Rose was dragged along the blood-stained marble floor naked. She clung onto a flimsy red blanket, trying her hardest to keep her breasts and other parts covered. Thrown to the floor before the entire waiting hall, Rose's head collided with the stone. Causing blood to spill from her head.
The silence of the hall twisted around her, gnawing at her bones. Bloody naked bodies huddled around her, women in gowns watching with intrigue. The Vampyrs fell into huddles with their bloodlines. The Wites, naked and posed, flanked her left, watching. The Bluebloods and Volri, in their stunning suits and gowns leered at her, their aristocratic Vampiric beauty utterly hideous but mesmerizing. Horrifying yet enticing to look at. The Daywalkers hung back by the walls and carved pillars, waiting to be called by their masters. And the Vylewrought? They hid their half decomposed, grotesque faces amidst the long shadows. Hidden but watching.
A man stepped forward from the crowd, his beauty absolutely staggering, had it not been for the squatting viciousness on his face. "Is she your claiming?" his voice boomed.
Cato stepped forward, when did he have time to put his suit back on? He clasped his hands behind him, straightened his shoulders. He glanced down at her for a moment, and she willed her eyes to beg. Beg him to fight for her, to show her that he was good. She wanted to see the softness form around his eyes, memories flittering behind his lids. There was none. He threw her a cold stare and turned back to the man, "No she is not, my lord. I have never seen this woman in my life."
Her heart sank to her stomach. Anger nipped at her chest instead. She lunged, reaching for him with bared teeth, but he struck her down. Slapped her. The collision was so great, it reverberated across the walls making some people in the crowd chuckle and whisper. Her hand, trembling, touched her burning cheek. A bruise already forming. She looked at him mortified and he looked at her with nothing in his face, nothing but a cold, baren abyss. Tears spilled onto her burning cheeks.
He bowed to the man and didn't spare her a glance as he strode away to stand amongst his kin. She wanted to call his name, pathetic as the thought was. She wanted to call him back. But his name died on her lips the same way her father's did.
The man again, looked to the crowd. "Did anyone see what happened?"
A Wite stepped forward, a beautiful blonde with iridescent cheeks. She had a sick smile on her blood red lips. And no it was not lipstick. Her body was lean and graceful, willowy but sturdy. Her peaked breast arched higher at the hungry gazes of some Bluebloods. Gods, don't these women get tired of sex?
"She exploded in light and drove out the darkness." Whispers fluttered through the room again, waves and waves. Eyes eyeing her. She drove out the darkness, she drove it out. This place had sank into the dark's claws, there was no sun, no light, just clouds and grey and black. She had no idea what happened. One minute Cato's seed had filled her, her own release shattering her so badly she could hardly see, and the next her body exploded in light. White, shimmering light. Her skin illuminated in it, glowing like she was the sun. The Vampyrs in the room shrieked away, some burning up in the light because of their lack of immunity. But not Cato. As a Daywalker, he could walk in the light unscathed. He just sat there blinded by her light, lips parted in shock. And then someone came and dragged her out here.
She had killed Vampyrs, and she didn't know how. "How many dead?" the man asked.
"Three," The woman said. "The others will heal."
She had brought forth light strong enough to kill them, but how?
Another man popped out, looked at the first man with narrowed eyes. His body seemed to shift in the room, like he was an illusion, fragmented. "Jairus, we cannot let this creature live."
"No please," Rose gasped. The man—Jairus—looked her over with an expression of shock and disgust. Hating her and her humanity. He realised she was awake, not a hollow shell like she should be. He ignored her, though.
"This human killed three of our own." The other man spat the word out like it was dirt, poison. A wretched, wrangled word.
Jairus shrugged, smiled a little. "Off with her head, then."
No. A Vampyr's stalking gait started clicking along the floor, and when Rose looked, she saw a monster of a creature tearing through the crowed towards her. Sword in hand, torso scattered and clawed to the point she wondered how he survived it. As he drew closer, Rose shuffled back, blubbering pleas and sobs escaping her. But her pleas went unheard, her life hanging by mere thread.
Two hands hauled her up and bent her over, so her head was leaning forward. The executioner settled to her side, raised his sword and sucked in a breath. Her insides released and urine streamed down her legs.
"Halt." A male rattled.
