BLOOD CURSE

~ TEN ~

To say that things aboard The Crimson Rose were tense would be an understatement. James and Lyria were still not talking but now it was different; James refused to talk to anyone and/or maintain eye contact with his crew - his family. He avoided Caleb like the plague and anytime someone called his name, he jumped as if Lyria had come back to tear out his heart again.
Lyria holed herself up in her cabin, refusing to come out unless she needed to bark orders, she even refused to let Caleb come in and just slipped notes under her door whenever he tried to talk to her - the majority of them usually informed him to 'piss off'.

Sat at her desk, Lyria was surrounded by multiple empty bottles of rum and numerous unopened letters sat in a corner. Tomas and Jordyn had also been ordered to check up on the Vampyre Captain but she had sent them away with some swear words and a 'tell your Captain to leave me the fuck alone'.

Eventually, everyone but Caleb had given up. Clearly the short tempered (and just short) woman wasn't in the mood to be comforted or spoken to.

Rubbing her hands over her face, Lyria banged her head against the oak desk a couple of times, regretting the harmful words that escaped her mouth in a fit of anger. The absence of James was growing worse, as if she was slowly losing more and more of her limbs with every passing hour that the distance between them grew.

James had always been there for her; he had been there when she cried over losing the last connection to her bloodline, he had been there when she had found Caleb, he had been there when she was upset over killing Izzy, he had been there.
Period.
No matter her mood, no matter the situation, James had been supportive and comforting. James was her crutch. And now she was hobbling around in the dark, alone and frightened.

Even worse than that, she had isolated herself from everyone else in her family. She had yelled at them, thrown things at the door when they approached, and informed them that she had no desire to talk to them. Even Caleb was beginning to drift away.

The ties of a rocky relationship with Lucien were starting to fray the longer she ignored his letters, the more she sent his Second and Third back with rude messages, the more she refused to acknowledge his existence. She was ruining everything good in her life all because of one stubborn angry moment that she could never take back.

Letting out an agonised scream, she smacked everything off her desk and watched as papers, letters, quills and ink bottles fluttered down around her. However, it was not enough to quell the storm swirling within her. Gripping hold of the edge of the desk, she flipped it violently before turning her fury on her drawers.

Smashing things and throwing things and kicking things, Lyria didn't stop until eventually her energy depleted and the burning of her throat informed her that she needed blood. Looking down at her body, she realised why she needed to feed.

Splinters and chunks of wood were embedded in her body causing blood to seep out of the wounds and drip onto the wooden planks of her floor. Sinking to the ground, Lyria sobbed. She sobbed and she sobbed until Caleb slammed open the door, pulled out every last bit of wood, and pulled her into his arms, clutching her close.