I promised myself that if I survived this, I would dig through her house and find all the information she had been keeping from me.
But then it hit me. Redhead. My mother was a blonde, so was Stella. My grandmother, however, was a redhead.
“Grace Greene, I think her name was. She died? That is very odd.” Octavian mused beside me. Now he had my attention.
“Grace Greene was my grandmother.”
Octavian bit his wrist, and a big drop of blood pooled over the wound. “Take it now, or I will kill you.”
I bent my head down and licked the drop of blood.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”
I did as I was told.
Suddenly, images like a reel of film on fast-forward flashed through my mind.
My grandmother. There she was, naked underneath Octavian. Oh my God. I did not want to see this. They made love. And then the next image, she was great with child. Then she lay in the hospital, giving birth to me. Next to her was my mother, holding her hand. The last thing I saw was Grandmother holding me. She whispered, “Everly” with her last breath.
My mother took me in her arms, weeping. She had just lost her mother, and now she had me.
My mother is my sister?
I didn’t know if I could take any more of this. My eyes flew open. I pushed away from Octavian, and the guards around me pointed their guns once again. Octavian shook his head.
“Well, you see, we've both been lied to. Your mother had the gift of sight, but she wasn't anything special. She was human. With that said, I have been around for over ten thousand years, and I have never ever sired a child. It is physiologically impossible.”
My body started to shake. I felt like I was going to pass out. This can't be happening. My whole life had been a freaking lie.
My mind went to Eva. I suppose she’d orchestrated this too.
I needed to get back to my room and find Grandma’s journal. I needed to know what the heck was happening. I mentally kicked myself for not doing so sooner. Why hadn’t I insisted that Traian give me my box back weeks ago?
Octavian stared at me for a long time. Nobody spoke. And then he stood up.
“You are coming back with me.”
I turned to Traian.
He gave me a warning look not to say anything.
But again I couldn't help myself. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Traian is my master. He's the one who created me. I am staying with him.”
Octavian glanced at Traian and then smirked at me. “Infatuated with him, are you? Alas, you’re my daughter, and you will come with me.” He turned and surveyed everyone else in the room. “There will be no execution today. We have discovered a miracle that must be studied. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone. This could lead to some terrible outcomes within our world.”
The soldiers stepped forward, pointing their guns at my chest once again.
Octavian turned, exasperated at them. “Would you please stop pointing those things at my daughter?”
The men stepped back and lowered their weapons.
“What if I don't want to go?” I asked.
Octavian rushed to Traian and gripped his neck.
My love stood motionless, frozen.
“Would you rather I kill your lover right here? You will come with me, or he will die.”
I hadn’t known Octavian long, but I knew he wouldn’t think twice about killing Traian. I got to my feet. “If you kill him, I will die. We are bonded.”
I didn't know where that came from, or if it was true, but it felt like the right thing to say.
Traian begged me with his eyes to stop talking.
“Very well, I will take you both. He's wanted for attempted murder and a handful of other crimes. He can pay for them in my care. Both of you are coming with me.” Octavian turned to his men. “Leave the rest of the coven be. They have not committed any crimes, and there's no need to create distress in our community.”
Two men appeared from the tunnel that led to my room, holding my coffin and a couple sacks of the surrounding dirt. I instantly thought of Storm and hoped she hadn’t been inside my casket when they grabbed it. I didn't want her coming along and winding up in danger. She was much safer here in the cave with the rest of the coven.
Traian and I followed the men out of the cave. I also hoped that Padrick had stayed in his hidey hole. He didn’t need to get caught up in this mess.
Outside of the cave, on a small cliff, sat a large helicopter, blades idly rotating. Octavian, Traian, and I, along with half the guards, got in. The casket went into the back. The other half of the guards jumped onto snowmobiles up the ridge from the aircraft. As the helicopter lifted into the sky, two men hung on outside of the railing on both sides of the chopper.
As we surfaced above the clouds, I realized the other vehicles weren’t snowmobiles—wings had sprouted out from their sides. These were some kind of flying machine similar to something I’d only seen in sci-fi movies.
I peered around the helicopter, noting that the screens and buttons looked strange. Not that I’d been inside a chopper before, but the way the electronics glowed, I knew this wasn’t the usual technology.
Octavian sat next to me, and Traian sat across from us, sandwiched between two beefy guards. The expression on his face remained cool and collected, never once betraying his feelings. Even his scent stayed the same.
How can he be so calm when we are being taken prisoners?
I searched his face, hoping he would meet my eyes, but he stared ahead, never focusing on anything. Telepathic communication would have come in real handy about now. Why hadn’t he taught me that? Why hadn’t Satra? She’d answered my unspoken questions without hesitation during our sessions.
While questions swirled around in my mind, Octavian busied himself on a smartphone, sending messages and ignoring everyone. I observed him from the side. Can this really be my father? I studied his facial features but saw nothing of me in him. His nose looked like a lumpy hill, while mine sloped down gently. His eyes were blue when they weren’t red with bloodthirst or rage, but mine were green.
