AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1 - Rosalie
The midnight moon shone through the towering glass palace windows into Rosalie's sprawling suite, filled with rich silver and pheasant wood furniture and crimson velvet couches that matched the drapes.
"Why can't I come with you, Mother? Why can I never come with you?" a quiet voice came from behind the drapes, contrasting with the atrociously loud sobbing coming from his little lungs.
Rosalie hurried to the curtains and smoothed her black silk dress out so she could kneel by her son's side. "My sweet, I know, shh, I know. I wish I could take you with me, but I can't."
Jay's crystalline blue eyes were puffy from his crying, and his pale face was scrunched up. "But I—I hate being locked in here all alone. I miss my friends. I want to go outside. I don't want to be here anymore. Why can't we go home?"
"I wish we could go home too, my love, but we can't. I'm sorry. Maybe soon, we'll be set free." She smoothed his dark hair over his scalp to try and soothe him, her other hand sailing up and down his back. "But if you keep being good, and stay hidden from the king, then when we finally do get to go home, mommy will reward you with all the sweets you want. No, anything you want, sweetie. Anything."
His lips trembled, and a glint in his eye told her he was considering the most outrageous things he could ask for to see if she was serious. And, of course, Rosalie would give anything to her precious son. Anything.
But first, they had to survive this castle and the psychotic king who ruled it.
Jay hiccupped, and the tears streamed again. He gasped, and the sobs returned at full force. "All—all I want is to go home. When can we go home?"
Rosalie cast an anxious glance at the heavy door barring her expansive suite from the rest of the palace. Despite knowing for a fact that the rooms werealmostsoundproof from the outside, she couldn't shake the worry that someone would hear her son crying and investigate.
She pulled him completely into her arms and tried to comfort him, but all her attempts to soothe him fell on deaf ears. She was supposed to attend the king's nightly dinner party for the other nobles locked in the palace with him—one of their few modes of entertainment since Dominick's curse had trapped them all in the palace too.
Fun for them ... like walking on glass and trying not to bleed for Rosalie.
Only two servants at the castle knew of Jay's existence. So far, despite being trapped in the castle against her will for four months, she'd managed to keep him a secret and only made possible due to the expansive eight-room suite gifted to her by King Dominick Amberhide on one of her rare visits to his palace. A rare visit she'd intended to keep far shorter than four months, that's for sure.
Rosalie and the king didn't exactly see eye-to-eye.
Even with the eight rooms at her and Jay's disposal, keeping him a secret was only possible because of the servants' discretion and the fact that, so far, Jay had been relatively well-behaved because he understood the danger they were all in. At least to a degree, he couldn’t fully understand the danger he was in as a ten-year-old surrounded by immortal vampires.
Rosalie was the only human countess in all of Daihalsa, and she'd had to do some terrible things to maintain that position. Her activities and ruthlessness caught the eye of the king many years ago, but his favor hadn't come without consequences.
His favor had long since been withdrawn at Rosalie's insistence. Coming to his castle again, with Jay in tow ... had been a risk she'd needed to take. It should have been a few weeks at most. Then she would be on her way.
But to be stuck here for months?
She was walking a tightrope every day, with no end in sight.
Sooner or later, she knew she would be caught in a lie or worse. Jay would be found out.
And then what?
Rosalie smoothed Jay's hair. "My sweet, I know how difficult this is for you, being away from everything you know, trapped in this terrible place ... but please, it's just for a while longer. If the king finds out about you, then we'll never leave. Just a while longer, then we'll be free."
Jay quieted then, and he dried the tears from his cheeks. "How long?"
Rosalie sighed and kissed his forehead. "I don't know, my sweet. But I promise we'll leave as soon as we can." She took a book that was resting on the floor nearby and pressed it into Jay's hands. "Promise me you'll behave for the rest of the night and keep up with your reading, and then we will go to the garden together in the morning. Won't that be nice?"
Jay's small hands wrapped around the book's cover, and he gained an alertness that hadn't been there moments ago. "We can play hide and seek in the forest?"
"Of course, if that's what you want." Rosalie looked up at the position of the moon. "But I really must go now, I'm so sorry. We can't have the king sending someone here looking for me, can we?"
"No ..." Jay sighed. "I'm sorry, Mother. I shouldn't have cried."
Rosalie's heart twisted, and she pulled Jay into her arms again.
"Of course not, my love. I know this is hard on you, but I promise it will be over soon. I have to do this for us both."
She kissed his forehead one last time and then rose from the floor, lifting Jay and his book and placing them snugly on the bed. Then she folded the covers over his slender frame. "You be good now, and don't worry about me. I'll see you in the morning."
