Lair of Beasts [Book I in the Curse Of Blood Saga]

Chapter XXX - Niflheim

"Where is Thomas?" My nails were digging painfully into the wall behind my back as I impaled the two men before me with all the loathing I was able to muster, but fearful withal.

They looked meaningfully toward each other ere Carac rose to his feet. Lucian, however, sat back with his heels against his powerful haunches, and studied me cautiously. With all that had happened since I had awoken, to an unremitting nightmare, I had neglected to notice that Lucian and Carac were, oddly, unclothed and covered in naught but blood — human blood!

I averted my gaze, but not in view of any sense of propriety. My need for self preservation, however, and the disgust I felt at regarding their grim appearance, was by far a greater influence than my need to damn them both with an accusatory glare. The predicament I presently inhabited was aught but commonplace, so I would forgive myself my lack of fortitude.

Still staring off to the side, I heard Carac retreating into the darkness beyond, presumably to afford us some privacy. I was now completely alone with Lucian.

"Where is Thomas?" I asked again, my voice hoarse.

"Surely you can have no doubt as to what has befallen that pup... after what transpired here tonight? You must know-"

"I know only that he disappeared into the trapdoor and locked it from within when... I was attacked." I watched as wrath darkened Lucian's lineaments dangerously.

"He left you to save his own hide?! After you risked your life for his!" His words were heavy with fury, but eerily quiet for all their rhetorical vehemence. I could not defend Thomas this time.

"Yes," I replied dully as he curled his fists atop his thighs, his marble-white knuckles a testament to his growing ire.

When Carac had left us, I had conveyed my gaze back to Lucian. He was as comfortable in his naked state as he had always been, albeit his passion was now of a livid kind. I could feel my brow furrowing with concentration as I tried to see the monster that I now knew him to be; but I could not. The creature lay dormant within and hidden from view. He looked as he always had to me: wild and uninhibited, yet diametrically reserved and cold. How had I not known before now that he was other? The proof stood clear and bright before me — his eyes radiating with a diabolical, amber fire! On what bygone occasion had they not been unnatural? 

Never! They had always glinted with unwholesomeness...

How had I not known? And yet how could I have guessed? 'Twas impossible. I still could not quite believe it, and likely would still cling to ignorance if not for the fact that he had just confirmed it himself? Were he not now wearing crimson on his face, I would think my sanity a broken thing!

"Well then, he deserved what he has wrought with his craven behavior!" Lucian spat, and I finally realized how vain my efforts to liberate Thomas were. Lucian would now kill him for the crime of abandonment, if for no other reason.

"What do you mean?" I asked anyway. If I had not already been pallid, I was sure I'd have turned wan at the malice in his sneering visage.

"Simply this — you say he climbed into the trapdoor..." Lucian gritted out impatiently, his jaw grinding as he awaited my confirmation. I nodded. "Then... he is dead." I blanched. My blood pooled into my poor heart and It clamored like a thing demented.

"But, how! He escaped! He was supposed to live!"

"There is no escape from here, Aria. That you live is..." He shook his head incredulously. "Verily, tis miraculous for none have survived ere now. That trapdoor is an entrance and an exit, tis true, but when we transform," the thought seemed abhorrent to him, "we always leave a guard below."