A Shade of Vampire 13: A Turn of Tides (4 page)

M
y brain was in a fog
. I found it hard to fix my mind on anything but the memory of Rose’s body burning into ashes by the lake. It replayed over and over in my mind, a nightmare I couldn’t escape from.

I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d last rested my eyes. But even as Annora settled down to sleep, I should have known better than to drift off myself. I should have suspected that she’d try something.

I sat bolt upright the moment I tasted it. Warm blood. Annora’s blood. I hacked and spat, but it was too late. Its sweet taste took hold of my senses and sent them into overdrive.

I staggered to my feet, gripping hold of the side of the boat as I glared at Annora. The sight of her blood spilling from her palm only served to hasten my descent.

I lurched toward her, gripping her waist and slamming her back against the side of the boat. I tugged roughly on her hair, pushing it away and giving me clear access to her neck. She didn’t flinch as I broke her skin and dug my fangs deep into her neck. She welcomed it. Wrapping her arms tightly around my waist, she pulled me closer as she moaned my name.

At first, I didn’t understand why she didn’t scream or struggle. I didn’t realize why she moaned with pleasure when I could have been moments from ending her life. It wasn’t until I’d downed my fifth gulp of her blood that it dawned on me. It was because she knew. She knew what was happening.

She knew that with each gulp of her blood I took, the pain of losing Rose was ebbing away and being replaced with a burning, blind desire for Annora.

“
I
want
to go for a walk.”

I placed my hands on my hips and looked sternly at Bella. The ogress sat in the corner of the room, knitting what looked like a thick scarf.

I’d already tried to open the front door while Bella had been busy washing up in the kitchen, but it was locked fast. And since one glance out of the windows told me that climbing out of them wasn’t an option, I had no choice but to resort to asking the ogress.

Bella rolled her eyes and gestured around the room. “You can go for a walk here. It’s a big room.”

“No. I have claustrophobia. I need a more open space to stretch my legs. You can escort me.”

She stared at me, then shook her head. “Not allowed,” she said, smacking her fat lips together.

“What kind of maid are you who won’t even take her mistress for a walk?”

“Master’s orders.”

I scowled at her and slumped down on the bed. Her answer to everything was, “Master’s orders.” She still refused to tell me exactly where I was, and what exactly that bastard Anselm or the older man I’d come across had in store for me.

My eyes settled on the ring of keys fastened to her huge waist. Then they raised to her face. It had gone back to being full of intense concentration as she continued working on her knitting. I stood up slowly and walked over to her. I pulled up an ottoman and sat down next to her, pretending to adopt a sudden interest in her knitting. I was trying to gauge how difficult it might be to unfasten the keys from her belt once she finally fell asleep—assuming she was to stay with me in my quarters.

“You like knitting, don’t you, Bella?” I said, trying to keep her distracted.

She nodded enthusiastically. “Love it.”

Once I was satisfied that I’d gotten as close a view of the keys as I was going to get without actually removing them from her, I stood up and walked back over to the bed. I looked out of the window. The overcast sky was becoming even darker. I supposed that meant that night was descending on this place.

I let out a yawn, causing Bella to raise her eyes to me.

“You are tired?”

“Yes,” I said, yawning again. “I think I need to sleep. Aren’t you tired too? It seems to be getting late.” I looked again out at the sky, hoping that it was indeed getting late.

Bella looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe a little tired. But I need to eat first.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why don’t you eat and then we can both go to sleep for the night.”

The chair creaked as she stood up and set her knitting down on the table. She plodded toward the kitchen. I lay back on the bed, listening to pots rattling and a fire starting up. She returned to the room about ten minutes later with a huge saucepan full of stew. She placed a plate on the floor so as to prevent stains, brandished a giant spoon and began swallowing down the stew.

So that’s why she cooked so much.

It didn’t take her long to finish the whole container. Wiping her mouth, she let out a thundering belch. Then she made her way back into the kitchen to wash up.

I waited patiently for her to return to the room. I expected her to curl up in the corner of the room and go to sleep, but to my horror she headed straight for the front door.

I leapt from my bed and stood in front of the door before she could reach it.

“Wait. Please don’t leave me alone all night. Stay with me. We can get some cushions and a blanket and you can sleep in the corner on the thick warm rug.”

She shook her head. “Want my own bed,” she mumbled, her eyelids drooping. I guessed that all that stew had knocked her out.

“But I could escape during the night. Master would want you to stay with me.”

