Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 44

Hi!

Okay, this chapter is super long - I hope you appreciate my efforts here. The sh.. is about to hit the fan(g) - MOUHAHA!

Lara

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Chapter 44

We continued our walk down the aisle in mutual silence, made our way back to the party of ancient-old vampires. Whatever little I felt through our connection vanished from one moment to the other. Nothing came from the cord of our bond I'd felt tugging at myself before.

The music was eerie, turned into a low murmur of deep tones. Dark and sinister, it hovered in the air like a lingering, forbidden dream too vast for the mind to grasp. Too dangerous and complex to understand.

I felt it building – the urge to raise my eyes and check if my parents' murderer was still looking. Seeing his face reopened a wound I carried with me since my childhood. I was raw, bleeding. The drive to stare and look swung back and forth in my core. A car crash in the making.

I lifted my head, eyes going to that spot in the left corner. He was gone.

I blinked, shifting my gaze. Visions of vampires, champagne flutes in hand, facial masks that displayed fake-laughter. The hum of thin, soft voices that carried over from a group of vampires in front of us. Music, haunting and despairing. It died in my ears. I sifted through the faces, flipped them in my mind like a deck of cards.

At least I did, until I walked right into Alexander's back. The impact knocked sense into me, drove me back to the here and now in one fluid second. I remembered where I was, and who I was pretending to be. I took a hasty step of retreat, guiding my eyes back to the floor.

"I am pleased that we meet here, Alexander. Or was it Adorjàn?"

The voice thinned out and ebbed, lingering in the mind like a disturbing nightmare. If I ever thought Alexander's voice was intimidating, I learned I was wrong. The pitch and tone reminded me of ice blades sinking into dust, promised the faint taste of blood and death on the tip of my tongue.

I looked up. Another mistake in vampiric conventions, but – at this point in time – who gave a damn?

Recognition. Complete lockdown. It was the blond vampire who had spoken, but he was not the one I focused on. My parent's murderer was standing right beside him, and he was watching me. Not with the dead vacant look I'd expected from a vampire of his age. No, there was cold calculation, paired with a spark of interest in those dark brown eyes.

Ramondo.

I amped up the static in my mind and looked back, staring at the fabric my nightmares were made of. I studied the devil in detail with a resolve I didn't knew I had. In my mind, I saw myself standing in front of a void, looking into pitch-black darkness, laughing. I heard the sound in my mind, imagined its texture. Knew it was bordering on the deep-chested rattles of madness. I didn't care. At least I was staring into the void with the knowledge that I was not going to look away.

Ramondo was tall, looming over me like the still tower I remembered from my nightmares – all broad shoulders and muscles. The brown hair was lighter than I remembered – not the ominous black I thought I saw when I peered through that damned keyhole. It cascaded to his shoulders silken soft, a deep contrast to the slinking nightmare I knew he was.

Thin, bloodless lips. Flat and even. But I wasn't fooled. They were a heartbeat away from a cruel smile that could make my blood stutter and stagnate. If he smiled now, I was going to run away screaming – or attack him, whatever came first.