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Early mornings with Bela in the opera hall become routine. Well, perhaps it’s too early to call it “routine.” At any rate, she’s told you which mornings she favors for early playing (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), and you’ve shown up twice more without any pushback. That’s something, isn’t it?
You’re no authority on the matter—and bias is admittedly a factor—but you think she plays beautifully.
The moment she takes her seat, she positively oozes confidence and poise. It’s different from the haughty, well-mannered front she puts up around the castle. She sits taller, as though the tremendous weight on her shoulders has lifted. Her brow becomes smooth, no longer creased with apprehension. You still don’t know the real Bela, but watching her like this? It’s as close as you’ve gotten.
In these moments, it’s as if a spell has been cast. The music flows—no, erupts—from her like an explosive blast. Shock waves ripple outward, but this time, there is no blistering heat to give chase. There are no cracked ribs, no burnt skin.
Between pieces, the atmosphere lingers, heavy with the magic of her song. There’s a healing, almost sedative quality to it. It doesn’t let Bela bite or gnash her teeth. It doesn’t let her hide herself away, even when you know she aches to.
It’s strange how much you feel for her. For all of them, really.
One morning, after she’s exhausted herself—and dazzled you—with her takes on several famous pieces she called “fugues,” you take to testing the atmospheric harmony with a characteristic lack of subtlety:
“Miss Bela?” These days, titles are ad libitum, to use a term you’ve learned from Bela. It wasn’t a conscious choice—you’ve grown quite used to setting them aside when you’re with Cassandra and Daniela, is all—but Bela has yet to rebuke you for it. Employing one now is a strategic maneuver.
It never escapes Bela’s notice, and today is no exception. When her eyes meet yours, they’re wary. “Yes?”
“Will you come sit with me?” You gesture to the empty space beside you on the settee—which, incidentally, is another indicator that Bela does not merely tolerate your presence on these early mornings.
You’d complained of a crick in your neck after yet another night’s fitful sleep was—unintentionally—taken here. The armchairs, cozy as they are, proved a poor substitute for sleeping in an actual bed. The settee arrived the very next day—and with a frankly unnecessary number of pillows and blankets to boot. Bela pretended to be none the wiser when you asked her about it. Well, she tried to pretend. It was pitiful, as expected. She couldn’t even look you in the eye.
“I… Okay.” She takes a seat, assuming a posture with stiffness befitting a corpse. Poor thing. She looks like she’s expecting to be eaten.
The irony of it is not lost on you. “Look at me.” You’ve grown bolder in recent days. Part of it is her own fault. You’d never take this tone with Cassandra—but Cassandra doesn’t make you pry every honest answer out of her by force.
It seems to take considerable effort, but she manages it.
With her gaze burning into yours, you ask, “When’s the last time you ate?”
Bela’s shoulders stiffen. To her credit, she doesn’t look away. “Yesterday.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not.” Bela huffs, sounding put out. “I had an apple.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking.”
“I don’t answer to you.”
“You’re right,” you concede, edging in closer. Bela’s eyes track every movement. “But I like spending time with you.”
She and Daniela are not so different. Compliments and praise move them profoundly, more than any amount of force ever could. The admission—though true—is a safeguard. It keeps her from fleeing when you draw near. By the time you clamber onto her lap, there’s little she can do.
Trapping her legs confidently between your own, you clasp your hands around her neck and give a playful squeeze of your thighs. The noise it evokes—like the wheeze of an asthmatic cat—is delectable. “Do you like spending time with me?”
Bela swallows. The look in her eyes is almost imploring. It makes your skin prickle, hands itching to grab and break and hurt— “Y-Yes,” she mumbles.
The impulse recedes, becoming a distant throb in the back of your skull. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear that.”
Her cheeks darken with a telltale flush—her version of one, anyhow. “Yes.”
“I’m glad.” Her hands are balled up into fists on either side of her. When your hands find them, they unfurl. They do not fight when you guide them to rest, fingers splayed, across the tops of your thighs. “Thank you for telling me.”
A slight shiver racks Bela’s body. You feel it ripple across your skin. By some miracle, you manage to suppress a smirk. Too easy.