I turned to my other side and looked past the guard sitting next to me to look out the window. We flew over mountains, valleys, lakes, wide fields, and a black expanse of water before reaching more mountains and then an open ocean. The helicopter traveled faster than a plane would, which made me pause.
Advanced technology, flying snowmobiles, and traveling at faster speeds than normal. Is this magic or something else? And where are we going?
When we reached land, I found we were in a vast desert. Just as sunlight was coming up over the horizon, Octavian covered me with his jeweled cloak and pulled the hood over my head to protect my face from the sun's rays. The smell of cinnamon and another spice I wasn’t familiar with permeated my nostrils and my stomach turned at the strong scents.
“Welcome to North Africa, my daughter.” This was the first time he’d spoken to me since I boarded the helicopter. “One day, the kingdom of Algoria will be yours.”
Chapter 20
We flew across the gleaming desert for what felt like hours, until we slowed in the middle of nowhere, and a big hole opened up in the ground. The helicopter descended into the earth. As soon as we were out of the sunlight, I peeked out the window to watch as the ceiling closed above us, sealing us in a huge cavern filled with planes and choppers and other military-style equipment, crates, and artillery.
I glanced at Traian. He had his eyes shut. Three men opened the helicopter door and escorted him out.
Octavian stepped down next and held his hand out to me.
Even though the thought of touching him sent a wave of nausea through my body, I took it.
“Where are we?” I asked timidly.
“My home.”
He placed my hand on his forearm and walked me in the opposite direction of where Traian and the guards had gone.
This place didn’t feel very homey. “Wh
ere are they taking him?” I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Traian disappear through a doorway that slid open for them to pass.
“He will get what he deserves. Worry not, your lover will be spared his life. You can go make sweet love to him tonight, if you want.” Octavian patted my hand. “But you are my daughter, and you will be treated as my daughter.”
Gross. I tried not to vomit while we walked through a dark corridor with lighting set in the floor near the walls.
“Here, you are royalty, but you must also learn the code of conduct. There are rules,” Octavian continued. “I will show you to your chamber and then show you the common areas where you are allowed to go. This is a big complex—I don’t want you wandering about and getting lost.”
We turned to the right. Two steel doors slid open, revealing another long hallway with blue and green lights in the walls. “My quarters, the dungeon, and anything I have not shown you is out of bounds. You break this rule and you will pay, daughter or no.”
I loosened my hold on his arm and nodded. Even though I was being given more freedom than Traian, I still felt like the prisoner I was.
Octavian escorted me through a long labyrinth of halls. They were comparable to the cave where Traian's coven lived, but that’s where the similarities ended. This place felt darker, more sinister even though every tunnel we took smelled squeaky clean—too clean. After walking for what seemed like forever, we came to a set of doors and a scanner.
He had me place my hand on the screen. The device scanned my palm, and the screen turned red. Octavian typed a code into the keypad, and the red screen scanned my hand again, turning green. The doors then opened into a lavish room filled with luxurious pools and underground gardens, stone waterfalls, couches, and hundreds of candles flickering in lanterns that were strung throughout the room.
I felt like I was in a sultan’s palace, although no light came from the outside, so the cave had a dark feel.
“This is your apartment. Your bedroom is behind the waterfall. That is where you will find your coffin. Given your love for plants, I hope you enjoy these gardens. It seems like you have a love for living things, same as me.”
I looked at him suspiciously.
His ‘love for living things’ seemed to be a lot different than mine, but I could see that he appreciated plants as much as I did. After giving me instructions on how to find him, and telling me a few other rules, Octavian left me alone.
A frail, young woman entered the room the next moment. She bowed to me and shuffled over to the bedroom area. When she got to the steps near the waterfall, she turned and motioned me to follow her. I trailed her into the room, where I found more plants. At the center was my casket with some earth piled around it in low, uneven mounds. I longed for the garden I’d planted weeks before.
I turned my attention to the girl. She didn't seem much older than me. From her rapidly beating heart and her emaciated face, I could tell she was still human, but the signs of torture were evident. I glanced down at her throat, where multiple bites scarred the skin from her left ear down past her white, ruffled collar.
She saw me staring at her neck and lowered her shirt to expose it further. She tilted her head back as if inviting me to bite her. My strigoi instincts kicked in, and under the mangled skin, I could see a pulsing vein.
I took a step back.
“Thank you, but I'm okay.” I shook my head.
Inside, my hunger boiled. I was not okay and needed blood. I hadn't had any since before Traian and I had made love in the cave.
Dammit, if I do this, I'm going to regret it. I need to fight the primal need to feed.
I would not feed on a human directly. Technically, I had already been feeding on humans, through the bagged blood. But this was different. I would not open her poor, little neck for my own satisfaction. I had to find the strength to fight the hunger.
She invited me again, patting the side of her neck where the vein bulged and throbbed. Her scent pulled at me, making it harder to fight the urge.
