What Lies Inside (A Blood Bound Novel, Book 1) (44 page)

Caius, though clearly doubtful, nodded. “Very well…” He wrapped me in gentle arms then walked me out the door to the hall. With a short pause and a tip of his head, he said, “Sleep well, my dear,” and closed the door behind him.

There wasn’t a second to waste. So where was Kendrick? Already in the library, or up in his room readying for bed? Dawn was close to breaking. So his room was the most logical place. But what if Marcus had already lured him down there? Indecision crippled me. The clock was ticking. I had to make a choice. Library.

In a flash, I had cleared the corridors and burst through the door to the library. Everything was dark and silent. No footsteps across the carpet. No whispered voices, and no Marcus or Kendrick. My eyes flew up to the wall-mounted clock. 6.05
AM
. Was I wrong altogether? Had my dream even played out yet, or was it still to come? There was no way to know. Not until I found Kendrick.

I bolted up to my room and flew through the door. I was heading straight for the door joining Kendrick’s room when something jarred me to a standstill. I wasn’t alone.

Kendrick stood stiffly before my bed. The bedside lamp backlighting his figure emphasized his expressionless face with hard shadows. Blood raced through my veins. My heart hammered within my chest. Kendrick’s surprise appearance, or even the puzzlement of his blank expression, wasn’t the cause for my body’s fear-driven reaction. What he held in his hand was.

“Kendrick.” Taking a cautious step forward, I eyed the blood-filled glass in his hands. “What are you doing in here?”

Kendrick’s face remained frozen, his dead eyes staring through me. “This is for you,” he said, holding out the glass.

Terror gripped my heart, sending tingling waves outward to encapsulate every inch of my body. I fought the need to shudder. “Kendrick, this isn’t you. I saw it. I know Marcus is compelling you.” I dared a further step forward, pleading with my eyes. “Kendrick, please. I know you’re in there, and I need you to fight back. I know you can.”

A glimmer of conflicting emotions flashed through my best friend’s eyes. His hand holding the glass dropped an inch. Then it rose again, higher, extending toward me. The pain riddling his expression made it look like he was being torn apart from the inside out. “You have to drink this. All of it.”

My feet were moving, backing up to the door. Marcus’s compulsion was too strong. I couldn’t get through to him. As I closed in on the open doorway, I turned, ready to bolt. Before I could get one foot over the threshold, the door slammed in my face.

The click of a key locking the door sounded. Kendrick’s hand, now free of the blood-filled glass, splayed against the wood. His chest pressed against my back. “You will drink.”

Gooseflesh cascaded down my body at the brush of his breath against my neck. My eyes darted sideways. The bathroom door was open. But I’d never make it. I needed leverage. “Okay, I’ll drink it. All of it.”

Kendrick’s pressing weight against my back eased. It was the opportunity I needed.

I whirled and drove my fists into his gut. He flew back through the air, and I made my attempt, racing into the shadow-cloaked bathroom. I cried out in frustration. The door to Kendrick’s room was locked. I was cornered.

And then he was on me. Fingers threaded through my hair and dragging me back across the tiles. With arms and legs flailing, I struck out futilely. Now anticipating my resistance, he blocked each attempt.

Suddenly my feet left the ground as Kendrick threw me onto my bed. He landed in a split second to pin my chest down with his knees. I struck out, aiming for his face with clawed fingers. But Kendrick was fast, too fast. His hands caught my wrists, pinning them above my head. My legs thrashed. Still it was no use.

Kendrick lowered his face to mine, now restraining my wrists with just one hand. His other hand moved to clutch my cheeks. “Stop fighting me.” The silver flecks of his irises exploded and his pupils dilated. “Stop resisting.”

My body ceased thrashing, turning limp and heavy. Move, dammit! I screamed internally. Still it was no use. My muscles and limbs were too weak.

Kendrick released my cheeks and leaned forward, collecting the almost full glass from my bedside. His eyes didn’t break focus. “Now, open your mouth.”

The blood’s aroma was peppery and metallic. It made my mouth water. “Don’t do this,” I begged before my jaw fell open. Icy tears trickled down my face.

Kendrick didn’t flinch. He lowered the glass to my parted lips, filling my mouth. “Swallow.” My throat complied without my permission. Then the shell of my best friend repeated the process, until every last drop was gone. Kendrick’s last compelled words were whispered. “Remember all you have been made to forget.” He pulled away from my chest, rising to his feet.