“I don’t like spending time with people who lie to me,” you say. As lures go, it’s not terribly subtle—but she’ll bite. She can’t help herself.
“I don’t either.” The words are quiet but honest.
“Let’s make a deal then.” Her hood is down, and her hair is perfectly tidy, but you tuck a nonexistent stray lock of it behind one ear anyway. You relish in the way she shudders as your fingers make contact: first along her temple, then the shell of her ear. “I won’t lie to you, and you won’t lie to me.”
Panic surfaces, sudden and sharp, in her eyes. “There are things I can’t tell you.”
“I know. Just as I’m sure there will be things I can’t tell you.” The tone you’re using is soft, indulgent in a way that sounds utterly foreign to your own ears. With every word, it becomes harder to tell where the pretense ends and you begin. “But that’s different from lying. Do you understand?”
Bela’s eyes scan your face, probing your features for a trace of dishonesty. At last, seeming to come up empty, she nods. “I do.”
She surrenders so easily. It’s beyond dangerous—for her and for you. “Then we have a deal?”
“Yes. We have a deal.” The sentence is uttered slowly, like she can’t quite believe she’s saying it.
She’s not the only one. For a brief moment, you’re stunned into silence. Fortunately, you recover quickly: “When’s the last time you—?”
“I ordered the settee!” Bela blurts out in a rush.
You blink. “Huh?”
Bela ducks her head—then, seeming to realize that that still leaves you very much in her field of vision, looks off to the side instead.
Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you take her by the chin and guide her back. “Eyes.”
One eye peeks open, followed by the other.
Adorable as it is, your patience is wearing thin. “We agreed we wouldn’t lie anymore, right?”
Bela’s face crumples. “I ordered the settee. And arranged for it to be brought here,” she reveals dismally, as though confessing to a grievous crime. “And then I lied to you about it.”
A brief pause. “Okay—”
“And then at Donna’s, I lied again. You asked if I wanted to” —she pauses— “taste you, and I said I didn’t. I lied.”
You open your mouth. Close it. She seems to be under the impression that, like confessional booths in churches, a sin must be disclosed before it can be cleansed. Or something.
Again, you’re not the religious type. But Frenchie once said that Catholicism is about making a mistake and ripping your insides out in front of God until you’re forgiven, over and over until death. Back then, you couldn’t fathom what he was talking about. Now, having met Bela, you think you understand.
You hold out a little longer, just in case she has anything else she needs to get off her chest. “Right,” you manage eventually when nothing is forthcoming. “I assumed that, but confirmation is always good.” You clear your throat awkwardly. “Thank you for telling me, Bela.”
She looks miserable—all pouting lips and furrowed brow—but gives the faintest of nods.
Good enough. “When’s the last time you ate?”
If anything, her frown deepens. “Fed.”
“What?”
“We feed on humans.” The correction is timid, yet the way she wrinkles her nose is anything but. “We don’t eat them.”
“For sure.” Regrettably, there’s no time to linger on that, though you’re just dying to tease her about it. “So… The last time you fed?”
“Five days ago.”
“Okay.” Admittedly, that doesn’t mean much to you. How often do they need to feed? Is blood sufficient on its own? Questions for later. “That’s almost a week.”
Bela scowls. “I’m aware.”
Your grip tightens on her chin. With your thumb, you press hard—hard enough to elicit a sharp inhale. “Watch it.” You can’t blame her for the backtalk, not really. As dumb comments go, that one’s almost certainly an all-timer. It’s the principle of the matter. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I am not like my sisters,” she insists. It’s impossible to tell who she means to convince. “Their thirst is their undoing.”
“Cassandra seems to handle hers just fine.”
At the mere mention of her younger sister, Bela stiffens. “Cassandra” —she spits the name like poison— “is a self-aggrandizing hedonist.”
At this rate, you’ll need to invest in a dictionary. “Hedonist,” you repeat.
“Someone motivated purely by the pursuit of pleasure.”
Yeah. You’ll concede that. Cassandra probably would too. More importantly: “Then prove it.”
Bela’s breath catches. “What?”
