Bleeding Misery (Threatening Souls Book 2)

by N. M. Lambert

  That was also when William Cavanaugh was still the mortal king, and from her understanding, his predecessor, Jason Speirs, and his family used to live in a secluded village where news of any sort rarely reached them. Even if she was able to trick Jason, she still had to worry about anyone recognizing her, especially Andre, who would also be present.

  She already failed Henri once. She didn’t want to fail him again.

  “Your brother was careless,” Henri said, dismissing Kat’s previous spying mission. “He’s not allowed to accompany you this time.”

  “Andre is a chaperone too. She’ll definitely recognize me. So will Arizona,” Kat said. “The female Royal Guard members will also be there.”

  Henri sighed. “Andre and Arizona are not a part of the Royal Guard. Jason has no reason to believe them,” he explained. “And the Royal Guard, they’ve been recruiting lately, haven’t they? Perhaps the members there will be newer.”

  “Aaron isn’t a new member, and Andre is close with him.”

  “No, he’s not new,” Henri agreed. “Nevertheless, I need you there.”

  “Why?” Kat wondered. “In case your new thrall somehow finds a way to deviate from the plan?”

  Henri shifted his body to face her, delicately cupping her chin in his hand. “You can keep him in line, yes,” he purred, rubbing soothing circles down her jawline.

  Kat leaned into his touch as she moved her hand from his length to his abdomen.

  Henri planted a delicate kiss to her forehead and murmured, “Jason won’t believe them anyway, not when you return his son to him.”

  Kat stilled. She had completely forgotten this part of Henri’s plan. In order to appear in Jason’s good graces, she was to rescue Jeffery from Henri, only the rescue attempt was going to be staged. “Of course,” she said coolly, grimacing. She wasn’t keen on the idea of rescuing him and pretending to like him for the sake of her spying mission. She barely even tolerated him as is.

  Henri tore himself away from her and reached for his clothes. “Get dressed,” he ordered. “The plan begins now.”

  Kat let out a cackle as she did what Henri ordered. “Can I play with him first?” she asked as she slid her shirt over her head.

  Henri, now fully clothed, turned to face her. A mischievous glint twinkled in his eyes. “Perhaps,” he said as he stepped towards her, “but not too much. We still want him to be returned in one piece.”

  Kat knew Henri meant they wanted him to appear as normal as possible, and too much psychological damage would defeat that purpose. She thought of how Henri made Jeffery sever his own finger, and she laughed, wishing she had been there to witness it. Instead, she made Henri retrieve the severed finger for her, which she now kept in a jar in her own room and displayed like a trophy.

  Kat followed Henri out of the room once the two of them were decent. The castle’s hallways were mostly deserted with the occasional witch or warlock scurrying about. Kat knew most of them preferred to avoid Henri like the plague despite being loyal to him, and she suspected they secretly feared him. The thought amused her; fear was not a good look for an immortal being, and perhaps that was why Henri relied so much on her. She never feared him. She respected him since the moment he saved her and her brother from tuberculosis in the early nineteenth century, but she never feared him. Her cowardly brother, on the other hand, was a different story.

  Oh, Jerauld, Kat thought with great pity. If only you had been born with more intelligence.

  Henri stole a glance her way as they neared the entrance to the dungeon, and the lust in his eyes was palpable. Her immortal heart pounded under his gaze; she wished she could take him back to bed, but any job he gave her was more important than sex.

  Henri stopped suddenly in front of the entrance, causing her to nearly bump into him. “Jeffery may not be the only prisoner I have,” he said, “but he’s the only one I want you to concern yourself with.”

  Kat blinked. She knew Henri also had Kiki and Stan White, and she knew he forced them to invite him into Ivanestible to kill the Cavanaughs. The rest of the immortals had used their mortal ally in order to gain entrance, but not him. He wanted them to become tormented by their own grief, wanted them to be partly responsible for the blood that was shed. And it worked. Henri told her how much they blamed themselves for the loss of their royal family, even though it was William Cavanaugh who had banished them from Ivanestible in the first place under false allegations.

