The Legend of Juliet: Part One (A Vampire Dystopia) (Finding Freedom Novellas) (6 page)

Silence had reigned as time had ticked by at a slow, painful rate, and my young mind had broadened, some of what was happening finally dawning on me.

I hadn’t understood why, but I had understood this: my family’s safety depended on me, and my leaving with the vampire sitting before us, the vampire who the whole world appeared to revolve around.

I had also understood this: I could never go back to the way that things had used to be; it was only forward trekking from there on out.

And that had saddened me—

But I hadn’t let it stop me from speaking, from doing what I’d known, even then, was the right thing.

At that point I’d realized that my family’s happiness and wellbeing meant more than any desires that I may have had; I’d realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world, and that selfishness would only cause pain – this was perhaps the best thing that the human race had learned from the vampire’s overtake.

“I...I’ll go,” my voice had been small when I’d spoken fear running through me in the form of shivers. Miss Mercy had gasped yet again, and my mother had actually withdrawn from her groveling to turn and look at me; my father’s eyes had found me as well. But I had only had eyes for Sibold at that point, and he for me. “I’ll go...but they stay safe,” I’d told him, bargaining.

Sibold had nodded slowly, agreeing, outwardly appearing pleased.

But from the depths of his eyes, which had begun at that very moment to capture every essence of me, I had seen sadness – and consolation, mixed with a twinge of regret.

Chapter Five

As Luke led me along the hallway the two of us remaining connected through our entwined hands, the images from what I had just witnessed raced through my mind, until I could hardly separate what had just taken place from what was taking place in the present. But when we entered our shared room, and Luke finally dropped his hard façade, the reality came soaring back to greet me.

Luke raked his hands through his messy, bleached blond hair as he strode over to the desk that he and I shared, an old wooden thing, the surface of it scratched and worn, pieces of its legs chipped; it was ours, and that was all that really mattered to either of us. He selected a match from the box that held them as I closed the door behind me, being careful to shut it softly, should there be any vampires strolling about outside; hardly anyone ventured to our section of the Manor unless they were calling us, unless we were needed by one of the Masters, though sometimes Sibold came to fetch me himself.

One window lingered at the far end of the room, but it offered minimum light – partially because the sky never afforded much light, but also because it was growing dark, the night being our Masters’ favorite time of day. When I was younger, still discovering the Manor and the world of my Masters, I would often peer out the window at dusk and imagine what life may have been like had I been a vampire; these delusions often had depicted Sibold and I together, and I had quickly learned not to dwell on them. I didn’t look out the window anymore, part of the reason why it was dusty; Luke cared little for it, either.

The room was starkly quiet as Luke lit a match and quickly held it to the five candles that we had been afforded us, more than enough to light our room; one candle was solely mine, in order to read by. The vampires were crafty, and did have technology, automatic lights, and other great machines, but Master Delouge preferred the old-fashioned ways, as did most of the vampires; they kept their machinery, what they termed useful, to themselves for the most part – save the plumbing and the items in the kitchen.

The wick of the candle crackled a bit, the flame doing its best to catch, and I listened to the sound as I watched Luke carefully, trying to decide what it was that I should say. He had been absent the Manor for weeks now, off on errands for Master Delouge, but it felt like he had been gone for an eternity. I had missed speaking with him, missed seeing his face – how he was when the vampires weren’t around, when he had
real
expressions.

Other than Sibold, Luke was the closest thing that I had to family, and I loved him dearly.

When he turned to look at me his grey eyes – somewhat like Sibold’s, though entirely different – were gentle but distraught, full of pain; I knew by those eyes that he had missed me, too.

“Juliet,” he said, my name sounding heavier than it ever had before, so much contained within those three syllables, “tell me, how have you been while I was...away?” he asked, turning his gaze from me as he found a seat on his bed, a small, short, beat-up mattress that he barely even fit on when scrunched, he was so tall and broad; it was a bed, though, and many slaves weren’t afforded one.

