As we enter the castle, I use my mind to lower the portcullis gate behind us. The heavy chains clink as it lowers, getting Lylah’s attention. She looks over her shoulder. Then, as she sees the portcullis close, she panics and races back towards it, but she is too late. It slams down shut. Her hands grip the metal, and she lowers her head. ‘This isn’t happening. It’s just another bad dream—a nightmare. I’ll awaken from it soon and find myself in my chambers in my packhouse, and then I can look back at all this and laugh… either that or cry,’ she tells herself, nodding her head assuredly.
‘Lylah,’ I say gently. She turns to look at me, and we somberly stare into each other’s eyes. Her eyes have not even the tiniest bit of joy or happiness. Her soul is completely lost and broken, but now I have added to the damage already done, making her completely miserable. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her, feeling terrible for her.
If only I could tell her that leaving me would kill her. That we have to stay together in order to live, but she doesn’t even know we are Blood Flames yet. It’s all too much for her to handle right now. Once the time is right, I will tell her everything. Lylah looks away, no longer wanting to look at me. No matter what it takes. I vowel to myself that I will one day heal her broken soul.
As we enter the castle, we walk up a corridor and towards a set of stairs. Vampires from my coven stop what they are doing and bow as we walk passed. Although they all sneak a curious peek at Lylah, who pays no attention to anyone, keeping her eyes on her feet. She would be exhausted, and I need to speak to the entire coven before I introduce them to her. I avoid the main rooms, proceeding up the stairs to another level.
A long horrendous moan, which turns into a wailing cry, then a manic laugh, echoes throughout the castle. Nadia, Soren and I give each other a solemn stare. Lylah is disturbed by the sounds but doesn’t say anything.
My best friend Cedric has lived alone in the underground crypts for one hundred and twenty-eight years. Ever since the day we sealed Lord Atticus into the dark portal. Although it was a great victory banishing him. It was also a very tragic time for the coven. My brother, Lord Atticus, had killed our father and tried to take over the coven. Father wanted me to take over if he were ever to die. He knew he had one good-hearted son and one evil. My father knew the death and destruction my brother would cause the world one day. He wanted to prevent that from happening. So he declared me as the heir to the coven. My brother became enraged, but our father had warned him many times to stop summoning his Blood Dwellers to hunt down humans. It was critical that humans never find out about our existence. We can live for thousands of years, but we can still be killed in the meantime. My brother summoned his Blood Dwellers and killed our father in front of the entire coven. We fought against him and were defeating him, so he fled the moment he could. Months passed, and we found out he had been killing more humans to make himself more powerful each day. When we found him again, Alanis, Cedric’s Blood Flame, was brutally killed at my brother's hands. Afterwards, he ripped her heart out and threw it at Cedric’s feet.
Cedric, heartbroken and wanting revenge, began to open a dark portal. My brother set his Blood Dwellers onto him, slowing down the opening of the portal, and I used my powers to slow my brother’s movements which in turn slowed the Blood Dwellers down. Soren kept grabbing Blood Dwellers attacking Cedric and throwing them far into the distance, but they would vanish in thin air and reappear. The same would happen when he punched them. Again, they would disappear and reappear.
As my brother got closer to Cedric and the portal became bigger. Just as I used my power to push him into the portal, he grabbed Cedric’s face with clawed fingers and ripped it off before being forced into it. As soon as it sealed up, the Blood Dwellers vanished. I remember racing over to Cedric. He was on the ground, crouched over, and rocking himself. When he looked up, we all gasped and stood back. All his facial bones were exposed. The only skin he had on his face was on across his forehead. Even his nose and eyelids were gone. It was as if we were staring at a zombie or a skeleton but with his eyeballs intact.
‘Alanis! Alanis!’ he wailed, picking up her heart. He holds it against his chest and continues to rock himself.
He knows he is missing skin from his face, but he doesn’t comprehend the extent of his injuries as the only thing going through his mind is the grief and anguish of losing his Blood Flame, Alanis.