  Kat didn’t fully understand what purpose Henri now had for both of Holly’s parents, but she knew he was not yet done with them. The fact they were still alive proved that. She glided past Henri without saying a word, feeling his hand on the small of her back.

  The dungeons were the worst-kept area of the castle, and as soon as Kat started descending the stairs, the smell of sweat and excrement accosted her nostrils. She had only been down there a handful of times, and the one thing she remembered was how devoid of furnishings the cells were. Prisoners there were fed whenever someone would remember to feed them, slept on the cold, hard floor without anything to cover themselves, and relieved themselves on the same floor. The cells were never cleaned, nor were the prisoners given opportunities to bathe. Traditionally, the dungeons were a place where prisoners would be thrown down there and forgotten about, sometimes left to die in their own filth.

  Henri didn’t seem bothered by the smell. Perhaps years of torturing his prisoners had hardened him to the stench they produced, which was one of the only things Kat found unsettling about him. Without making it too obvious, she proceeded to breathe through her mouth as she trudged deeper below ground.

  Jeffery’s cell was one of the furthest ones from the stairs, and as Henri guided her over towards him, she deliberately kept her eyes trained to the front, not daring to peek into the cells she passed. She didn’t want to see what undesirable treasures rested in each one, especially the ones that had been empty for years.

  “Jeffery,” Henri called out as they neared his cell, “I brought someone for you.”

  Kat heard Jeffery stir in his cell before she finally laid eyes on him. He looked haggard and decrepit, a look unbefitting a prince. The stub that used to hold his severed pinky was wrapped up in a makeshift bandage, and old blood had soaked through. She was surprised the wound had not gotten infected in a place like this, but she knew Henri would have taken precautions to keep that from happening.

  Kat and Henri stopped mere inches from the cell door, and Jeffery gazed back at them with an animalistic gleam.

  “Come closer, Jeffery,” Henri ordered, and the mortal prince obliged on robotic limbs.

  Kat took a step forward and fully examined his dirty appearance again. “Can he talk?” she questioned.

  “He’s not mute,” Henri said, “are you, Jeffery?”

  Jeffery turned his head to meet Henri’s gaze. “No, master.”

  “Good.” Henri ran his fingers through Kat’s hair. “This is Katherine Reid. She will be your rescuer, and she will also accompany you to the ICW. You will obey her every command.”

  “Yes, master,” Jeffery said.

  Kat stole a glance at Henri and smiled. She remembered having a thrall once in the late nineteenth century, a mortal nomad she eventually grew bored with and ordered them to kill themselves. Up until now, she forgot how fun they could be.

  “I want you both gone by morning,” Henri added as he began moving towards the stairs. “And Kat, try not to hurt him too much.”