The executioner's sword caught just inches from the back of her neck. The blade so close to her skin, Rose felt its tingle on her. The crowed parted like a sea and out came...
What was that?
All Rose saw was a mass of writhing shadows, as if the shadows in this place were not deep enough already. The figure moved, shadows concealing what was within, but Rose still saw glints. Black hair, long. The cut of a sharp jaw before a tendril swallowed it up. The bridge of a nose, the spark of red eyes. The darkness around kept swallowing features, not revealing his true face. The figure came close, but it was like his shadows arched away from her, she almost heard them hiss. Hiss in disgust. At her.
"Demetre," Jairus began. "This isn't the time for you to think with your dick."
"No, Jairus, that's you." He deadpanned. Jairus did not smile. His shadow shrouded face leaned into her face and he sniffed, actually sniffed her. "You cannot kill her."
"And why is that?"
"Can't you smell it on her?" no one answered. "She has the blood of a Vampyr."
Another wash of silence settled into the room and in Rose's very bones. She was too afraid to move, even more terrified to lift herself up from her bent position. And the wetness of her legs was too embarrassing to try.
"A half breed," the strange man noted, cocking his head.
Half breed.
Jairus threw on a smug smile. "Oh, brother, have you not realised that most here are not pureblooded? It is no surprise she has human and Vampyr blood."
"Not human," the man said calmy, still watching her with depthless eyes. "She is not mixed with human blood."
Jairus's smile diminished entirely.
What did he mean not human, what did he mean half breed, Vampyr blood. What was happening. "Take her back to the caves, I'll deal with her soon."
"Yes, my lord." One of the Vylewrought hissed through decaying mouth and gumless teeth. Sheen and black blood dribbled from his lip when he smiled at her. Terrified, Rose was escorted out of the hall and locked in the caves.
~
The darkness did not relent, as usual. Upon the alter, it seeded in her lungs and ribs and breast and bones. She was conscious this time and she couldn't tell what was worse, to endure this pain while she was under their control of when she was herself. The pain was splintering but she couldn't move. The dark was...alive. It shifted around her, moving and slivering, sniffing her. It did that a lot. Sniffed, licked her skin. Roamed too far and too deep.
Sharp boots clicked and the shadows cocked their heads to see the newcomer. They seemed to bow, and then scuttle into larger shadows, enveloping the person approaching.
She recognized him then when his shadow hidden face loomed over her. The man from the party, the one who had saved her life when Cato had condemned her. But had he really? Or was she still doing to die. He sniffed. "What are you?" he asked, strangely to himself not to her. What are you? What was she? Was human. Human, human, human.
"What are you," she bit. Fighting the cramps and bodily spasms. He wasn't expecting her to be awake, it seemed.
"They said your light came when you..." he coughed, she could feel him smirk from beneath his shadows, felt his eyes drift between her legs. "Engaged in sexual activity. Were you aware you could do such a thing?"
"No, I don't know what that was." she gritted through her teeth as another flare of spasms rippled through her legs. Twangs and throbs and prickling sensations.
"It's unwise to lie to me."
"I'm not lying you filthy bastard."
"Watch how you speak to a Lord."
She clenched her fist. She couldn't see this man, couldn't see how terrifying he was beneath the swath of shadows, but she knew, somehow that he was a nightmare made of dead flesh. "Fuck you." She said, with every ounce of spite and hatred she could muster.
She expected her death right there, she expected something, but all she got was silence. Uncomfortable silence. He just stared at her with his not eyes either baffled she had the guts to tell him to fuck off or he really was plotting a very painful death.
"There are other ways to get things I want."
He laid a shadowed hand on her abdomen and she tensed, fearing he might dip lower. He didn't. But he did something else, something that caught her so off guard, she gasped. Her mind, her insides, wrenched open by invisible hands. Roaming around her mind, sieving through memories and images, searching. It paralyzed her entirely.
It was him, some sort of telepathic magic. He was searching her memories.
Ah, she heard his cold, cruel voice in her mind as he snagged on a memory. Found you.
