A Shade Darker ✔️

{Chapter Twenty Eight}

Exploring Hallways

June 28th, 2017

Ashley

I hear myself sigh out of my slumber as I stretch my legs and roll over. It's cold a quiet for a minute and I could feel myself slipping back to my slumber before a strong arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me flush back against a warm body. I gasped from the action that made my eyes spring open, my vision blurry as it came into focus on the wall ahead of me where the wardrobe stood.

A tired sigh and mumbled breath comes from over my shoulder where Mike runs his nose along the length of my shoulder and to my neck.

"Please do not leave, my love. You left me cold" His embrace last night had made me feel safe and warm, but now I felt trapped as he wrapped his legs around mine and pulled me tightly against him.

He was hard as his groin pressed against my tailbone, and it made me shiver. My stomach growled and although the sun never shined, I knew it was morning. I needed breakfast, something to eat before I died of starvation.

I lay quietly and unmoving until I feel his breathing slow again and his hold slightly loosen. His arousal had died and he was asleep. Now all I had to do was escape.

****

I quietly tip toe out of the room, tying my robe tighter around my waist as I eventually made my way down the stairs and to the kitchen where Lucile was already up making breakfast with a few other maids.

"Good afternoon, your highness" A few of the maids greet. I send them a smile and a nod, sighing happily as I felt refreshed in the spacious kitchen that I spent a lot of time in.

"Good afternoon, ladies" I reply, taking a seat on my favorite stool as I watched Lucile smile at me before sending the other maids away to do other work.

Lucile plates lunch food for me, placing the plate down in front of me and smiling at me like she knows a dirty secret.

I begin to eat, saying with a mouth full of food:

"What?" Lucile smiles down at me, leaning across the counter before glancing out the window behind me.

"You still know, my dear, that the storm carried on through the night while you were sleeping" I raise an eyebrow at her, smiling.

"What are you getting at, Lucile?"

She shrugs a shoulder, grinning.

"I just think you should know. And that the walls and doors may be soundproof, but the floorboards aren't. The love making must have been very passionate for the two of you to carry on twice during late hours while us maids are cleaning up the kitchen. You do know that your sleeping quarters are just above us" I glance up with a heat stricken face.

She laughs heartedly.

"I did not man to make you flush, dear. You fluster so easily. But do not fret, all of us maids are waiting around excitedly to see if the myth still rings true. It will be the second born royalty that is a half breed" All the baby talk made me nervous, made me feel even more trapped in a place that I had thought began to feel like home.

But something just didn't feel right. The air was tight and stiff, feeling static like all the windows were closed. Maybe it was the humidity.

"I thought the colony didn't tolerate half breeds? At least that's what I understood" Lucile taps a finger against her chin.

"If the King explained that to you then I can see why. He was asleep for many years. Old customs have changed, though not by much. Only royalty can produce half breeds these days"

"Then who was the first half breed. The King has many siblings" Lucile sighs and touches her head as if it hurt.

"The King and his siblings are royalty not by blood, but by choice. They were adopted by the King two centuries ago after the Queen had abandoned him" I laugh, but it doesn't feel right.

"So there was a Queen before me?" Lucile nods and holds out a hand which I take.

She pulls me away from my stool and together our footsteps echo down the hallways.

I hadn't taken this path before, the hallways were confusing and new to me. They were dark and kind of creepy, only bit by the fire of the torches lining the sides of the walls.

"The King was asleep for nearly two centuries when the Queen returned after her departure. She was human and ran because it was against the rules to carry a half breed child. But she wouldn't let the King turn her. And then the storms came, my dear..." Lucile laughs, but it quiets when I smile and she searches for something she was going to say.

"I met the Queen and oh it must've been about...ten...no...closer to twenty years ago now, I can't remember exactly as I get older, but it was around that many years. The Queen feared she was pregnant again and when she found out she was...well...the colony was going to make her rid of the child. But she proclaimed that she loved it and so she vanished the night before the ridding would have taken place" I frown and listen to our footsteps echoing through the hallway as Lucile opens a door where paintings line the walls.

"And she never came back?" Lucile shakes her head.

"This is the wall of royalty. Portraits were painted to remember everyone and they tried to remove the Queen's, but instead they shut the whole hall down. Nobody can know I've brought you here, understand? I could be killed for this" The secret and sincerity made me wonder why Lucile would even take the chance.

Quietly, she steps forward with me and stops in front of a painting.

"This is the Queen. She was very beautiful and strong minded, stubborn like you, child" Lucile laughs and pats my shoulder as I stare up at the painting with interest.

I reach out and touch the brushstrokes on her face, my fingertips tingling as I did.

Lucile is laughing quietly, but I find no humor. I find only curiosity and amazement. But I feel something more, something...familiar.

"What was her name?" Lucile scratches her head and after going too long without an answer I forget about it.

"You remind me of her. So strong and independent" I reach out with a smile and touch the painting again, gazing down at the symbols on the bottom of the frame. They looked like they were carved in as I let my fingers run over the texture, the tingling getting stronger.

"It was said the Queen was into witchcraft, that she used spells to keep the King from sucking her blood. But like many things said about her, I believe that it too was a myth. They carved the symbols after she had left, to remind everyone of what she was" I look up at Lucile now, my heart thumping with terror.

"What's the matter, child? Have you seen a ghost?" I feel breathless as Lucile touches my shoulder.

"I know her name. The Queen's name. It's Cassidy, Queen Cassidy" Lucile's eyes light up with recognition before looking scared.

"How do you know that? I remember now of her name since you've mentioned it...but how?" I swallow, trying to keep my lunch down.

Lucile looks back at the painting and then to me, several times as I feel more horror ripping throughout me.

I reach up to the painting and again my fingertips tingle, not with the passion like I had felt last night, but a different feeling. One that was like electric shocks.

Everything felt surreal and scary, I felt as if my whole life had been a lie as I stared at the portrait of my mother.

Lucile begins backing away, her face pale.

I reach back at the painting and touch it. It shocks me and I faint. I feel my head hit the concrete floor before everything goes black.