The Vampire's Bride

Chapter 22

Iris had her clothes thrown on and was dashing outside to the railing in seconds. Her nails dug into the wood as she found the sea of diseased, pus splattered bodies slumped over tables and chairs. They were bloated and reeked of rotten flesh.

In mere moments Jason was beside her, ushering her down the stairs.

"It's the plague!" shrieked an old woman, waving her knotted cane around the festering bodies. Iris only had to see her butterflies floating among the rafters to know the truth.

She was the plague.

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"What does she want with us?" Luca asked himself, staring into the office's ever burning fire. He had long since removed his cloak. The room was dreadfully stuffy, growing hotter by the second.

Evelyn, meanwhile, had found a slim letter opener and several hairpins. She'd recovered enough to walk again. A long stream of unladylike curses spurted from her as one of the frail bone hairpins snapped in the keyhole.

"If you would stop muttering to fires and bring me a light, prehaps we would know, you arse," Evelyn snapped. Her lovely green eyes had turned to annoyed emerald shards, revealing a glimmer of the fire still within her. Luca snatched a candle from the cluttered desk and brought it to her side. He smiled like a child who knew they had done well in the classroom, boyish and bright.

Evelyn didn't bother to thank him. Instead, the girl kneeled at the lock and began to struggle with it once more.

"Where did you learn to do this?" Luca asked, leaning closer to her.

Evelyn scoffed quietly as an answer. The Italian prince pressed his lips into a thin line, raising an eyebrow. His eyes watched her skilled fingers ease and pick at the lock. Her dark brows were knitted together in concentration, sparing none her focus. The lock creaked and the pins began to turn. Luca brightened in hope, stepping towards her.

The final pin snapped.

Evelyn cursed loud enough to rival a sailor. Luca stepped back quickly, eager to get out of her path as she stormed to the desk and threw herself dramatically into the chair, a whirlwind of anger and exasperation formed into a deadly cyclone. She huffed and stabbed the letter opener into the table. It stuck out, dull silver gleaming in the firelight.

Her gaze may as well have been a knife, the anger and pain shining within emerald a wicked, unforgiving edge. 

"Do you think that Jason and Iris made it?" Evelyn asked softly. She rested one cheek against the palm of her hand, her nails worrying against her pale skin. Her dark brows were creased into a stress filled frown.

"Yes, I'm sure they did," Luca reassured her. He sat upon the desk, shuffling papers off to the side. "They escaped the castle alive and on horseback, though Jason was heavily injured."

"If Jason isn't an idiot then they should be alright. I just wonder where they'll run off to," she said. She ruffled a hand through her lovely obsidian locks and leaned back in the squeaking leather chair. 

"Will they come for us?"

"They don't even know that we've been taken. If they're smart, they'll both stay far away from Hell and it's throne."

"Iris has a claim to Hell's throne?"

"That's why our mother wants her killed. It seems she has no intention of giving up the throne, not again."

The two sat in silence, listening to the crackling fire and thinking over all the consequences. Who knew what Adelaide wanted with them? If she wanted her youngest daughter murdered without emotion, what were they to her? Luca's fingers clenched in his shirt at the thought of his head coming off, if he was lucky to have that clean of a death. Truly, it seemed that he was nothing to the queen of Hell. If it would come off, it would come off soon, and perhaps it would be sent in a box to his family.