She rolled her eyes and held up her chain of keys. “You won’t be going anywhere because I’ll lock you in here.”

“Please, Bella,” I said, reaching out and gripping her thick hands. “I’m so scared to be on my own. Please stay with me… Don’t you have a son or a daughter?”

She paused, hesitating as she bit her lip.

“Well, if you had one, would you want her sleeping all alone in a strange place?”

I didn’t know what made me try to use a tactic like this with an ogress. But I was desperate and it was the first thing that came to my head.

Shockingly, it seemed to work. She stopped inching toward the door and took a step back. I could have sworn that I even saw tears in her eyes as she said, “No, I wouldn’t have wanted that for my daughter.”

I was so taken aback by her reaction, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond at first. I recovered quickly. “So please, will you stay with me?”

She nodded and heaved a sigh. “All right.”

I caught her hand and led her to the corner of the room. I pointed to the thick rug. It was large enough even for her to lie down comfortably on. I lifted some of the pillows from my bed and placed them on the floor for her. Then I pulled off a blanket from my bed and handed it to her. She arranged them all on the floor and lay down, pulling the blanket over her and looking up at me.

I still felt a little bad. “Are you comfortable enough?” I asked.

She smiled faintly and nodded. “This is more comfy than my own bed.”

“Oh, okay.” I wondered where she slept normally, or what she called her home.

I climbed into my own bed and tucked the sheets that remained there over me. A silence fell over the room, broken only by the heavy breathing of the ogress.

I listened with bated breath, waiting to hear her breathing steady and turn into snores. She had looked so tired, I really hadn’t expected it to take long. I’d thought she’d nod off almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. But her breathing patterns didn’t change even after what felt like fifteen minutes. I was about to sit up and check on her when she spoke suddenly.

“I did have a daughter, you know.” Her voice sounded thick—choked, almost.

“Oh. Is that so?”

“Yeah. She was a very handsome girl. You’re almost as handsome as she was.”

“Thanks.”

“She died two years ago. Her father bashed her up.”

Wow. How am I supposed to respond to that?

“I-I’m so sorry.” I sat up, staring at her across the room. The lanterns fixed to the walls cast shadows over her form. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Her father… you mean you have, or had, a husband?”

“I have a husband.”

“Where is he?”

“Dead.”

“Oh. You have a dead husband.”

“Yes.”

I paused, wondering if my next question might come off as insensitive. She didn’t seem too affected when speaking of his death though. “What happened to him?”

“Got smashed up in a brawl,” she mumbled. She paused, wiping her eyes with her hands and blowing her nose on the back of her sleeve. “Was the best thing that happened to me. He was mean.”

Mean.

Something about that word brought on a wave of déjà vu. I remembered the time I’d heard it coming from the mouth of another ogre, that time I’d visited Brett in his cave. He’d referred to female ogres as mean. That was his excuse for always being a bachelor.

Hm.

Before I could think much more of Brett, Bella broke through my thoughts again.

“My daughter used to get scared sleeping alone, you know. She always tried to creep into our room. She was a naughty child. And she did something very bad one day. Stole a plate of food from the royal kitchens. My husband crushed her up for it. Didn’t want her bringing shame on our family.”

“I’m glad he died,” I said. “He was a monster.”

Bella heaved a sigh. I held my breath, wondering if she was going to continue talking. As much as I was horrified by what Bella was telling me and my heart went out to her, I couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
Before when I was trying to drain her for information, she couldn’t tell me anything. Now the woman won’t keep quiet.

But after ten minutes, she began snoring. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Now the real work begins.

I pushed myself off the bed, making as little noise as possible, and padded across the room toward Bella. Her snores grew louder by the second, and I hoped that she was a deep sleeper. I knelt down on the floor next to her and looked over her heaving body. I scanned her waist, looking for the key. It wasn’t on the side of her that was facing me—her front—so, walking around her body, I crouched down on her other side. The keys weren’t there either.

Where in the world…

My heart sank as I caught sight of a glimmer of metal coming from her chest area. I knelt closer over her to spot the tip of the keychain—lodged securely beneath her shirt.

Oh, great.

I’d been hoping that once she’d fallen asleep—depending on how deep a sleeper she was—I’d be able to unfasten the keys from her waist and let myself out. I wasn’t sure how I would ever manage to dislodge them from their current position without her noticing.

