The Bloodied Candies
Chapter 7- Freedom for a Price
I sat up pushing Vance's face far away from mine. He stumbled back, but did not advance again. Questions clogged my mind, making it reel. Quickly glancing at the door, I tried to push Vance out the window because even though he wasn't my favorite person, he still didn't deserve the horrors we had been put through.
"What are you doing?" he hissed, pulling away.
"Getting you out of here what do you think?" I answered, filling my voice with sarcastic venom.
"Actually that's what I was coming to do for you and...Annabella," he said.
I noticed that when he said Annabella's name, a pink tinge came to his cheeks and his vampiric coldness slipped away a little. I might have imagined it but I think that Vance had a crush on my sister.
"Then why do you keep trying to kiss me?" I asked, thinking out loud.
"Because it's tradition," he said nonchalantly. "It means that you are in my confidences."
"Oh," I replied then closed my eyes and barely brushed my lips against his.
Even that slight touch made him wipe his lips off with a handkerchief as if I possessed the Bubonic Plague. It made me think of Oxenberry which I immediately shook out of my head. I couldn't think about him right now when so much was ahead, but at this thought a tap sounded at my window, startling us. Immediately suspicious, I peered over not raising the window, when a head popped up and a nearly fainted...again.
"What are you doing here?" I asked him when I had raised the window.
He clambered inside and wrapped me into one of his famous hugs giving me a heart-wrenching smile.
"You know, my love, that I cannot stay away from you," he stated then planted a firm buss on my lips.
I kissed him back greedily. How had Oxenberry found me? Had he followed Vance, who now stood cowering in a corner? If so, then how did Vance find us? Once more the questions rose and threatened to strangle me with their pestering, but, poking my head above the confusion, I turned to stare into my lover's eyes.
"How did this come about?" I asked knowing that he didn't know what I meant.
"Well, you decided to run away from me because my attractiveness was just too much for you," he smirked.
I rolled my eyes and grunted in reply, but I still wanted to know the answer to my question. How had it come to us falling in love? Was it something about his eyes, which, although they were the same color as any other vampire, were somehow deeper, more understanding? The thing that I had once called vile was a dish that in its rarity was a delicacy. As they took the floor, begging me to sleep, I couldn't help, but rethink about all the questions that had twisted restlessly in my mind earlier.
When I awoke in the night, I got up and went through my normal morning routine. When I was made up for the day, I stepped over Oxenberry and Vance's sleeping bodies to reach the door. To my surprise, Darkrai and Annabella already stood behind it. Annabella held a look of defeat while Darkrai held one of grim triumph.
"What is it?" I whispered, trying to block their views.
"Let us talk in the safety of your four walls," he replied stiffly.
Seeing no other way, I allowed them in to see the lightly sleeping vampires on my floor. Annabella's sullen face shined a little at the sight of Vance, but the look passed as quickly as it had come. After I assured Darkrai that they were allies to us, he proceeded to tell me his plans.
"We, meaning our clan of allies, will be out of this infamous rat hole tomorrow night as soon as the sun has faded. Once we reach my palace, which is a little ways away, we shall suit up for the battle that is to come and I will explain everything there. Unfortunately we need live blood sources and since you and your gaggle of friends are the only ones filled with clean blood, we shall drink from you, but only a small amount. Do not look so alarmed, it will not be directly from you. That, for now, is our plan," he said authoritatively.
I sensed there was something far graver than I was being told and my spine straightened at the endless possibilities. I thought of the most horrible of situations, my imagination working overtime. My hands were trembling anxiously as I caught the gaze of my sister who looked away quietly.
"What is it? What are you not telling me?" I said quietly.
And in that moment I found two things to be true. She was desperately in love with Vance and was hiding it from me for some reason. Plus, she was willing to sacrifice this love for me, but I didn't know why. The silence stretched on as I looked from one face to another. Finally Darkrai cleared his throat and looked up.
"The other part of the deal was that the only way after the war you could have your freedom, if we indeed live, would be for one of you, preferably you, to become betrothed," he said, his voice sounding quieter than mine.
At this Oxenberry turned restlessly in his sleep. I turned back to the king knowing that that was not all.
"To who, Darkrai, sir?" I answered.
"To, well, to me, my young love. Your face is fair, let your heart be just as fair in your choice," he replied with a heavy sigh.
At this Oxenberry sat up suddenly alert. "What?!" he nearly screamed.
"I will marry you when the time is there," I said not even thinking about the consequence of sacrificing my own happiness for Annabella's.
But what I didn't know was that Oxenberry was already hatching a devious plan to stop this scandalous marriage from ever occurring...