My heart felt heavy with the sadness in his eyes as I walked over to my own bed and sat down, running my hand along the slightly worn, displaced coverlet that lingered atop it, which had been a present from Sibold – he had wanted to give me a new one, but his father had absolutely refused, so he’d opted for a gently used one, instead. The material was soft beneath my fingers, the rose print bringing a gentle smile to my face. Normally I made my bed in the morning, as my mother had taught me to what seemed like so long ago, but that morning I hadn’t had time, already late for the tenth hour.

Luke’s bed was perfectly made, save the wrinkles he’d created while sitting, another symbol that he had been away.

I kept my gaze fixed upon the coverlet as I answered him. “How much time do you have before she expects you?” I asked Luke softly, wanting to know how much I should tell him now, because I didn’t want him to be late.

I had made him late before, and it had nearly cost him his life.

Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could feel Luke tense, could see it in my mind’s eye. As with Sibold, I knew Luke well enough to be able to sense when he was discomforted. Our bond was strong, though...different than the one that I shared with my vampire Lord. “We have a few moments before I’ll need to leave,” he told me, his voice thick, causing me to look up, my heart all but breaking when I saw the pained look that had been in his eyes had transferred to his expression, causing worry lines. His grey gaze met mine. “I hate this, Juliet. I
hate
it. Why does she,” he swallowed thickly, holding my gaze, “why does she put me through this?” anguish became him as he leaned back on his arms and looked up at the ceiling.

Anyone who saw Luke when he was outside of the room we were in now would have never believed that the man who was staring at the ceiling, tears streaking his face, was the same person that became so stoic, so controlled in front of the vampires.

I hated them for it – for doing this to him, for making him this way. It wasn’t fair that he felt like he had to hide, had to act a certain way, though I knew that I was just as guilty of it as he was.

All until earlier.

All until the little boy, and the vampire maid.

Now I had broken the rules, and that rule breaking had consequences. But still, I now believed that Luke was right, that change took time, and thinking about it I didn’t regret what I had done.

And maybe I hated that, too. Maybe my years of relenting, of letting the Masters control me, had programmed me to hate what I was beginning to become – or what I had always been—

A human who wasn’t satisfied with being a slave.

A moment later I found myself standing, not able to sit and watch Luke cry from a distance without wanting to be there next to him. I stepped forward, closing the distance between my bed and his, and sat at his side, wrapping my arms around him in a sideways hug; he tilted his head downwards, looking away from the ceiling in order to bury his face in the side of my neck.

“I don’t know why she does this to you, Luke,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks as well as I closed my eyes tightly, hardly able to bear the knowledge of what Luke would soon have to face – again. “I don’t know – I hate her, too.”

The ‘her’ of whom we spoke was none other than Sibold’s mother, the Mistress Delouge, the Lady who for years now had seen Luke as her personal plaything. She was the reason that he had become L’Amblood.

Luke had first appeared at the Manor when I was fourteen, only five short years ago. He had been brought in as a slave for the Master’s wife, whose name was Belladonnis, who Master Deluge seemed to pay little attention to. Rumors had spread that Luke was a
tratilisee
– a traitor – to the vampire kind and way, and that he had killed his old Master, and had then run away, to later be picked up by the guards of the Manor. This had of course been a lie, since there was no way that a human would ever be able to overpower a vampire, let alone a Lord like Luke’s old Master, but the maids had enjoyed spreading the rumor about, making it into their own personal folktale, something that they could laugh about.

Luke had been moved into my room immediately upon arrival, and though I hadn’t liked sharing the space at first, I had been more than glad to have another human for company. We had become fast friends, and Luke had relayed the truth to me – that his Master had been killed by a rogue, a being called a Lycanthrope, a man who shifted from human to wolf, an enemy of the vampires; only a few, he had said, were left in existence, nearly stamped out by the vampire Masters when they had overcome the Earth, and those few never stopped in their quest to kill as many of their hated enemies as they could manage. His tale had terrified me, and for weeks I had thought of nothing but giant wolves, until Sibold had finally asked me what troubled my mind, and I had then told him of my fears, afterwards asking him if the tales were true, and the Lycanthrope were real – he hadn’t answered, of course, but a faraway look had come into his eyes.

