Page 10 of Sonata
After kissing the tip of my nose, he took me by the hand, threading his fingers through mine. I was biting my lip hard so I don’t open my mouth and ruin this. Never one to talk much, I wondered why I was a blubbering fool around Étienne, my thoughts a jumbled mess until he walked me through the open foyer to a door so unassuming, I never actually knew it was there. I realized I needed to pay closer attention when I snooped. Because I’ve been snooping big time and still missed it. My eyebrows crawled up to my hairline when he shifted to block my view with his broad shoulders, and although I was craning my neck, I still missed the code he pressed on the square pad attached to the wall.
The door swung open with a loud beep, and he stepped through, tugging me along with him. Lights buzzed and blinked on as we entered, revealing a winding staircase that seemed like it went down forever. There was no railing, but luckily the steps were wide enough so that I didn’t need to freak out about falling to my death. My grip on his hand tightened, and I gawked around me at the stone walls as the smell of damp soil and stale air filled my nose. I wrinkled it, swiveling my head in hopes of seeing everything.
“Is this a dungeon?” my voice echoed, and I almost jumped out of my skin. “Why do we have a dungeon in the house? Are we some supernatural mafia or something?” my nervous laugh sounded deranged when it bounced off the stone walls.
“We are heirs to the French throne, not common criminals.” Étienne sounded like I insulted him, so I shut my mouth. Why did I have to blurt everything out with no filter when I was nervous?
“I never said you were a peasant.” My mouth-to-brain control was wonky too obviously, but saying the word peasant out loud made me snort and fight laughter that was scratching at my throat to escape. Something was seriously wrong with me.
All humor washed away when we finally stepped down on the flat ground, and a vast space like a man-made cave opened up in front of my eyes. The curved walls were not smooth, and the floor looked as if it was packed hard with something being slammed on it. My heart picked up the beat drumming in my chest and cold sweat beaded on my forehead and upper lip. In the middle of the empty space, a man was sitting on a chair that was somehow staked to the ground. Thick metal chains that gleamed silver were wrapped around his upper body, along with his legs, turning him into a shining mummy, with just his neck and head left free. His eyes were closed, and he had a greyish tinge to his skin. Cheeks sunken and sharp, he looked dead to me.
“Jesus.” I breathed through numb lips, and Étienne’s hand felt too hot to my iced fingers. “ We have a dungeon and a dead body in the house.”
“He is not dead.” My mate didn’t sound too happy about that extraordinary fact, which formed a lump the size of a tennis ball in my throat. “Although he ought to be since he is of no use to me.” that last part was hissed with so much menace I released his hand and stepped back.
“Ah, Étienne.” The scratchy rasp came from the guy that I thought was dead. When his eyes opened and locked on me immediately, I couldn’t stop my gasp. “Who have you brought to pay me a visit?”
Étienne was next to the guy before I saw him move, and his hand was wrapped around the poor thing’s neck. It seemed like he grew in size, too, as he loomed over the man. To my embarrassment, I squeaked like a rubber duck and rushed to stop him from killing the guy. We needed answers not to kill people willy nilly.
“Don’t.” a shiver raked me from standing so close to the chained man, his dark eyes so black I couldn’t see his pupil. They were still locked on my face, though with unnerving intensity. “We need him alive.”
He lifted his chin up, much to my surprise. All that with a hand the size of my head wrapped around his neck, and he sniffed the air in my direction. I flinched back instinctively when the asshole grinned like I amused him or something.
“She is not a human.”
“Do you know what I am?” I asked despite myself over Étienne’s snarl.
“I know what you are not.” If it was possible, his stare intensified, raising goosebumps over my skin. “You are not like anything I’ve come across.”
“Oh,” a nervous giggle escaped me. “good…that’s good.”
“He knows nothing of importance.” Étienne snarled, tightening his fingers and making the guy's eyes bulge from the pressure. “It’s time he dies.”
Panic gripped me because something inside me was screaming that this man knew something, so I blurted out the first thing that popped in my head. “What about Phillipe? Do you know what Phillipe is?” it all came jumbled together in a rush.
The man screamed so loud and so sudden, a shriek escaped me as well. The next thing I knew, blood poured from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth down his face, and he went limp in Étienne’s hold.
“Holy shit!” I was spinning in a circle, flopping my hands around. “He’s dead. He just…just died, bleeding all over the place. Jesus.”
“He is dead now, yes.” Étienne looked at the dead person with his head tilted to the side and a frown on his face. More confused than disturbed by what happened.
“You think?” anger replaced my freak-out show. “We didn’t learn anything. And we have a dead body in the house. Oh my god, we are going to jail.”
“Nobody is going to a human jail…”
“You going to feed him to the pigs?” I stared at him with my mouth open so wide I could catch flies with it.
“What?” turning away from the dead person, he looked at me strangely.
“The mafia used to do that, back in the days. They fed dead bodies to the pigs so no one can trace them back to the mafiosos.” His eyebrow was cocked up, and it made me more frustrated. “I’ve seen documentaries. I’m not stupid.”
“There will be no pigs, and again, we are vampires from a royal bloodline, not criminals.”
Deflating like a balloon, I blew out a heavy sigh. “We didn’t learn anything.” I wanted to cry.
“We did learn one thing we couldn’t find out before because he was forced to forget,” Étienne muttered, anger flashing in his eyes.
“We did?”
“It was Phillipe who hired him to kill us, and since that same person manipulated his mind, it only means one thing.”
“We can find him with Seraphina.” It wasn’t what I wanted to know, but it was definitely something. Étienne was shaking his head before I was done talking.
“This means Phillipe is a vampire. And I’m almost certain it is my uncle.”
“Viola and Harmony. We need to get to The Chalice, now.” I was already running for the stairs.
