The Perfect Servant

Chapter 11

 AN: Hello lovelies! New chapter for you! This chapter turned out very different than I originally planned, but I actually hated the original plan, so I'm pretty satisfied with this, even though it isn't perfect. Anyways, I'm thinking I'm going to go through chapters and edit. I've gone back through the first...4, I think? -and edited those, but I want to do the rest because I am tempted to enter this story into the wattys. If you are reading through and see any errors, please let me know in the comments! Thanks, enjoy! :D

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I couldn't stop crying. No matter how hard I tried to push the tears back, swallow them, they would not cease. I had never been in the slave punishment chambers-at least, not like this. Every other time I'd ever seen this dark and terrifying place it had been from the safety of the vents. Even then, it wasn't a place I liked to come to often.

I didn't like the screaming. I didn't like the way it echoed in my dreams, crying out like a sin and a plea. I didn't like the way the blood followed the screams, and then the fangs, and finally the violet eyes, scorching holes into my mind, leaving me screaming long before I woke.

"Don't watch, Syla!" Mother was crying too. Her tears had caused the makeup she applied so carefully every day to streak, dark black lines trailing down from her eyes to her chin. Her cheeks were far redder than they were when she applied blush, and there was a smear of her light pink lipstick across her cheek. Even as she cried, she looked only to me. Her bloodshot eyes pleaded with me, begging me to look away.

I couldn't even if I wanted to.

"She will watch, Margaret! She has to." Carmichael's voice started out as an angry shout, but by the end he was only whispering. Carmichael wasn't crying, but there was a severity in his violet orbs that made me feel nervous. His eyes flickered between mother and me, as if he couldn't decide which tortured face was worse.

Carmichael stood next to the red haired lord, the one who had demanded punishment for the attack on him. His face was stony and cold, eyeing my mother and I with a sense of cool disdain. There was nothing in his eyes; no pity, no compassion, not even anger. He was soulless, he had to be. An actual person couldn't look that empty.

Mother sobbed harder, the cuffs around her wrists clinking together as she pulled at them unintentionally. Her wrists were locked around an iron pole, leading all the way up into the ceiling and disappearing into the base concrete. She sat on her knees, the back of her shirt torn through to reveal the smooth expanse of her back. A back that had somehow managed to avoid any scars until today.

Now she would be covered in them.

Jory stood about ten feet away from my mother, the long leather whip in his hand. The relatively old vampire was gruff, stern, his face almost as impassive as the red-haired lord. He was usually the one to carry out punishments on the slaves here, so I didn't see him often around the Obsidian. He looked to Carmichael, waiting for the signal to begin.

It was silent for several long seconds, and then the Lord tapped his foot, giving Carmichael an impatient glare. "I have important things to do today, Carmichael." He warned him. Carmichael rolled his eyes, but the intensity never left his face.

Carmichael turned to me. "You attacked a vampire, Syla. Normally, that is a crime worthy of death, but you are young, and this is your first offense." Well, depending on what you would consider an 'offense.' "As stated by law, another can take your punishment upon themselves, but the offender must be present for the punishment." He glanced between Mother and me again, and sighed, his pained eyes landing on mother. "Ten lashes, Margaret." He murmured, and nodded at Jory.