~
A girl with red hair was crying in the corner. Hot, gasping sobs that sounded as though her chest might cave in. She was young, about eleven years old. Someone was yelling at her, a woman with a black bob. She stood over the girl, spit flying from her mouth, curses freezing midair. Horrible, heart wrenching words. Burden, useless, worthless. Undeserving little bitch. The girl continued to cry, and the woman didn't like that. So she reached down to grab her by her hair. The girl fought as her body bumped into table legs and chair legs, a tea table. The woman hauled her through the narrow hall of their small house, yanking open the door and tossing the girl out into the rain. It was pouring today, it's said to be the coldest night of the year tonight. Wordlessly, the woman slammed the door and even though the girl ran to catch it before it shut, she couldn't. Her leg was bleeding and roared with pain.
She had taken the fire iron from the fireplace and beaten her with it.
The rain soaked the girl's white top, her bare feet numbing in the cold. She banged to no avail, realizing that the door wouldn't open, and she'd be left alone out here. On the coldest night of the year. She slumped against the floor, weeping and bleeding and freezing cold. Stayed there for hours, the crying sky did not cease its weeping and darkness began creeping along the horizon. She could curl here and sleep or walk to the park and spend the night with Iva, the lovely homeless woman that had made a home among the brambles and bushes and trees.
Yes, Iva sounded like the best option. And so, the girl started making her way down the street barefoot until the pavement gave way to soggy grass and mud.
Iva spotted her approaching and smiled, but it faltered when she noticed the girl's limp, the blood. "Rose," the woman said in a fright. She was pouring out water into the grass.
"Aunt Ozomi kicked me out," Rose stifled another sob.
Iva blew hard through her nostrils, twisting her lips into a scowl. "Come, your sleeping bag is already set up," the woman smiled, leading the little girl into her tent beneath the canopy of trees. It wasn't warm but it was warmer than out there. Iva offered her the last bottle of water as she settled in her sleeping bag. Beside it sat three books, all of Japanese folktales. She brought the sleeping bag and books from home and kept them in Iva's tent in case her aunt kicked her out again. The first time she did it, a neighbor let her stay the night. The second time, another neighbor took her in. The third time, no one saw her, no one helped. So she walked to the park and found Iva.
She knew little to nothing about Japan, could hardly speak a lick of Japanese, either. She only knew that part of her through stories and pictures. Rose fingered them, remembering how her mother would tell her stories of her homeland before bed every night. She grew up in Hiroshima, lived there for nineteen years before eloping with her father who came from England to study in Tokyo. Her parents, Rose's grandparents, never approved of him. They did not think he was good enough to care for their daughter. He was an artist, so income fluctuated. And he was...strange—bizarre. Favouring collecting items and books and dead things, nothing but a mad, sensitive, weird man. It was not enough, though. And thus, when they decided to marry and begin a family, her mother's family cut her off. Sometimes Rose wondered if her aunt still carried her grandparents' hatred. Ozomi had always voiced her dislike of her father, the much-loved William Hunter. And when Rose was born...Ozomi had another person to hate.
Rose was two worlds in one. Two people who made one whole. And yet she knew little about the side she so desperately wanted to know more of, she couldn't shake the missingness, the lack of within her. Like something was missing—had been missing the day her father decided she was not enough for him to stay and left. He took a piece of her with him. Her mother took the rest.
"I'm sorry I have no food, little one," Iva said sadly.
"I'm not hungry," Rose smiled. But she was.
"I need to use the rain to wash myself, will you be okay here?"
A nod. Rose settled into her sleeping bag and curled into a ball, not bothering to remove her soggy clothes.
Flicking open one of the books, Rose read the message on the inner cover.
Happy birthday, my darling Rose.
You're going up so fast, I want you to stay small forever.
Mummy and daddy love you dearly.
We always will.
A trickle of tears fell from Rose's eyes.
So why did you both leave me?
~
It was the kind of pain she expected to die from. The crippling, chest heaving, soul burning pain. It ate her raw and left her utterly broken. Always broken, always hurting. Undeserving. Being sucked out of the memory, her own memory, Rose inhaled a deep breath that broke out to a breathless sob. Why would he do that? Why would he pry open her mind to see what? She didn't want to see that. The pain was so unbearable, she thought she might break on that alter.
"Rose." The sound of her name on his mouth felt wrong. He tasted the letters, grinning as he chewed and swallowed her name.
"I'm taking you away."
"Where?" she jumped, swallowing her fear.
"To my home."
He turned and proceeded to walk away.
"Are you going to kill me?"
"Maybe," he said, nonchalant. He left her there on that alter.
~*~
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