Married to the Prince of Darkness (COMPLETED)

Chapter 57

Henrietta, the one person I thought I could trust, had just revealed herself to be a liar – why she was lying was yet to be determined, but she was most definitely a liar. She had accused Luc of the most heinous crimes in order to try and persuade me to commit a further heinous crime. She had wanted me to kill my only mate, so that she could install herself as the new vampire Queen – that bitch.

Sitting on the reading room floor I wondered to myself, how far did her lies stretch? Was this something she had been planning right from the beginning when I met her, or was this an impulsive decision made in the heat of the moment? But more importantly, did her lies have anything to do with Celia's death...

The old Queen's journal had never mentioned Henrietta. Her only recorded suspicions named two people as the possible murderers – Louis and Luc. I had always thought it must have been Luc, because how could Louis kill his true mate, but now I found myself doubting everything after nearly agreeing to kill my own mate.

How did she do that? How did she get into my head and mess things up so badly. I think I'd trusted her so blindly because I thought she was like me - a person trapped by shitty circumstances. When I first turned everything was so scary. I didn't know what I was or who to trust, and then Henrietta came sweeping in with her calm demeanour and honest insights and made me believe that I'd found someone I could finally trust, but I guess she had her own agenda.

Still sitting on the floor I made myself get up. This was no time for a pity party. There were things I needed to figure out and they weren't going to figure themselves out with me sat here on the floor, feeling sorry for myself. I needed to be proactive ... but I didn't know where to start. I had leads, like the Colin's book or the scholar the Old Queen had mentioned, but I was stuck in this apartment. Miserably I got off the floor and wandered over to the barred window and looked out over the fort walls to Port Cressida. I needed to be out there investigating, not stuck in here tidying up Luc's mess!

Frustrated I turned round and kicked the nearest stack of books and snapped, "Screw my life!"

The books toppled over with several heavy thuds, spilling across the floor. It was cathartic to watch, even though I knew deep down that is was totally immature, but I had to vent somehow. If I didn't blow off some of the steam building inside me, I was going to explode like pressure cooker.

I thought about kicking the other stacks of books over. I could pretend I was kicking Henrietta's pretty little head clean off her shoulders, but I decided against it. It was terrible to treat books this way, especially when so many of these copies were valuable first editions. Breathing out a long drawn sigh, I bent down and picked up the nearest book and placed it carefully back on the shelf.

"One down – five hundred more to go," I grumbled to myself.

This was going to be a long night.

I bent down to pick the next book up and out the corner of my eye spotted a familiar emerald green book. It was the book I'd been holding when Luc walked in, the book he had told me that his mother used to read. I picked up the emerald green book and read its big golden title, 'Great Celtic Legends of Ireland'. I opened the book and began to flick through the pages and chapters. The book was obviously well loved with its dog eared pages. I smiled to myself imaging Luc and his mother reading this book together in much happier times. I turned another page and stopped. It was a new chapter entitled 'Stories of the Cuchulain' and underneath that was a tiny footnote that read – '...pronounced Coo-hull-anne or Coo-cull-anne depending on dialect'.

"Coo-hull-anne," I said softly.

Was it me or did it sound like Colin?

Okay, maybe I was grasping at straws but Laura did say that she'd had trouble understanding the burning lady when she was talking about the Colin book, and she did say it sounded something like Colin. Maybe the old Queen had an accent that Laura couldn't understand or maybe I had lost my mind. Either way there was only one way to find out.