“Feed from me.” You tug on her chin, urging her down until her nose brushes yours. “Prove you’re in control.”
Bela’s jaw clenches. You think you hear it creak. “I don’t have to ‘prove’ anything to you.” The words are sharp, steeped in animosity.
A broad, shit-eating grin splits your features. “You’re scared, aren’t you?” It’s a page straight out of Cassandra’s book—a red flag to a bull.
Bela visibly seethes; her body trembles with the force of her anger. “No,” she bites out. Her breaths come out in harsh gusts that you can feel, close as your lips are to hers.
“Then let me do this,” you whisper.
Bela’s eyes flutter shut. With her forehead pressed to yours, she manages a minute nod. “Okay.”
You lift your chin, baring your neck. With sure hands, you guide her face into the hollow beneath your jaw. An involuntary shiver travels through you when the tip of her nose, feather-light yet cold, grazes skin. Her lips, slightly parted, follow soon after.
In that moment, the world comes to a standstill. Your pulse slows. Your eyelids droop.
And Bela… freezes.
“Bela?” Gently, you ease her out from your neck until you can look at her, really look at her. A glassy sheen coats wide, marigold eyes—and in them, you find something you’d know anywhere: fear. “It’s okay to be scared.”
Bela swallows, blinking rapidly. She doesn’t deny it this time. “You’ll tell me when, right?” Her eyes, tinged with redness, search your features with urgency. “When it’s too much, you’ll tell me, right?”
“Oh, Bela.” You cup her face with both hands, feeling your chest clench at the way she leans into it and sighs. Suddenly, she is little more than a puppet with cut strings, a wounded animal baring its soft underbelly—all loose muscles and half-lidded eyes.
“I’ll tell you. I promise,” you tell her. With the pads of your thumbs, you rub gentle circles along the curve of her jaw, soothing the traces of tension that linger. “Do you trust me?” You think of Daniela, her breathless sincerity and uncontrolled feeling. You think of how she didn’t hesitate—how she said, ‘Yes,’ like it didn’t matter, like it didn’t tear you in fucking two.
You’re begging Bela not to make the same mistake. Begging her to see the blood on your teeth, the hunger in your eyes. Begging her to look at you and understand that if she feeds you, she can’t take it back.
“No,” she whispers. Her eyes fall shut, and a tear traces her cheek, like she’s ashamed.
Relief loosens the tangled knot in your chest. “Good.” Bela’s eyes snap open, meeting yours in a silent question. “It’s on both of us to do this right.” You leave the rest unsaid: that you don’t trust her either, and that makes things even.
Recognition flits across her face. “I understand.”
Great. “Then Bela?”
“Yes?”
“Will you hurry up and bite me already?”
— —
You wake to darkness. Darkness and… pain.
Metal ensnares your wrists, high above your head. Your shoulders ache. Your stomach burns. There’s a chill in the air. It probably bit you something fierce, but now, its venom has taken hold. All you feel is a pervasive numbness, the kind that tells you you’ve been here for hours.
Your feet are bare, and the soles of them—partially numb—sting with agony. You try to lift your head, only to groan as every muscle in your neck shrieks in protest.
A faint glow—yellow, flickering—from up ahead illumines a metallic-looking rod protruding from your abdomen. You stare, blinking sluggishly. The burn in your stomach. That’s where it’s coming from.
You barely register the fact that you’re naked. There’s something sticking out of you, and you can’t reach it. With fast-mounting panic, you yank with your arms. Pain alights, sudden and blistering, throughout your shoulders. Not a dislocation, but damn close. The chains don’t sound like they’re doing so hot, though.
Another pull. Another stab of pain. But there it is again: a weak link. You can feel it. Just one more tug...
The triumph you feel is short-lived as your stomach gives a horrible throb. Your vision swims. It looks like… a knife handle. Fuck.
Bile rises in your throat. You force yourself to look past it. Further down, you can just make out two familiar-looking feet. One of them is missing a toe. The too-pale, frostbitten skin glistens with half-dried blood. Shackles encircle each ankle, linked together by a short chain.
