Of Blood and Magic by Shayne Leighton

Author:Shayne Leighton [Leighton, Shayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Parliament House

Chapter 17

C o n s p I r a c y (This leads into the original scene when Valek wants to discuss his plan to find Francis with Sarah. They come home to find that Charlotte has discovered the second volume. Laced with poison, she becomes paralyzed.)

* * *

Lying flat on her back, sprawled out and sticky atop the covers despite what should have been a frigid January evening, Charlotte watched the swirling purple galaxies Sarah bewitched against her ceiling. How frustrating to have to be kept away from Valek, just when things were starting to make sense! How annoying to have her every move monitored and watched!

She huffed frustratedly to the empty room and the empty stares of her old stuffed animals. Amazing, she thought at the back of her mind, however, that Sarah could recreate my bedroom in such perfect detail.

Charlotte recalled the night when she and Valek were almost captured by Vladislov’s army of brutes—how they’d shoved their way through the front door in search of her. She’d hid the freezer, listening with her heart in her throat, while Valek made up lie after lie to get them to go away. They were very nearly found out, but made off by the skin of their teeth after Evangeline seemingly appeared out of thin air and doused Charlotte’s room with magic fire, leaving all her belongings, every tangible shred of evidence from her childhood spent in the vampire’s house, singed beyond recognition.

But thanks to Sarah, Charlotte now lie restless atop the same lacey duvet, staring at the same sunny, canary-colored walls, scowling at the same stupid dollhouse in the corner. Sarah loved it of course. She’d begged Charlotte to play with it. Charlotte told her she could keep it forever. She didn’t want any more to do with the things that made her a little girl in Valek’s eyes.

Just then, the door creaked open a hair. She craned her head to see his unholy eyes, aglow from within, glaring at her through the dark.

“Seems you don’t even have to speak of the devil, anymore,” she harrumphed, turning her face up toward the ceiling once more. “Seems now you need only think of him for him to appear.”

She wasn’t sure, but it sounded for a moment like Valek chuckled. “I only wish to check on you. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” she lied and folded her arms across her chest. She ignored the fever beating in her face and the slosh in her stomach.

“Aren’t you col—”

“I said I’m fine,” she snapped. “Where are the others?”

She was trying to coax him to stay—trying to coerce him to enter a bit farther into the room, but he knew all her tricks. He stayed put, one claw gripping the door as it concealed half his face. Careful. Always careful.

“I’ve sent them away,” he admitted. “They should return early morning. They were growing . . . antsy.”

But that was the group. Bad influences like Lusian and Dusana always seemed to make the rest of them antsy.

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