And so begun my imprisonment.
I wasn't thrown into a cell and the key thrown away although at times it felt like that. In a way, my imprisonment was in my mind. I could walk past the guards and out onto the Parisian street but it would mean losing Natasha's protection, the only thing keeping me alive.
I didn't see Adele again for a while. Natasha kept me busy on mindless tasks such as passing messages and taking the royal dogs for a walk. Vampires were not always great with animals, mainly due to animals sensing the greatest predator and fleeing. Some vampires however were good with animals and Natasha was part of this minority. Thanks to her, the palace now held stables (in the courtyard which was in the very centre of the labyrinth) and Natasha owned a small pack of little, ratty, handbag dogs. I had always been much more of a cat person and after an hour of constant yap-yap-yapping, I was willing to test animal blood out. Chihuahua blood especially.
From gossip overheard from the human servants, I learned of Adele's whereabouts. William had petitioned the King for a proclamation of his vampire marriage to Adele as a reminder to other vampires and then he had confined her to his apartments at the opposite end of the palace to Natasha's apartments. I had been unconscious the day I was rescued from his apartments so I didn't know how to get there. Nor was I brave enough to want to see Adele's condition. William was a monster and she would be in direct line of his violent temper.
Sometimes, during my recreation hour, I would lie on Natasha's four poster bed (she never used it anyway) and stared up at the rich, silk canopy. Through the telepathic connection, I would capture faint images: a dark room, a solid oak door, a sense of melancholy. But then William's sadistic pale face would appear and our connection would be ripped apart and then I would just lie there. Alone.
When I first became a vampire, silence was one of the things I missed most. Spending every waking minute with another voice in your head was distracting. Adele's thoughts were a random roller-coaster, flipping and turning through different thoughts, leaving me dizzy and confused. But now the silence only made me realise all I had lost. Adele. Mum. Dad. My sisters. My cat. My existence.
Natasha was surprisingly good company. Yes, she smiled too much. But she had a good sense of humour and she was quite kind. I probably would never forgive her for tricking us. For leading us to this separation. But as each day dawned, I felt myself open more to this tiny vampire with her continual grin and happy demeanour.
My official job was acting as her companion but as the weeks spent at the Palace turned into months, I began training for a position as a guard. The royal wedding had been put back until winter and so I hoped by then, I would achieve a status as a guard to the future Queen. This training involved practicing fighting with other guards and exercising around the courtyard. As autumn deepened, I began to miss the true outside world. The world away from the boxed confinement of the courtyard and Natasha was kind enough to order trees to be planted in the courtyard.
Sitting under the trees with the weak October sun shining through the darkening leaves, I remembered my time with Adele in the woods. How we hunted together, how we spent hours talking, how our bodies met like jigsaw pieces. She was less than a mile away from me but she might as well have been dead for I mourned her as if she was.
On Hallowe'en night, the King ordered a masquerade ball to be held in honour of the new Queen. Hallowe'en had been my favourite festival of the year as a child after Christmas (presents duh) and so I was excited to see how other vampires celebrated it. My only previous experience of a masquerade ball had come from Adele's memory and so I found it refreshing that I would be able to live a part of her life through my own eyes rather than hers.
On the day of the 31st October, the palace was insane. Human servants rushed here and there, cleaning like mad. My position was low enough on the vampire scale but I was pleased to be higher than the humans just to get out of cleaning. Natasha was not smiling today but instead tore around her apartments ferociously, trying to beautify herself even more.
"Should I wear diamonds or rubies?" she would shout, throwing expensive jewels around as if they were nothing more than cheap plastic kiddie jewellery. "Hair up or down?"
"Keep it down," I would laugh, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders and forcing her to sit before the mirror. In the two months since my arrival, we had become close friends. I yanked the brush through her wild hair. "Everyone loves a virgin Queen-to-be..." I laughed as I caught sight of her reflection in the mirror as she coyly winked at me. Natasha's sexual past was far more adventurous than my own (sex in a forest is deemed adventurous but only if you have sex mainly indoors previously) but most of the high officials and the King were stupidly old fashioned and liked to believe in the blushing bride in white.