  Kat watched him leave as she stayed rooted to her spot. As soon as he disappeared from view, she turned back towards Jeffery and began her work.

  ~~~

  Melissa: Seattle, Washington

  Melissa Ivory Young stood on the outskirts of Seattle with her hands inside her coat pockets, peering into the city that had served as her home for decades. Her hood was pulled over her head, forcing her black hair to spill over her chest. Her eyes displayed a hint of yellow outlining the pupil. Her slightly-grey, pale complexion defined
her immortality, and her red-tinted lips were pursed together due to stress.

  Rain pummeled her, soaking the tips of her hair, and she took a deep breath as she stepped forward. After having lived in the city for years, she grew used to the rain constantly being there so much that it felt like a living entity to her.

  She was late for a meeting with the Night Cult, but that didn’t make her move any faster. Even the thought of Cameron Crum, the leader of the Night Cult, conducting the meeting didn’t do anything to quicken her pace, someone whom she used to be romantically involved with. Yet, he ended things with her quite some time ago, and now, she knew she would get no favors from him for being late. She knew he would hold her to the same regard as everyone else in the group, if not a little less, and in that sense, he would find a way to punish her for being late.

  Instantly, Melissa shrugged off the horrid thought, knowing it wouldn’t amount to anything besides a certain amount of humiliation within the meeting itself, something she had grown hardened to over the years. Cameron Crum certainly didn’t scare her, even if he tried at times to do so through the use of the power and status he possessed within their shared group. In fact, ever since she had gained her immortality, nothing truly scared her except for failure and, more obviously, Henri Anderson.

  As she walked quickly and silently towards the abandoned building that served as the home of the Night Cult, her eyes swept towards the ground. In a way, she was not looking forward to this meeting because she knew the topic would mainly be about Henri and the inevitable war between mortals and immortals. Ever since Cameron ended things with Melissa, he kept bringing up Henri around her whenever he had the opportunity to do so, and she knew he did that to instill fear within her, but recently, she just felt annoyed by it. In a way, he was secretly hinting at the fact that the immortal race of magic users must unite behind Henri in order to defeat the mortal threat in the war, which she didn’t much appreciate. She knew her place, just like everyone did, and if anything, Cameron constantly doing that to her made her wish to rebel against Henri even more.

  But she also didn’t want the mortals to win the war.

  Within her coat pockets, Melissa balled her hands into fists as she walked at a faster pace. Anger flashed within her eyes, causing her yellow irises to glow, which always happened whenever an immortal magic user fought to experience something that was otherwise deemed as unnatural for them to experience. Immediately, Melissa took a deep breath in order to calm her nerves. Not only would she expose what she was to everyone who passed by her through her glowing eyes, but if she found herself experiencing too much of any emotion, including anger, she would be severely weakened and could also potentially lose her immortality and immediately die. None of those two options were favorable for Melissa, and therefore, she had to fight in order to remain as emotionless as possible.

  Soon, she came across the front entrance of a tall, old, and worn-down building. On the outside, the building gave that appearance so that no regular human would go near it. However, the interior looked rather new, complete with a room for each of the members of the group as well as a small basement, where the interns, or human slaves to the immortal magic users, were housed. Melissa did not deny that her group was very old-fashioned, for the use of interns was an outdated practice the Night Cult only really used nowadays. The rest of the immortals stagnantly got rid of any sort of human trafficking throughout the nineteenth century.

  Since this building was as much hers as everyone else’s in the group, Melissa pushed herself into the building and quickly shut the door behind her before any of the interns had a chance to escape or someone on the street happened to see her enter the building. Even though each intern wore a bracelet on their right wrists that prevented them from leaving the building lest they get electrocuted, Melissa still took every precaution necessary in order to make sure they all remained in that building.

  As expected, no one, not even the interns, greeted her at the door. Instead, she heard loud talking in one of the rooms to the right of the front entrance, indicating the meeting had already started. Cameron was the one who was talking in the other room, and as Melissa expected, she was late.

  She gulped as she slowly made her way towards the room where the meeting was taking place. In no way did she wish to make eye contact with Cameron, and in order to make sure she didn’t, her eyes stayed glued to the floor the entire time. Instantly, she stepped into the room, and Cameron immediately stopped talking. The room soon was enveloped in silence as all eyes fell on her, and in a way, it was as if time had stopped. Slowly, Melissa’s eyes left the floor and met the gazes of every single person in that room minus Cameron’s.