As my friendship with Luke had grown, so had the number of hours that he spent with Mistress Belladonnis, and I had begun to notice that something strange seemed to occupy his every thought. He had become very secretive, until one day he had failed to come back from his visit to the Mistress, and I had grown worried for his safety, afraid that he had done something to displease her, and that she had slain him; the Mistress was rumored to be as cruel and as heartless as her husband, though I had only seen her once from the corner of my eye, as she had spoken to Sibold.

One week, and still Luke hadn’t returned. Rumors had begun to float about the Manor – that he was dead, that she was feeding from him continuously, causing him to clutch at the very last strands of life, that he had been sent away, back to his old Master, which had been found alive – until finally Luke had returned—

Though when he’d returned, he had been
different
, had changed somehow. When he had first arrived at the Manor he had been withdrawn, reclusive, but in our time together he had opened up to me, the only other human he was allowed to interact with, and I had found a side of him that was happy, that laughed, that smiled, though sometimes sadly; this had all been erased when he’d returned, dark circles beneath his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept once in the week that he’d been gone.

And that is when Luke had told me the truth, when I had learned the terrible fate that befell those who were transformed into L’Amblood.

“I thought that she loved me, Juliet. She convinced me of it, to make everything appear alright,” the soft sound of Luke’s voice was the only sound, save our breathing, in the room as he reached down to grip at my arm for support, his voice no more than a pained whisper. “I was set to persuade her to run away with me – I didn’t want to live entrapped in a lie any longer. But once she turned me, and I became what I am, her eternal slave, I learned the truth – that it was all a
lie
,” his last words he bit out, the sound of them bitter, like bile in the mouth.

Another tear slipped down as I opened my eyes, my head bent as I whispered back: “I know.”

And I did know, because I had seen it – Luke, when he’d returned a broken man, his heart ripped out by Belladonnis’ fangs, his humanity lost to him.

Because the L’Amblood, what Luke had become, they weren’t human – nor were they vampire. They were something else, something in between, eternal servants to the Master who turned them. They retained their humanity in the fact that they appeared the same, ate the same foods, and slept at the same rate, but they failed to
age
, forever caught in a prison of the immorality that the vampires enjoyed – or were cursed with, as Luke believed.

The L’Amblood were cursed, even more so than the vampires.

“Oh, Juliet, don’t cry for me,” I jumped when Luke reached up to brush the tears from my cheeks, pulling away from me to take my face in his hands, offering me a smile that was fake, but that I appreciated all the same; it was a wide smile, so different from Sibold’s. “Please, don’t let those monsters dishearten you.”

My mouth opened, and I rushed to protest before I could think of the consequences. “They aren’t all monsters,” I told him, thinking of Sibold, and of L’Hier.

They weren’t monsters – Sibold cared for me, much more than he should have, and he was teaching me things; he wanted me to be
free
. L’Hier shared his ideas, from what I understood.

“You must see the truth, Juliet,” Luke’s grip on me tightened, though not in a painful way, as his features tightened with it, anger flashing through his grey eyes. “You mustn’t believe them – believe him. He’s
lying
to you, Juliet!” he said heatedly, making me flinch.

It was no secret that Luke hated Sibold, and vice versa, but he had never said it so plainly before, and the fact that he was saying it now scared me – and made me angry, because I didn’t believe him; I knew Sibold, and there was no way that he was lying to me.

Or...was there? Was I nothing more than a game, a plaything, as Luke had been and was to Belladonnis – nothing more than something that he could toy with, play with the heartstrings of?