The vampire's incubator

Chapter 8

Chapter 8
Hopeful

jayshree16, thank you sooo much for the perfect drawing.
❤❤❤
That's Adinah's mark btw. ❤

Someone pounds heavily on the door and I cover my head with the pillow because with every bash, my head throbs. The one night nightmares gave me a break, the alcohol fought with the contents in my stomach and had me throwing up the whole night. I'm NEVER drinking again. Especially if Rosaline makes me eat cookies first.

"The King demands an audience." Shouts Swardiantalina through the door.

"Fuck off. I don't care." I groan because the pain in my head is unbearable, every breath feels like something is cracking in my head and my sand-paper like throat doesn't make it any better.
"It's too early." I lift the pillow to look at the clock. It's... two PM? I try to get out of bed but fall flat on my face because of my feet webbed in the sheets. Perfect!

For a while there's a ringing sound and the room spins, causing my eyes to shut quickly and everything steadies shortly after.

When I'm done untangling the mess of sheets from my feet, I enter the bathroom to shower but my dry mouth and throat drive me to drink from the basin after my brain gave a detailed explanation why drinking from the kitchen tap would be a problem with the witch at the door.

The magenta blouse makes me want to throw up again but I lift my arm to put it on anyway, at least that was the plan until my eyes landed on it. There it is on my inner arm just below the armpit and for a while I just stare at it in the mirror. It's an intricately drawn flower with so many beautiful features, each purposefully leading to the other. My hand moves slowly, touching the flower from the roots up to the top and I gasp when it hits me. The roots. Is this what the old man in my dream was talking about? I wet the towel and scrub my own skin but ultimately run for the loofah sponge when the soft towel makes no difference.

"You have to come off." I say slowly as my skin begins to painfully heat up because of the friction, turning red in the process. The mark doesn't budge though.

"The King is a very impatient man Adinah, get out." She bangs on the door.

"I bet you would know that." I spit out. I still can't believe she's effing the mad king, not that they don't totally deserve each other by the way. Poor Queen Fifi!
I rush out of the room and look at Swardiantalina after getting dressed, keeping my arm closer to my body to avoid anyone seeing through the thin, translucent fabric. The dirty picture I fought out of my mind last night threatens to come back but I cringe and remember that she was unconscious the last time I saw her.

"Are you fine?" I ask.

"What? Did you put poison in my food and you're wondering if it's working already?" She shrills.
Oh, how I wish they put poison and not drugs in your juice yesterday. "He's in the study, follow me." As I trail behind her down the stairs, I think of everything. How the hell did I get an unremovable flower on my skin? I admit we were drunk last night but we never left the castle for tatoos. Besides, no one becomes a tattoo artist these days, the mad king made sure of that when he barked and called tatoos devilish marks. I don't even remember Rosaline drawing anything on me.

My throbbing head thinks of ways he'll happily punish for missing both breakfast and lunch, making him wait afterwards and none of them end well in my head.
Behind me I'm sure it's a tail of nails I've been spitting after cutting them off my fingers with my teeth.
I bump into Swardiantalina as she abruptly stops and she sneers. "I told you to watch your step or you'll hit your head hard." I know what she means, a few days ago she told me I'd be dead soon and now I'm in deep sh*t and of course, it pleases her.