If you get your hands free, you can make short work of that. You shut your eyes and try in vain to calm your quickening pulse.
“Oh, kitty cat!” A playful, sing-song voice disrupts your internal struggle. It’s impossible to tell where it’s coming from. “Are you awake yet? I’m bored.”
Cassandra. This must be the dungeons then. “C-Cassandra?” you manage. Your mouth feels dry, sandpaper-y. It’s horrible. “What the fuck?”
“Finally!” A shriek, then a high-pitched buzz in the distance. It echoes off the walls, closing in fast.
You manage to lift your head just in time: Criss-crossing bars greet you. Beyond that, you glimpse a crudely carved corridor, its interior bathed in torchlight. And there, right in front of you, a sea of swirling black insects gives rise to a familiar figure.
Cassandra Dimitrescu emerges from the flurry. It’s backlit, but there’s no mistaking that tousled brown hair and the light-colored stone around her neck. In her hand she wields a sickle that gleams in the torchlight, its blade wet with blood.
At the sight of her, whatever further outrage you might’ve planned to voice falls silent. “… Cassandra?”
It’s hard to make out the expression on her face. Your pulse races as she stalks closer, approaching you like a predator would its prey: all lithe movements and unblinking yellow eyes.
She stops short of the knife handle and cocks her head to one side. “Humans are very boring prisoners.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” If there’s one thing Cassandra cannot abide, it’s boredom. “Why am I here?”
She grips the knife handle. Pain alights as the sudden move jostles the blade. A strangled sound escapes your throat. “What did you do to Dani?”
Dread, cold and heavy, settles in your chest like a stone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You know what’s coming. It still can’t prepare you.
With a harsh tug, Cassandra tears the blade out. Hurt lances through you, sudden and breathtaking, setting your midriff alight with a burn that’s too hot to be real—but fuck if it doesn’t bite. Your lungs compress, squeezing out every ounce of air like a deflated balloon.
Your mouth tastes like iron. You think you bit your tongue. “Fuck,” you curse. Flecks of saliva join the small spatters of blood at your feet. Through heaving breaths, you manage to level Cassandra with a glare.
She is, of course, unbothered. A smirk curves her black-painted lips. Her eyes gleam with hunger. “Wanna try that again?”
Your eyes fall to the knife, which she twirls leisurely in one hand. Its modest, drop-point blade glistens with your blood.
It’s not an idle threat. For all Cassandra’s bluster, she certainly doesn’t lack follow-through. “None of your business,” you snarl.
A blur of motion is all the warning you get before the blade buries itself anew. The pain is almost instantaneous. It’s distant and somehow close, numbed by the chill yet searing like a fresh brand. A horrible wailing sound—likely you—accompanies it.
Blood rushes in your ears. It’s deafening. Black spots dance before your eyes. Your vision’s fucked. It takes several seconds, but eventually, colors return. Your brain registers familiar feet and a knife handle. Is it just your imagination, or is it a little more to the left this time?
Hard to say.
“You know, if we can’t get past question one, this is going to be a very dull interrogation.”
“You know,” you mimic, “torture is a very ineffectual method of gathering information.”
Cassandra grabs the knife handle. Twists it. Grins at the way you shriek until she stops. “I don’t care how good you are with your tongue. If you hurt a hair on Dani’s head, I will pull your heart out through your fucking throat. Think you can heal that, mutt?”
“Daniela’s a big girl,” you manage between strained breaths, blinking rapidly to clear the static from your vision. “If I fucked up” —which you did, your brain unhelpfully adds— “then—”
“You did!” Cassandra yanks the knife out without warning. Agony follows, tearing a hoarse yell from your throat. The outcry lasts for all of a second, cut short by a terrible, wet cough when she buries it again. “What the fuck are you trying to pull?”
All at once, clarity sharpens your awareness. The defensiveness thundering in your chest quiets to a dull roar. “You’re mad at me.”
“What do you get from this, huh? Just wanted to fuck her, is that it? Make her believe you actually liked her?”
You’re half delirious at this point, but you wonder if you’re no longer just talking about Daniela. “I do like her,” you wheeze.
“LIAR !” she screams, close enough now that her nose brushes yours.
