𝙴𝚌𝚕𝚒𝚙𝚜𝚎𝚍

Chapter Eighteen

The carriage ride was uncomfortably silent as we made the same trip to the packhouse that I had the day I nearly died.

Mira and Katie waved us off, Katie upset she wasn't allowed to join us and Mira indifferent to the notion. However, I could see the subtle worry in Mira's eyes as she watched us pull away, as if she were scared there was a chance I wouldn't return alive this time.

I listened to the familiar clopping of the horses' hooves, while I thought about my conversations with Gamma Direvuld and the way they handled me without care. Then my thoughts shifted to my time in the pack dungeon, the musty smell of the dimly lit space, to the pale faced creature that lurked in the shadows of a nearby cell.

"Father. . ." I started hesitantly, realizing I had yet to question him about the Vampire.

"Yes, dearest?" His brown eyes flicked from the window he had been quietly watching out of.

"Why would Alpha Randel have a vampire locked in the pack dungeon?" There was no point in dragging it out, not when there wasn't much of the trip left.

Both he and Luci looked at me in horror, her more so than him. "What?" Father asked after five heartbeats of silence. "He has a Vampire locked up in the pack dungeon?!"

I nodded, his anger was nearly palpable.

"How do you know this?" He softened his tone as he unconsciously rubbed his scar.

"I was placed in a cell not too far from it." I admitted, though with the look they had on their faces, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. Not when we were about to be attending a Ball with the very people who had imprisoned me.

"They threw you in a cell?" Luci muttered in disbelief. "I thought you were just escorted to the packhouse."

"Did the Vampire say anything to you?" Father completely disregarded Luci and that caused her to slightly shrink into herself. Panic had started to swirl in his mahogany eyes, though his face stayed firm and his tone sharp.

"He was mostly polite, far more than I had ever thought capable of a Vampire." I started, doing what I could to settle my nerves, "Until he tried to get me to break him out of his cell with magic."

"He attempted to compel you?" His jaw twitched.

"If that is what it's called, then yes. It was painful, like a hot liquid had been poured into my brain, but I managed to resist it." Father's reactions were starting to scare me.

"Did he mention anything after?" He shook the carriage as he quickly grabbed my hands in his. "Anything at all?"

Luci gently grabbed one of his wrists and softly cooed in an attempt to calm him, "Let her go father, you are scaring us both."

"H-he started mumbling in a crazed manner, I don't remember much of it, but I did hear him say something. . . what was it? Moon, Moon-Kissed." I finally spat out. "And before he tried to-to compel me, he mentioned a Master Bane, that he was nothing more than a half-ling."

Even Luci turned to gape at me, and the air in the carriage turned sour with fear. Yet, despite how uncomfortable I had been, all I could focus on was the fact their demeanor had proved they were hiding something from me.

Father exhaled deeply, as if he were trying to push out all of his fear and anger. "I'm sorry girls." His voice had a bit of gravel in it. "You both know how I feel about Vampires. And how this old wound seems to ache when they're mentioned." He patted his scar, then flashed us both an apologetic smile.

"It's okay." I softly replied before Luci could, "I shouldn't have brought up something so unsettling right before an already nerve-wracking event."

There was no need to mind link, not that I could have, to know what they both were thinking. No not when I too had been thinking it.