to be interesting' I thought as I walked to my room, ready for any new challenges to be faced.