  Parting his lips, Cameron let out, “You’re late.”

  Those two words were enough to deliver an icy chill down her spine as she shuffled towards the back of the room in order to take a seat in between Rhiannon Hansen and Sarah Stevenson. Since Sarah was also enrolled in the same human school in Marywood as her, Melissa instantly felt more comfortable with her.

  Yet, Cameron had other things in mind. With a flick of his gaze and with one simple incantation in Latin, he hoisted Melissa up into the air and pulled her towards him before slamming her hard against the wall nearest to him. His eyes never left her as he said his next command: “The rest of you, fill out the back!” A smirk swept across his lips. “This one will have a very special place next to me.”

  Instantly, the rest of them scrambled to do what they were told, each moving one seat towards the back of the long table that was in front of them. Melissa glanced at all of them in confusion. After all, she wasn’t the only one who has been late to meetings with the Night Cult in the past, and yet, this was the first time Cameron has done anything like this. Then, she felt him yank her away from the wall and slam her down onto the newly-opened seat that was directly to the right of him.

  Melissa glared at Cameron as she barred her teeth. Her eyes flashed yellow once again, and it was evident she wasn’t amused by Cameron’s attempt at humiliation. “Thank you, Cameron,” she spat at him.

  Cameron didn’t seem to acknowledge her words and instead turned towards the rest of the group in order to resume the meeting. “Like I was saying before,” he began, therefore silencing Melissa, “Henri has specifically asked for our group’s aid after the battle for Roseway was unsuccessful.” Then, he glanced at Melissa and smirked slightly at her. “Soon, he’s planning on hosting a meeting in Greenwich where not only are the Dark Rulers and the Dark Guard expected to attend, but us as well.”

  “What exactly is he hoping we’ll be able to help him with?” someone asked from the back, and it took Melissa a second to realize the voice belonged to Sarah.

  “He hasn’t particularly disclosed all the details yet, but he did tell me this.” Then, Cameron leaned forward, his hands resting on the table. “Jason Speirs is for sure hosting a human competition this year. One of the cliques that was accepted includes three of whom Jason has sworn to protect since the incident in Roseway. Therefore, what better way to further the war then to strike at the venue of the human competition?”

  Melissa’s eyes widened at what Cameron had told the group. For the first time since she arrived at the meeting, she became hopeful. The fact that the Night Cult had been specifically invited by Henri to attend his next meeting allowed her to ask him for a favor. She had a desire for him to transform someone into an immortal witch for her benefit, and she knew exactly who she had in mind for such a feat.

  It was no secret that Melissa had a certain amount of animosity towards Henri, and for a while, she envisioned herself as the immortal ruler. Such a thought continuously appeared in the back of her mind to the point where she had a desire to stage a rebellion against him. However, she needed to gain support before she officially started the rebellion, and one of the supporters she wished to gain was the one whom she hoped Henri would make into an immortal witch.

  The rest of the meeting was a blur, and once it concluded, Melis
sa wasted no time teleporting back to Marywood with a single thought in mind: her plot to lure the human she had in mind to Greenwich.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  Rebekah: Marywood, Florida

  H

  olly was the first to be asked by Jamie to the ICW. Rebekah was there as witness to one of the most awkward conversations on the planet. At first, Jamie didn’t know how to approach the subject, and after quite a bit of stumbling, she was even more surprised that Holly accepted without hesitation. Mandy, however, proved to be more difficult, acting cold and distant whenever Jamie tried to talk to her.

  “Can we talk?” Mandy said to Rebekah. Currently, it was lunchtime right after Jamie had presented her and Holly with the offer to travel to and participate in the ICW. There were just a few short minutes left, and Holly wasn’t with them, having skirted off early to her next class. “Is there any way you can get out of your next class and meet me in the bathroom?”

  “What is this about?” Rebekah asked skeptically. “And why isn’t Holly included in this?”

  “Just be there,” Mandy replied cryptically.

  And that was exactly what Rebekah did. Her next class was math with her mother, and silently after attendance was taken, she stole out of the classroom and trudged down the empty hallway with a hall pass in her hand.

  Upon entering the desolate bathroom that was nearest to her and Mandy’s classes, her eyes landed on the Foreseer, who was staring at her reflection in one of the bathroom’s mirrors.

  “Now, can you tell me what this is about?” Rebekah tried again. “Why can’t Holly know about this?”

  “Holly’s becoming too paranoid,” Mandy blurted out. There wasn’t any anger in her voice, just a simple statement she believed was true. “Why else would she beg you to let us become participants in the ICW? She despises Jamie as much as I do.”