A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,32
me at the fallen pit. Surely, this can’t be worse than that.
The guards uncross their spears to turn and open the doors to his chambers, and a shudder of fear slithers along every surface of my body as I take in what lies before me.
Pitch black darkness. The huge room that I’m expected to enter looks to be an abyss of nothing.
“Well?” A voice from behind startles me.
I turn on a dime to see a well-dressed vampire, almost exactly like Gemini, walking toward me. Wait, it is Gemini… Master Blood-Sucking Scumbag.
“You can’t just stand there,” he says, stopping short of me. He smiles in a sarcastic ‘you’re wasting my time’ sort of way.
“Why are you here?” I snap.
He laughs to himself before responding, “I am the ’ensurance’ policy. Here to ensure that you don’t get any funny ideas.”
I scowl at him before he nudges me closer to the two doors. “Don’t keep him waiting, that will only lose you points, Dimwit.”
Reckoning that he’s right, and scowling at the misplaced pet name, I refuse myself a snide comment to speed along the process. My fingers fidget with each other in restless ticks as I take a deep breath, solidifying my journey into the illusory emptiness that is Lord Zein’s quarters.
Each step is an eternity.
Each inch, a leap.
The echoes of my steps grow louder the closer I draw to the center of the room, while everything else becomes engulfed by eerie silence. The two doors shutting behind me, unanticipated and loud, send my heart into overdrive. Looming claustrophobia clouds my thoughts as my eyes are unable to adjust to such stagnant darkness. After minutes pass without even the slightest alleviation to the tense atmosphere, I dare to speak.
“Excuse my entrance... my lord,” the last part burns my tongue, but I refrain from any other potentially insulting honorific. The last thing I need is to dig my own grave. I’ll save that for the day I make a break for the tree line, laughing the entire way with my middle finger in the air. And I’ll leave Zein a note or something, telling him how I really feel about him and his haughty tribe of oversized mosquitoes.
No answer from the abyss, although I can sense down to the bone that I am sharing the room with something else. More agonizing moments pass without reprieve, putting me now on the far side of the edge. I recall Gemini’s presence before. Zein had to be here. If there was back-up called for the task of corralling me into his chambers, how could he not be? When the question leaves my mind, a harnessing and lasting chill shoots its way up my spine. It is so painfully cold that I’m unable to move, frozen in place. I try to cry out but a voice as dreadful as death interjects.
“I think you have done quite enough talking, today.”
Immediately I recognize the affronting octaves as belonging to Zein, and immediately my determined and fearless nature dissolves as if it were a pathetic facade. Following the sharp break in silence, footsteps fill my ears. Every bone in my body, every ligament, and every muscle aches with astonishing pain. Each of them has escaped my control. I can’t move. And the feeling of absolute despair and hopelessness invades my mind the closer the footsteps draw.
“What is this? Why am I-,” I think to myself, beginning to hyperventilate as the effects of the sensations worsen both physically and mentally.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” he suggests. “Enduring something like this can be a bit overwhelming for humans, from what I hear.”
Something like this?
He’s now insanely close to me; towering me, watching me. And although the hints of silvery blond hair have been noticeable for the last couple of steps, only now am I able to make out the faint outlines of his face. I panic at the proximity. Agony sweeps over me in the form of a tormenting and unseen demon. I let escape a silent scream.
Zein’s cupped hand finds my jaw and suddenly his lips are at my ear.
“Are you feeling faint yet?” he whispers, sending hot breaths down my neck. “This is one of many abilities that has been passed down to me as a pureblood vampire.”
My eyes glaze over as he speaks. Pureblood. Only a few lines out of the entire vampire population that are gifted with certain, catastrophic abilities. The lasting chill, the feeling of dread, all of it… is him.