Rage swirled through my entire body. I knew none this was Kendrick’s doing, his fault. Still a part of me wanted to launch at him. To inflict pain for the humiliation he’d just subjected me to. But my limbs felt like they were filling with cement, my eyes struggling to stay open.
Remember all you have been made to forget.
The words burned, like a fiery pen branding them across the inside of my skull. The solid brick-wall I felt around my memories—a wall I hadn’t even realized existed—glowed and pulsed. Veins of hairline fractures split out across the barrier. Marcus had accomplished his operative. What would happen now? My stomach knitted with a churning horror of the unknown. “Kendrick, please,” I choked, struggling to speak through the numbness that was fast swelling across my tongue and down my throat. “Please don’t leave me.”

Kendrick didn’t reply. He didn’t even look at me. Instead, he doused my bedside lamp and turned away with a nod as if he’d been released after completing his tasks. No longer able to hold themselves open, my eyelids drooped. I could hear my best friend’s softening footsteps depart, the pitch changing as he entered the bathroom. Then there was a clatter of metal on metal. A bolt unlocked before the door to his room opened and closed. I was alone.

The words embedded in my head pulsed again, forcing bricks to fall and crumble. A flood of images knocked the breath from my lungs. They were fragmented and splintered, barely intelligible and struggling to reform. With the last of my dwindling strength, I rolled onto my side with a groan, curling my body in on itself. My breath had slowed, continuing to decrease as my pulse waned. Then with the last moments of consciousness, one memory slipped into sharp focus. A folder with my name printed inside the cover, and a concoction of ingredients. I wanted to gasp but couldn’t. Those ingredients would slow the heart and deteriorate muscle function, rendering a person into a state of paralysis.

Combine with Pure Blood.

I remembered then the gash and dried blood across Marcus’s wrist. His blood, Pure Blood, mixed with poison. Terror clawed through my heart and I became very still. Consciousness was slipping away. I couldn’t hold it off any longer. I couldn’t do anything to stop this. Everything faded, and then there was nothing but silence.

~

Tangled sheets clung to my body, restraining my movements as I dreamed of a cold, dark place. A throat-constricting smell of decomposing flesh hung thick in the air, threatening my gag reflex. Only one exit was visible, a solid, wooden and iron-braced door. A door that sat closed. I tried to move, to pull myself up from the moist stone ground, but stalled. The clang of metal on metal raked through my ears. Weight was pulling at my wrists. Alarm bit into me. I was shackled, and I knew exactly why. Marcus.

Any thoughts of looking for an escape, or a way to unbind my shackles forfeited as my vision blurred. I was being torn back to reality. “No, no, no!” I knew what was coming, and I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have a plan.

The stone and shackles faded as consciousness gripped me, and the amethyst pendant warmed against my chest. I wasn’t alone. Broad hands were curled around my shoulders and shaking me. The room was black. My eyes refused to adjust. But it could only be one person. Marcus. He was already here to claim me.

Anger struck through me. There was no way in hell I was giving in without a fight. Still blinded and with my body barely responsive, it took all of my strength to strike out. My arm flailed, fingers connecting with the bedside lamp before hurling it back at him. A sound of cracking porcelain erupted with what I hoped was a clean hit to the skull.

“Amelia, stop!”

The strong nurturing voice shook me. It was a voice I couldn’t confuse. The last voice I’d expected to hear. My eyes widened in the dark, finally adjusting. Shattered porcelain littered the carpeted ground at my uncle’s feet. He was standing at my bedside and rubbing at his forehead. Blood beaded from the gash my retaliation had created, slowing as the wound began to heal.

“Uncle Caius?” My voice sounded hollow. “But I thought… What are you doing here?”

“There is no time,” Caius said, tugging on my arm. “You must come with me.”

As he pulled me from the sheets that were still coiled around my body, I staggered, falling. The poison Kendrick had forced on me under Marcus’s order still had a hold. It weakened every one of my muscles, slowing my motor functions.

Caius reacted instantly, arm curling around my waist and hoisting me up against his side. “Easy there.” His next words were mumbled, so quiet I questioned if I had heard them right. “Why are you so weak?”

I frowned as we moved across my room and out to the hallway. My mind felt sluggish, reeling with unending images that made absolutely no sense. “What’s going on?” I asked, ignoring Uncle Caius’s question. Why was he in my room? “Where are we going?”

