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Then his attention goes to Kaleid. “Get her cleaned up. I don’t want the stench of that other world on her. Then put her in the crown, in the holding cell. I’ll come down when I’m ready.”
He turns, stepping over his dead, mutilated daughter like she’s a pile of dogshit, and disappears into the darkness.
18
Lenore
“Sorry Lenore,” Kaleid says to me as he leads me down a narrow stone staircase that feels like it’s descending into the bowels of hell.
Kaleid can say sorry all he wants, but the fact is, him leading me down here says all that it needs to. Not that I can talk much at the moment. I’m still reeling at the fact that Natalia was just literally ripped in half right in front of us. If anything, I should be apologizing to Kaleid for the gruesome and traumatizing loss of his sister.
But I’m not in the mood. I can’t rely on Kaleid now and I never could. I realize that now. That if Skarde felt like morphing into the disgusting monster that he is, that if he felt like ripping his son from head to toe, he could. And he could do the exact same thing to me. So I’m going to be his bride? So what? What happens to me when he finds out I won’t cooperate? He can’t force me into becoming something I’m not…can he?
I wipe that thought out of my head. It won’t get me anywhere. My reserve is all I have to hang on to.
Kaleid leads me down a dark corridor, the air smelling wet and rotting, and then brings me into a bathroom with a big claw foot tub in the middle and nothing else. The water comes from a pipe suspended above.
“Strip,” he says to me, pushing me into the room.
I stumble forward on the uneven rocks, catching myself from falling just in time, then whip around, hands out, ready to fight if he comes any closer.
“I’m not going to force you to do anything,” Kaleid says, his eyes turning hard. “But he wants you clean, so get off your fucking bloody clothes and get into that bath.”
“I’m not getting naked in front of you,” I tell him.
He stares at me for a moment, dumbfounded. “Oh. Okay. Is that so? So you’ll have sex in front of a total stranger, a human, but you’re too good and pure to get naked in front of your brother-in-law when your life depends on it?”
My mouth drops open. “You saw us having sex?”
“You were in the red world,” he hisses at me. “Every room is recorded. You and Solon fed from Mathias and then fucked in front of him. Don’t act like this is shocking. Now, get your fucking clothes off or we’re both dead.”
I can’t believe this is happening. I don’t know what the fuck I expected, but it wasn’t this. I expected Solon at my side, making sure I was never in a position like this.
“Yeah, well I’m not your knight in shining armor either,” Kaleid says, reading my thoughts. “I look out only for myself. But sometimes, sometimes, I’ll make an exception for family. And if you’re with Solon, you’re with family. So get in the tub and get clean. I’ll be right outside the door.”
Then he turns and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. He doesn’t lock it, but I have no doubt he’s standing right there on guard. I can smell him, moss and pine and aniseed. Smells that are forever tainted to me.
I put my face in my hands and try to gather my nerves. Everything that just happened has left me so on edge that I feel this close to losing it, to just crawling into a darkened corner and rocking there for a while.
But of course, this is only the start. Skarde had said Kaleid had to put me in a crown and then in the holding cell. Neither of those things sound good. They sound fucking terrifying. Of course, not as terrifying as being torn in two, but still. There are many steps between torture and death.
I sigh and turn the handle near the low ceiling, the water flowing out and splashing into the tub. Being a vampire, it doesn’t matter if the water is hot or cold, it all feels fine for us, but this water is lukewarm. Then I start stripping off my clothes, my boots, socks, skinny jeans and tank top that are completely covered in blood from the lake earlier.
I step into the bathtub, naked, watching as the blood seeps off my skin and rises above me in the water in inky crimson tendrils. There’s no soap, but that doesn’t surprise me. Though Skarde is dressed like a well-paying guest at a hotel, I didn’t think he’d have little wrapped bars of Provençal soap here.
