A Shade Darker ✔️

{Chapter Forty One}

Duel

July 29th, 2017

Ashley

I stretch out in the bed, feel the disheveled blankets next to me, but no warm body by my side. I sigh, figuring Mike must be gone to get breakfast or bathe.

So I roll over, curl my body around my torso and let out a small moan as my stomach lurched and moved as if the waves of the ocean were inside my body. I close my eyes and swallow, changing positions every two minutes just to try and keep the vomit down.

It's to no use as usual, I climb out of the bed, grab the chamber pot and empty whatever I ate last night into it.

I heave, gag and choke, brushing hair away from my face and feeling the sweat that had started running down the base of my spine.

One of the maids passing in the hallway was quick to hear of my state and rushed in to kneel next to me in helping me to stand.

"Have you seen my husband at all this morning?" I ask, feeling the nausea fade into the depths of my head and stomach, only to return at a later date.

The maid helps me back into the bed, pulls the blankets over me and returns from the wash basin with a damp cloth that she lays over my forehead.

She didn't answer me, had distant eyes and it made me worry. I brushed the cloth from my head and sat up in the bed.

"Anna...." I warn, her name rolling slowly off my tongue. "Where's my husband?" She looks at me from under her eyelashes, picks at her apron and whispers:

"I do not know, milady"I sit up straighter, swing my legs out of the bed and grab my robe.

I don't tie the straps and it flows open behind me like a long train. My feet sound against the floor with rushed heavy steps and I can hear the maid following behind me.

I've made my way down to the kitchen where Lucile is making breakfast as usual.

I step in, readying my breaths and feeling the sweat coming back.

"Good morning, lass. What troubles ye?" I step carefully across the floorboards, hearing some of them creak.

"Has my husband been down for breakfast?" Lucile shakes her head and begins plating something for me.

"No, have you checked the bath? Or the library?" I shake my head, but I knew he wasn't there.

I had passed those two rooms already on my way down here, he was nowhere in sight.

She sets the full plate of food down on the counter and motions to me.

I shake my head at her, feeling sick at the thought of food.

"No thank you, Lucile. I'll pass on breakfast today" Consciously I rub a Palm slowly over my stomach that felt bothered and uncomfortable.

As if it weren't for the morning sickness I felt as though touching my own body I could feel something different. Something abnormal and out of place.

"Is it the bairn? Making your stomach unable to keep the food down?" As if reminded of the problem I huff and scowl.

"Umpf. Have you seen him at all? Do you know where he might've gone off to?" I return to the subject of Mike and his whereabouts.

Lucile tucks a few pieces of hair back into her bonnet and places her hands on her hips.

"Well....I was up verra early this morning. And I thought I heard movement upstairs, but I figured it was just you and the King up to no good. But I recall now that he must've left sometime around four, humpf, I reckon not too nicely dressed either for his majesty to be going out in public" What could he be doing?

And without telling me! Without even warning me that he'd be gone!

I glanced at the grandfather clock in the living space. It was eight now, he's been gone for four hours and still hasn't returned.

I sigh, turn and climb the stairs back to the bedroom where I started picking around for clues.

He must've left something for me, it wasn't like him to just run off without giving me word of it.

All caught up in my worry and rush earlier, I hadn't noticed the note he must've left on the small table, now laying on the floor halfway open from when I must've stormed out.

I picked it up quickly, glanced inside.

Don't fret, I promise to return.
-M

That's it? Don't fret? Don't worry? How can I not worry when he's left and not given me word of where he was going?! Especially after a day like yesterday, with so much on the line. People who want him dead...me dead.

Something wasn't right, I was worrying again, sweating through my camisole and breathing heavily.

I pull out a simple dress, push the note inside my left breast side and tie my hair at the base of my neck with a piece of ribbon.

I grab a cape with a hood and quickly pull it over myself.

I announce to Lucile that I'm leaving and without listening to her protests I'm down the stairs and out the door, consciously keeping my index finger against the point of the knife tucked away in my sleeve.

I check the village, succeed in staying mostly invisible and don't ask questions. Asking would only put myself, if not him, in more danger if we already were.

How dare he!

I grab my skirts and check the last place I know where he could've gone. The trees.

I venture into the woods that I had walked so many times. Where he saved me from his brother more times than he should have. More times than he could have.

But what was to happen to Billie now? After last night I had clearly seen Billie laying dead, with a broken neck in the grass at my feet.

An old friend's voice echoes in my head:

"Vampires are hard to kill, but one stake through the heart and they're done for. But only with the stake"

Of course. Billie couldn't actually be dead, it was just the shock. The shock that knocked him down and away from me. Then the shock and slow recovery of a broken neck.

That meant Billie was alive. That meant this war wasn't over.

And that meant Mike was still fighting his battle. If I find Billie, I find Mike.

I've stopped in my tracks at a small clearing in the woods, hearing distant groans and screams echoing off the trees and back to me.

I look at my feet, snap a stick over my knee and take a deep breath.

Then I begin running.