Caius kept his narrowed eyes focused ahead, leading us down the shadow-cast stairwell. “There has been a security breach. You are in grave danger.”

He knows about Marcus? A glimmer of relief washed over me, but it was short lived.
Kendrick.
Marcus had been using him, and I didn’t know if he was still part of this. What if he was still in harm’s way? “Kendrick,” I said as we moved down the strangely unlit hall, nearing my uncle’s office. “We need to go back for him. He could be in danger, too.”

Caius’s supporting arm tightened for a split second, then relaxed. “He’s not in any danger,” he mumbled, jerking me into his office before releasing my weight. “The entire castle has been evacuated.”

Evacuated? Uncle Caius’s suddenly absent support along with his words stunned me. My legs buckled and I tripped, catching my Vans on the Persian rug. It was by pure miracle that I managed to catch myself on the seat before his desk. My limbs quaked at the sudden burst of energy, aching in protest.

As I turned into a sitting position, a glimmer of brass reflecting under the desk lamp’s light caught my eye. There was something beneath the corner of the rug my shoes had lifted. Not that I was really looking or paying any real attention. Confusion-fueled questions stole my train of thought, distorting my vision while forming on my lips.

As I was about to speak, airing the confusion, I froze. A cluster of lost memories had hit me like glass shards slamming into sharp focus. The meals and hours I had somehow forgotten had been spent in this very office. Each evening I’d sat opposite my uncle while chatting and indulging in mouth-watering dinners and decadent chocolate desserts.
Remember all you have been made to forget.
Kendrick had compelled me under Marcus’s command. But why had I forgotten? Who made me forget? It was like two people’s voices were fighting in my head. Disjointed images swirled through my mind, but there were so many I couldn’t make sense of them. Was there more I was supposed to remember?

The pendant pulsed with rapid heat, like a beacon warning. My revelation became a second thought. Marcus was closing in on us.

My head whipped around to Caius, who was rifling one-handed through the top drawer of his desk. His other hand clutched the diamond paperweight. Good, a weapon. He was thinking ahead. The rapid movement caused my vision to blur and I struggled to rise from the seat. It took all the strength my arms and legs could muster to brace against the arm rail. “We have to get out of here!”

Apart from the door we had entered through, there was only a double-paned window to escape out of. Although with my lack of motor function, leaping to safety from two stories up wasn’t the greatest option. If we didn’t leave now, we’d be cornered.

“Now!” I said. My hand strained uselessly to tear the arm of the chair free for a makeshift weapon. “I think he’s coming.”

Uncle Caius sounded surprised. “
He?
” He moved around the desk. Something gleaming silver was clutched in his hand.

The pendant pulsed again. It was so hot it sizzled against my chest. The smell of burned flesh invaded my nostrils. Disquiet seized my slow-beating heart as it ached to drum. My eyes darted back to the open door. In the same instant the lamp doused and a gust of wind blew past me. A starburst of pain erupted from my temple and my limbs gave out. My body crumpled in a heap as unconsciousness claimed me.

I stirred with a groan, surrounded by darkness. The stink of decomposing flesh hung thick in the air. It made me want to gag. Heaviness weighed down my limbs. My jeans and tank top clung to my body, dripping with rank, foul-smelling water. Agonizing pulses shot through my head in rhythm with the slow beat of my heart. It felt as though I’d been slugged with a sledgehammer. Where was I? What happened? Frustrated, I tried to move, to pull from the moist stone ground, but stalled. The clang of metal on metal raked through my ears. Horrific reality dawned on me, knocking the breath from my lungs. I was awake in my living nightmare, shackled to the wall. We hadn’t escaped, and now Marcus had me. But where was Uncle Caius?

Desperation began to set in and I tugged at my restraints. It was pointless. The poison was still surging through my veins, weakening every one of my muscles. With every ounce of strength I could gather, I shuffled my heavy body back until I hit the wall. Labored breath rasped through my lips and sweat-beads budded across my forehead. Then a click sounded with the illumination of a dim bulb. Expecting to find Marcus, my eyes darted about the claustrophobic cell. A single bare bulb, swaying on a cable from the mold-caked ceiling, offered a small cone of visibility. In its light I could see a single closed door and my chains. I gulped. They ran along the ground, rising up to where they were bolted to the wall. I was trapped.