We returned him to our castle. Cedric stayed in his room all week, refusing to let a healer see him. He was even refusing to drink blood. After a week, we heard the most horrendous wail from his room, only to discover him looking at his reflection in a bowl of water. He threw the bowl away and ran through the castle until he reached the crypts. He has never left the crypts since. We tried to get him out many times. He would hiss and bite at us like a wild animal. Over time we would visit him each week. We would always find him in nothing but a ragged loin cloth, drinking a rat's blood and eating it. ‘Monster,’ he would hiss at himself and hit himself repetitively as if punishing himself and would pull at his hair. He continued to try and attack us each day. Clearly, he wanted to be left alone to live out his days in the crypts. It’s been over one hundred and twenty-seven years since we last went to the crypts to see him. I banned everyone from going down there so he would be left undisturbed. From the day he saw his reflection in the water, he has let out a loud and long wail and cry, which then becomes a manic laugh even up to this day. He had become completely mad.
Lylah continues to follow me quietly. We walk through the next corridor, and again any vampires about stop and bow in my presence. We go up one more set of stairs before arriving at my chambers. I push the door open and gesture for Lylah to enter. She enters the room, avoiding eye contact with us, and sits in a gentlemen’s chair, depressingly staring at her feet.
‘I think some rest might do you some good, and through the door on the right, over there,’ I point, ‘You will find a bath if you wish to use it. Nadia will remain outside your chambers. Let her know if you need anything,’ I say to her.
Lylah doesn’t respond. I frown and close the door. Nadia leans against the wall and nods, indicating they will be fine.
Soren follows me downstairs and into the healer’s room, where Becky is organizing herbs.
‘Master,’ she bows, ‘You’re back. Did the pack attack you as I warned you they most likely would?’ she says, looking me over.
‘Well, yeah, but it wasn’t them who caused any injuries. I was cut twice, but they haven’t healed at all,’ I tell her.
‘You’re telling me someone cut you? No one has ever been able to even lay a finger on you. You must tell me all about this fierce warrior. He has me intrigued already,’ she smiles.
‘Shouldn’t you be more intrigued as to why I haven’t healed?’
‘Yes, I suppose that has me intrigued too. Now show me your wounds.’
I remove my cape and pass it along with my black shirt to Soren.
‘The wound on your chest is deep. The one near your shoulder isn’t too bad. I don’t understand how you wouldn’t heal from a knife wound, though?’ Becky says.
I think about the knife and how it’s been handcrafted using many materials. I stand and begin to empty my pockets of five old rusty daggers and then the fancy hand-made one and place it on the table in front of Becky.
‘What in the wands, Lord Talon? Since when did you carry so many knives?’ Soren asks.
‘Since Lylah attempted to kill me for the one-hundredth time, I had to put her against a wall and pat her down to find and remove them all. It was either that or continue to dodge rusty daggers thrown at my head for the rest of the trek home.’
‘She must love her daggers,’ he laughs.
‘So it seems,’ I say, staring at Becky inspecting the fine dagger.
She turns towards me. ‘Who’s Lylah?’ she asks curiously.
‘She is the one who cut me with that dagger you hold.’
‘A girl!’ she says, smiling and shocked.
‘Not just a girl, Becky. Lylah is my blood flame who also happens to be the daughter of Alpha Maximus, the Lycan,’ I tell her.
Becky bursts into laughter.
‘Your blood flame keeps trying to kill you and is also a werewolf?’ she asks.
‘Sort of,’ I reply, unimpressed she is laughing at the situation.
‘Why would she want to kill you?’ she asks, now becoming serious again.
‘She thinks it was me who killed some of her pack members and all the humans that were murdered. She thinks I’ve made Atticus and the Blood Dwellers up. She saw them one night months ago and remembered their red eyes. Then, of course, she turned out to be my Blood Flame, so-‘
‘Your eyes turned red,’ Becky says, finishing my sentence. ‘Well, this is a bit of a conundrum for you, then?’
‘It gets worse,’ I tell her, ‘She doesn’t know we are Blood Flames or what Blood Flames are. She also keeps fighting the bond between us and seems confused by it.’
‘Wow…’ she says, not sure what to say. Finally, she opens a cabinet, pulls out two shot glasses and a potion bottle of lion’s breath, pours the potion into the shot glass, and hands me one.
‘What is this for?’ I ask.
She smiles, ‘For all the stitches you’re about to get. Bottoms up, Bucko!’ she says, clinking her shot glass against mine and shotting down hers.