It’s the precise opening you need. Your neck screeches in protest as you crane your head back only to whip it forward with all your might. Your forehead connects solidly with Cassandra’s nose—you feel it crunch beneath the blow—and through the ensuing dizziness, you see her stumble backward.
“FUCK !” Blood, black and viscous, gushes from her nose.
Steeling yourself with a breath, you wind up and yank down, hard. The chain snaps. Your shoulders howl in agony. All at once, the full weight of your body surrenders itself to gravity.
With a burst of strength, you’re able to twist and avoid falling face-down—but you fall all the same. A hard surface greets your hip, then your shoulder as you collapse to the ground like a sack of potatoes. “Shit!”
Everything feels fast and slow at the same time. Your hands, still shackle-bound but no longer chained together, wrest the knife from your belly. You shriek as it comes out, setting off waves of agony in nauseating, full-body spasms.
When you regain your senses, you’re hunched over, watching your own blood-stained hands fumble to grasp a short length of rusted chain. Your legs. Right. Your fingers are fucking numb. You’re relying more on sight than feel to make them do what you want.
The chain shatters on the first go. Time, it seems, has made the iron brittle. That, or you’re too pumped up on adrenaline to curb your strength.
You look up just in time to see blazing yellow eyes and a curved blade hurtling for your neck. Instinct takes over. You roll out of the way and come up on your feet.
Your balance is shot, but you know this dance. The longer you stay up, the better it’ll get. You stagger through the door—unlocked, thank fuck—and sprint for all you’re worth down the corridor.
— —
Turns out, toes—small as they are—are pretty integral to running for your life. You’re only missing one of yours, and it’s fucking you beyond belief. Your sprint is more of an uneven, limping run. Your hips are none too happy about it.
With all this movement, blood flow returns swiftly. White-hot pins and needles roil within you, heating your flesh from the inside out. It would be pleasant if not for the icy chill that lingers on all sides. Hot and cold. The juxtaposition makes your skin feel tight and strained along every joint, like any sudden move will force it to rupture.
Just your luck that sudden moves are all that stand between you and an incredibly gruesome death.
After clambering up a long staircase, you’re met with two cold, stacked-stone rooms that house a small table and some dusty bookshelves. Fortune seems to favor you less now that you’re on the ground level. The moment you emerge, you’re tripping over nothing and sprawling face-first into the floor with a horrible, wet-sounding impact. By the time you scramble to your feet, there’s a nice blood-red smudge where you flopped, belly-down, on the stones.
No time to dally. You make for the doorway up ahead, where you’ll just have to pray Iulia doesn’t smash your face in with a cast-iron skillet for daring to intrude during daylight hours.
Whatever hopes you had for a hasty in-and-out are dashed just before the threshold. Your feet make it over, but just barely. The rest of you is yanked backward, by the fucking hair, with a tug so forceful, you think it a miracle your head remains attached to your body.
Your scalp screams. Your body is caught mid-air, almost perfectly horizontal to the ground, before gravity hauls you back down. A shout escapes you when you land, naked, on unforgiving rock with a bone-realigning force of impact.
Your eyelids flutter, trying to make sense of the spinning room and the tall, black-robed figure looming overhead.
“Filthy mutt!” A familiar shriek, accompanied by pale hands with a grip like iron. They haul you up and fling you through the archway. “You can’t escape me!”
You go flying untethered into the kitchens, and nose-first into something warm and solid. A grunt sounds from overhead, only to be swallowed by further chaos as your momentum carries you—and your makeshift landing pad—through a table that was probably wood, if the sound it makes giving way is any indication.
You end up in a tangled heap of limbs on the ground. Your landing pad is a person, you discern. Which is already bad enough, but to make matters worse, your face is glued to their, well, ample chest area.
When you manage to pull your head up, Paula’s brown eyes, wide with panic, meet yours. Her hair is wild, showered in splinters. Her body trembles beneath your own.
“Sorry. A-Accident,” you stammer. You try for a grin, but your face isn’t quite cooperating.
With that sorted, you scramble off of her and streak (pun intended) for the exit.
— —