Chapter 7:
For three days there was nothing but me and the never ending waves of guilt that crashed on my rocky shores. They fed me, gave me water and other things I needed, everything but answers. I knew I should be dead right now, along with Owen, Mindy and Jules. The vampires never showed this much restraint on punishment, especially to hunters like Owen and I.
I had no sense of time, no way of knowing what day it even was. It wasn't till much later that I found out my hellish imprisonment had been three short days.
On the forth day Yule finally appeared staggering into the room in a drunken state. Until that point I never really knew vampires could get drunk but it made sense. Aside from their need for blood, their stomaches worked similar to the way they did when they were living so something like hard liquor would be processed the same way.
"Come on, they're expecting you." I froze hesitantly but when he snapped at me again I quickly got up following him down the hall.
"What's going on, who's expecting me?" but my question was answered when two huge wooden doors swung open revealing a ball room converted to a salon for this special occasion.
"When this is finished then we'll talk." he gave me a somber look and I nodded still a little dumb struck. He sauntered over to the back of the room taking a seat as I was suddenly swarmed by a dozen of tall and beautiful vampire woman. Before the whole baiting thing Owen and I had going I had never so much as seen a stiletto much less worn one. Needless to say I wasn't the dress up kind of girl.
As they swarmed me tugging at my hair, my arms, checking my teeth my capacity for restraint was once again tested.
They began tearing my clothes off, literally. My jeans were ripped at the seams as another woman slight right through my thin cotton shirt with her teeth. My eyes ran to Yule who leaned against the back wall looking at me with a bored expression playing on his face but looking at me none the less. I tried to fight back as I told them to get their filthy hands off of me but they quickly squashed my attempts as they chastises me about my "pointless" sense of modesty. When was not wanting to be stripped naked in front of a man regarded as a pointless sense of modesty.
I closed my eyes trying not to think, not letting my mind drift off to that part of my brain that told me that everything about this moment was utterly wrong.
They dragged me to a giant tub and without resistance I stepped in letting my body be engulfed in the tendrils of steam that rose from the surface of the water. I kind of zoned out after that. I could only vaguely feel the way one woman viciously attacked my scalp trying to wash away the blond dye while two others began ripping out any 'unwomanly' hair one by one with a pair of metal tweezers. Other's scrubbed here or there splashing on lavender fragrances and creams.
I found my eyes drifting unconsciously to Yule. Even from here I could see the flicker of emotion in his eyes betraying his uninterested exterior. I wanted to know already, wanted to know why they were treating me like some god damn queen instead of burning me at a stake or whatever they did to captured hunters. I wanted to know what that woman had been looking for but more importantly what she had found.
My eyes caught his. His eyes flicker to a sobering seriousness as he stares at me intently like he was trying to decipher some complex molecular structure. His brown eyes quiver slightly as suddenly all expression melts from his face. He blinks in confusion as he stands up abruptly shattering our gaze but his features don't go back to the way they were. While shaking hands seize the bottle of pills from his pocket I watch fear melt into his mahogany eyes. Once again he takes too many and I half hope vampires can get kidney damage.
"Miss," says a young girl that looks almost four years younger than me but in reality is probably twenty times as old, "your towel."
I stand up and quickly take it from her not bothering to meet her gaze again. I've had to kill quite a few vamps that had been children when they were changed. It was unsettling to say the least and memories I was not quick to relive.
They brought me to a large mirror where they dried my hair and began applying the first round of cosmetics. Looking into the mirror, seeing myself as a brunette for the first time in five years hurt. It hurt bad. It brought me back to the childhood I tried everyday to forget and the worst was that it actually made me resemble that waste of space that I was forced to call father; the man who let my mother die.
After that there was little more to do but put me into my outfit, a lavished gown that looked as if it came straight out of the Renaissance. They helped me in it and instantly I could feel the soft fabric flowing against my body. Blue satin trickled down my waist clinging to my hips like water cascading off the face of a mountain side. Woven streams of sky blue came together at my neck forming a spiderweb of soft ripples streaming from my neck meeting at my waste with the blue satin waterfall. It cut off at my shoulders and flowed down in perfect harmony with the shape of my body.
I stared at the reflection of a girl I had never seen before. Luscious brown curls ran down like a veil alongside the girl's olive completion. Dazzling blue eyes stared at me from the mirror magnified by the dress. The cherry on top? The deep red lips tugged into a hesitant grin. She was beautiful; I was beautiful.
"Let's go." I turn and Yules beside me, but this time he doesn't grab my arm and drag me along In fact he seams reluctant to even let our shoulders brush against each other as we walk down a particularly narrow hall.
We enter the same conference room as the first day and the Straut along with the other two men sit waiting for us just as before.
Suddenly I forget about the frilly dress or the way my lips look. I sat down not waiting for someone to start the sugar coating. "Where is my brother? What the hell do you think I am and why the hell haven't you killed me yet?" none of the men seemed surprised by my rashness but Yule was definitely annoyed.
"He's in Alaska, considering your the one that put us through the inconvenience of putting him there that you'd have the decency to remember." I ignored him and to my surprise so did the others. Yule was the head official of Nevada, but for the quickest moment I got the hint that it wasn't the whole story. They seemed quick to dismiss him and his outbreaks of temper, almost like one would deal with a young child.
"He's in Alaska just as you requested Miss Huttsion." I let out a huge sigh of relief. I didn't care if they thought I was queen of the mushroom people now that I knew my brother was truly taken care of.
"Your a god damn Siren." he said shattering that small moment of peace. We all turned to Yule but I had to be the only one in total shock. He looked up at me giving me a wicked grin, "As for the whole killing you thing, there's always time to change that."
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