The sun was setting as Natasha finally decreed she was ready for the ball. Dressed in a pale blue gown with a silver (colour not real) butterfly mask, she looked radiant. In the end, she had rightly chosen the diamonds and she glittered in the pale candle light of her bed chamber (electricity was not allowed in the palace unfortunately).
My own dress was one that Natasha had refused to wear. It was a green dress, a rich dark green at that, with silver (coloured!) embroidery. It was daringly sleeveless and featured a corset which tied with silver ribbon at the back of my dress. The skirts were the same colour as the bodice and fell to the floor gracefully. Like Natasha, I kept my hair firmly down but unlike her, I had sneakily curled mine. Natasha had tried to curl my hair before but the rollers had just got stuck and a lot of pain and effort was required to remove them. In the end, she gave me permission to order a battery-operated hair curler which I used religiously.
Natasha owned a similar hair straightener which surprised me as I had always thought of her as someone who followed the rules. To my surprise and somewhat delight, I found the opposite to be true. Even down to her underwear, lingerie ordered from the British lingerie chain, La Senza. Her stance on underwear the first day we met had actually been a ruse. The King knew of her rule-breaking but allowed her to do it. He loved her that deeply.
After placing my mask on (green to match my gown), we began to travel downstairs. The normally dull and dark corridors and stairways had been cleaned and more torches had been lit to make it look brighter and prettier than like it normally was.
The great hall was the largest room in the entire palace and it reminded me of the Harry Potter movies I used to watch as a child. At the far end, where Dumbledore sat, there were two thrones where King Vladimir and the soon-to-be Queen Natasha sat. King Vladimir was already seated in his throne, his face covered by a full mask.
In portraits, Vladimir Dragomir had been a handsome man. He was stocky with a broad chest and muscly arms. His face was long and wise with bright shiny eyes and a chiselled jaw. His hair was a dark auburn almost fully brown. Even me, loyal to Adele, would have happily given myself to him. To feel his strong hands stroking my body.
But the portraits of Vladimir had been done many years before the war. The silver in the bomb had killed his wife and, in a way, killed his previous form. His auburn hair had turned grey and thin. Most of his face had been burnt away and only a small area from his left eye to his lips remained unscarred. His right eye had completely burnt away leaving an empty eyesocket which was miraculously mostly covered up with an eyepatch. No longer did he stand tall and erect but bent over, almost as if the weight of the world was focused on his shoulders.
Tonight, his valets had made an effort and he looked striking decked in full armour and with the family symbol (the fire-breathing dragon) emblazed over his chest. As Natasha entered, he rose with the help of a walking stick and assisted her to the middle of the floor where the pair began to dance, albeit awkwardly with the addition of his walking stick.
On cue, the courtiers began to pair up and dance. The point of the masquerade was disguise and I soon became lost in a wave of masks and gowns. Towards the side of the hall sat a small throne, carved in wood. Even with the scarlet mask and cape, I recognised him immediately. William. I gasped with horror and his eyes met mine. Smirking, he nodded at me before turning to the woman seated next to him.
Adele.
It had been two months since I had last seen her. 67 days to be precise. She looked paler than normal but I could detect the over use of powder covering up bruises on her face and neck. My own had faded long ago so obviously these injuries were recent. Her blond hair was tied up in a bun and her mask covered her whole face as well as her dress covered every part of her body excluding her face, hands and neck. Our telepathic connection, long since muted, was weak but I could detect the air of misery swimming around her.
Just the sight of her broke my heart.
Before I could do or say anything, my trance was broken as the giggling form of Amber fell into me. Amber was even younger than me, barely a year old, but she was the vampire daughter of the King's youngest brother and so had a high place at court. She too was in training to become a guard for the Queen.
"Come," she smiled, her red hair falling in waves down her also bare shoulders. Her dress, though similar to mine, was golden coloured. "Let's dance." Her hands grabbed my wrist and she flung me into the mix of dancers. By the time I turned back, William and Adele were long gone.