Oh, dear God, I’m going to die. “Please cover yourself. I don't want to feed on you.”
She opened her eyes and met my gaze, her irises dilated. The glazed look on her face told me that she had been fed on so much that she’d already lost a lot of blood. My heart ached for her.
Whatever connection I had felt with my father over the plants was now severed. Octavian was nothing but a sperm donor who had created me. He was a monster. How could he keep this girl here in this condition?
Poor thing.
I wanted to give her a hug for a moment but decided that being so close to her might not be the wisest move.
I took another step back and raised my hands. “Look, I don't want to hurt you. I know this is expected of you, but I'm not going to be the one to do it. Please stop offering your blood to me.”
Her face flushed. She pulled the collar up over the scars on her neck, nodded, and then shuffled over to the wardrobe, where she opened the doors, revealing the most expensive-looking, fancy dresses I had ever seen in my life. She pulled out one of the gowns and laid it on the bed. Next, she opened the double glass doors opposite the wardrobe, which I discovered opened to a lavish suite with a tub the size of a jacuzzi at the center of the room. It was already full of steaming water, with rose petals floating on the surface. More candles lined the edge of the tub.
She came over to me and started unbuttoning the black dress I wore. When I was completely undressed, she took my hand, led me inside the bathroom, and motioned for me to get in. I obeyed.
The hot water felt so luxurious on my skin and I noted that my silver tattoo had faded to a dull white outline. The rose essence released from the petals filled my senses, hiding the scent of human blood that radiated from the girl's skin. I turned to her as she grabbed a sponge and started washing my back. I wanted to protest, but I didn’t want to offend her even more by refusing yet another service.
“What is your name?”
The girl’s eyes widened, and then she shook her head. She pointed to her mouth and shook her head again.
“Can't you talk?”
The girl shook her head.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Do you have a tablet or notebook so you can write?”
Her eyes widened even more.
“It's okay, I want to talk to you. You’re the first girl my age I've met since I arrived here, and this happened to me.” I waved at my body. “I just want to connect with another female, that’s all.”
Her face seemed to relax a little bit, and then she disappeared from the room, only to return a few moments later with a notepad and pencil.
She wrote on the paper, ‘Dara’ and then pointed to herself.
“Dara. That's your name.” I smiled.
She nodded, and then continued to write. ‘I'm Octavian's servant and will serve here until I die.’
‘Servant or slave?’ I wrote.
She underlined ‘servant,’ but her eyes drifted to ‘slave’ and lingered there. She ripped the sheet of paper off the pad and then tossed it into the fire on the other end of the room. She didn’t write anything else after that.
The rest of our time together was spent washing my hair and body, followed by fixing my hair and applying fragrant oils to my skin. The aromas in the air were so strong, they hid her human scent and pretty much anything else.
Dara applied generous amounts of makeup to my face and then helped me get into the fancy red gown she had laid out. As she finished tying the last knot in the corset bodice of the dress, a knock came on the door.
A soldier appeared in the doorway. I recognized him as one of the guards who had traveled with us from Romania.
“I'm here to escort you to dinner with your father.”
I nodded and turned to the mirror for one last check.
Dara had put my red locks into an elaborate bun at the top of my head. She’d used a curling iron to create ringlets that fell around my face and down the back of my neck. My lashes loo
ked darker and longer than usual, and the blood red color on my lips matched the crimson dress flowing off my body. I frowned at the outfit’s finishing touch, which waited next to the mirror: black, strappy sandals with stiletto heels. I might be immortal, but those were an injury waiting to happen.
“Miss, we shouldn’t keep the master waiting,” the man said firmly.
“I’m coming,” I grumbled and slipped my feet into the questionable footwear.
Dara quickly tightened the straps. I thanked her and then left with the guard.
I tried to keep track of all the tunnels and turns we took. So many doors opened and closed as we went through the hallways. Most looked identical, but I was determined to keep track of where we went. The sooner I learned the layout, the sooner I could devise a plan to get Traian and myself out of here.
The guard and I reached another set of doors. He had me place my hand on the scanner. The small screen turned green, and the doors slid open. Inside this room was a long table, with probably two dozen navy-colored, velvety chairs arranged around it. At the far end sat Octavian. He had changed into a black, silky robe and wore a turban on his head.
He stood up and smiled. “Come and be my special guest for dinner tonight.”
The table was lined with various forms of fruits and meat spreads, and a pitcher full of dark red liquid. One sniff told me it was fresh human blood. But from whom?
“Please have a seat and drink before this blood goes bad.”
The soldier who’d escorted me here pulled out the chair and helped me sit down.
Octavian took my hand and kissed the top of my knuckles. “You look lovely.”
I nodded and turned my attention to the glass in front of me. It was empty, but not for long, as he filled it from the pitcher. I could still see a mist rising from the blood. The temperature was so low in this room, that the normal temperature of a human’s blood steamed.
The Witch's Chalice Page 15