I sat kneeling for several minutes, staring at the keys. When she hadn’t stirred at all for ten solid minutes, I looked around the room for anything that could possibly help me. My eyes fell on her knitting needles still lying on the table. I crept over to them and slid one of them out of her scarf, then walked back over to Bella. Holding my breath, I extended the needle, lowering it slowly and steadily beneath her shirt until its tip had slid through the chain. My hands sweaty, I pulled up slightly to gauge just how lodged it was. Since she was lying on her side, it was lodged well and good. It didn’t budge an inch.

I needed to get her to turn over somehow. If she was lying on her back it would probably be easier to pull out. But how would I do that without waking her?

It all depended on just how deep a sleeper she was…

I walked over to the large cupboard in the corner. I opened both doors, wincing as the wood creaked. I cast a quick glance back to check that she hadn’t stirred from the sound. She hadn’t. I scanned the shelves. My eyes fixed on a light silk shawl. I pulled it off the shelf and crept back over to her. Standing directly over her, I dangled the shawl down over her, letting the very tip of the shawl brush against the tip of her nose. She was still at first, but as I applied a little more pressure, her nose wrinkled and she reached up a hand to scratch it away. My mouth went dry as I expected her to open her eyes. She didn’t. I continued tickling her face gently. She brushed it away a few times with her hands, but eventually, she shifted position and lay on her back.

Once she was safely snoring again, I discarded the shawl and picked the needle up again. I lowered it beneath her shirt again and lifted the key chain. It was looser this time. I inched it upward slowly, watching her face for any sign of a reaction. I’d just managed to remove it and was lifting it back up toward me when she swiped her hand, sending the keys clanging to the floor.

I froze, barely daring to breathe. She didn’t react. It seemed that it hadn’t been loud enough to pierce through her snores, which had resumed again.

I picked up the keys from the floor and, watching her closely, moved toward the front door. I breathed out deeply as I reached it. I examined each of the keys. There were almost a dozen of them on this single chain. I tried to figure out which one would fit into this lock. I started with the longest key. It didn’t work. I made my way through the whole keychain. I was beginning to have a horrible feeling that perhaps the key wasn’t even here, and was tucked in some other part of her body, when the second-to-last key worked. The door clicked open. My blood pounding in my ears, I clutched the knob and was about to turn it when Bella spoke suddenly.

“Hey!”

I froze, turning around slowly. I was expecting to see her standing, having finally heard the clanking of my keys as I’d tried to open the door. But Bella remained flat on the floor. In fact, her eyes were still closed.

“No! No!” she groaned.

She was talking in her sleep. I let out a sigh and turned my focus back to the door. I pushed it open just wide enough for me to slip out, and closed the door behind me.

I looked up and down the dim lantern-lit corridor I’d just stepped out onto. I shivered. The temperature was freezing out here compared to in my room. I examined the walls and the ceiling. While the floor seemed to be made of a sleek marble, the walls and ceiling were made of rough stone.

I remained beneath the shadow of my doorway for several moments before I was sure that there was nobody in this corridor. Sticking close to the wall, I began walking forward as softly as I could. Since I was wearing thick woolen socks I’d found in the bedroom before leaving, this wasn’t too difficult. The most sound I was making was my harried breathing. I clasped a palm over my mouth to stifle it.

I had no idea where I was going as I padded along that corridor, but I couldn’t just stay where I was. Since Bella was still refusing to give me answers about this place, I had to at least attempt to figure it out myself.

I managed to reach the very end of the corridor without meeting anyone. There was a tall window pane, reaching almost as far as the cavernous ceiling. I peeked through it. It was pitch black outside, so there wasn’t much I could see, except for the vague outline of the mountain peaks surrounding us. I looked down a new stretch of corridor I’d just appeared at the beginning of.

The west wing. This is the west wing.

I was about to begin my journey down this new corridor when deep voices echoed off the walls. I strained my eyes to see a group of three large ogres approaching me from the other end of the corridor. None had seen me yet, it seemed. I had to keep it that way.

I rushed along the new corridor, out of sight. I scanned door after door, all the walls I passed by, looking for any nook or cranny I could hide myself in until they passed. There was nothing of the sort. It sounded like they were seconds from turning the corner, when I would be in full view of them. I looked around desperately, my eyes falling on the nearest door to me. I pressed my ear against it and, gripping the handle, pushed it ajar.

I slipped through and pushed the door closed. I breathed out in relief to see that the room was empty. I was half expecting to walk into the bedroom of a sleeping ogre.