Married to the Prince of Darkness (COMPLETED)

Chapter 34

The bloody ghost of Laura Taylor was standing next to Henrietta staring straight at me, as Nico and Henrietta spoke to each other completely obviously to the dead girl standing next to them. My throat began to tighten and my breath began to become short, sharp, shallow and rapid.

Laura's sunken eyes drifted away from me and down to her chest. Blood was oozing out of her chest cavity, bleeding onto the green fabric material of her hospital gown. With her hand she reached up and touched the wound and looked up to me and said, "My heart- it's gone..."

My stomach lurched up into my throat and the world around me seemed to detach. Laura broke down sobbing and helplessly I whispered to her, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Nico raised his eye brow and asked, "Mia, what's wrong?"

I couldn't answer him. My breathing was becoming more erratic and suddenly everything before my eyes flashed white and passed out in Nico's arms.

My mind detached from my body and I floated into familiar unconscious darkness that both enthralled and terrified me. In the darkness I could find the respite I desperately needed from the real world, even though there was something scary about the dark, yet also comforting. Luc and the others couldn't get to me in the dark, Casper couldn't hurt me in the dark, and it was him I was scared of more than anything else in this world.

So I hid in the dark, dreaming dark dream, and remembering dark thoughts and memories that never belonged to me. I drifted and drifted until I heard music- or more precisely Christmas music. The familiar irritating jingle of Frosty the Snowman permeated into my head and the world around me turned into bright white light.

"Celia... Celia...Celia,"

A voice emerging out of the light...

"Celia!" I heard Luc's voice.

The light subsided and I found myself standing a grand ballroom watching a pretty young woman standing precariously on top of a wooden ladder pressed against a very large Christmas tree. She was delicately balancing on one leg as she stretched her whole body to place a large golden angel tree topper on to top of the Christmas tree.

Luc rushed over to the ladder and grabbed its base yelling at her in a firm tone, "Celia get down at once before Louis sees you."

Celia...this was Celia?

I watched in a strange detachment as the scene played out before me. Luc held the ladder as Celia struggled and strained to do something. Luc called to her again begging her to come down but Celia rolled her eyes at Luc and replied, "Stop being over dramatic Luc- I am only putting the angel on top of the Christmas tree"

"Louis will be over dramatic if so much as a single hair on your pretty head is damaged so please come down here now before you break something," Luc repeated.

Celia defiantly stuck her tongue out at Luc, and continued to strain her arms upwards as she desperately tried to put the angel topper on the tree. She stretched as far as she could and then suddenly lost balance. Luc watched as Celia wobbled on top of the ladder before regaining her balance a few moments later.

Luc hissed a few swear words through his teeth and snapped, "Celia you are going to break your neck if you continue."

"And the blame will fall squarely on your shoulders, and Louis will have you sent to the stocks, or flogged with a nine tails whip or whatever medieval punishment this court still practices," Celia said theatrically.

Stretching up on her tippy toes again, Celia managed to place the golden angel on top of the Christmas tree. With a hoot of triumphant she rocked back on her heels and took in the full glory of the enormous tree.