“Yes, my Lord?” she said sweetly.
“Keira is feeling unwell, can you escorted her to the restroom and then see that she makes her way safely back here… to me,” he added this last part as a threat I was sure, given that he had turned to look directly at me when saying it. I couldn’t help my reaction when I bit my lip. Okay, so scrap that, he knew.
“But of course, Keira, the restroom is this way,” she said sweetly and I almost felt sorry for her, after all, I doubted very much that she would be returning here with me in tow. Not if I had anything to do with it that was. I stomped my other foot into my boot, not stopping to tie up the laces as I didn’t want to do that in front of him. I just needed to get out of there and clear my head. I wanted to find some hole to swallow me up in and stay there until my tears ran dry. I had been played and I knew it!
“Idiot, Keira!” I said to myself making Candra turn back to me and ask,
“Sorry, did you say something?” I shook my head and smiled. Then I continued to follow her to some hidden doors at the back of the room…the furthest point from the exit I thought with a grind of my teeth.
“I will wait here for you,” she told me and I laughed trying to sound light hearted, even though it felt like it had been pumped with lead and landed in my bloody stomach.
“Oh, that’s all right, I am sure I can find my way back,” I told her, hoping she didn’t take her job as seriously as Draven thought…I was wrong.
“I obey orders,” she stated simply, telling me basically I was screwed. I laughed nervously and muttered as I walked into the restroom,
“But of course, you do.” I then let the door shut behind me and I looked back to see if it had a lock, as I was half tempted to stay in here all night if it meant getting away with not seeing Draven for the rest of it! I walked to one of the fancy cubicles briefly taking in all the pale marble, carved stone and wrought iron fixtures. I shut the door behind me and sat down on the closed lid. Once in what I considered a safe place I leant forward cradling my head in my hands as I let the tears fall. I just couldn’t help it. The emotional roller-coaster that was Draven was breaking my heart and he didn’t even know it.
So, I cried for the taste of Draven I had been given and now lost. Because the reality of my situation was clear. I could either go out there and continue to drink in his flirtations as if I had no clue as to the reasons behind them or I could put a stop to the lies and leave. I was stupidly tempted to do the first but then I knew it wouldn’t have been real and I couldn’t live a lie. Not unless it had been constructed from my own fantasies and lived out through a harmless dream. But a lie? No, I couldn’t live out a lie and enjoy it.
Now the question was how the Hell was I going to get out of here? I supposed I could just walk out there and scream the place down, shaming myself and him enough that I would give him no choice but to get me out of there…maybe even having me escorted by a member of his staff. It sounded good, if even the idea of doing so had me feeling sick for real this time.
A few minutes later, after a brief knock at the door from Candra I pulled myself together enough to say,
“I am coming, just give me a sec.” Then I heard a muttered voice say,
“Allow me, I will see if I can help.” Then I heard the door close and I jumped when I heard a bang on my door as if someone had slapped a palm to it.
“Knock, knock, piggy,” said a voice I loathed. I snarled inwardly knowing that by that comment alone the bitch Layla had heard everything between me and Draven. I opened the door feeling my anger replace my hurt and saw that she was smirking, leaning against my door frame like she was relishing the sight of me upset.
“Do me a favour and crawl back to whatever hole you just crawled out of…I am not in the mood for your shit!” I snapped pushing past her and going to the sinks. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that it was obvious that I had been crying. The whites of my eyes were now red and tear lines still stained my skin like invisible tracks of despair.
“I would be more than happy to, the only problem is you are there,” she told me making me frown at her. Had she really just implied that she thought of Afterlife as a hole? If so, then why was she here?
“Well there isn’t much I can do about that with Candra waiting outside the door to take me back to ‘Your Lord’.” I threw back at her. This is when she hissed at me and in a heartbeat had her hand at the back of my neck, pushing me against the mirror over the sinks.
“He is no Lord of mine,” she snarled next to my face.
“Get off me!” I warned but it felt like an empty threat as she had hold of me and there was little I could do.
“Not yet.”
“If you don’t then I will scream and everyone, including Draven will coming running in here,” I threatened her, knowing this was probably my only hope.
“Then that will only defeat the object of your current desires,” she told me in a sickly voice, which made me shudder.
“And what is that?” I gritted out.
“To get out of here without him seeing you leave,” she told me and I hated that she was right. Because in this moment in time that was all I wanted.
“Oh, and you’re going to help me with that, are you?” I asked sarcastically and she snapped her teeth at me twice, like some strange creepy tick. Then she released me, making me fall forward as she pushed me aside. I saved myself on the sinks before righting myself up.
“I don’t help your kind, I destroy it.” She added this last part as though something else inside of her had said it. It was some demonic rasp, grating against the bars of reality she was keeping it locked against. I wanted to ask her what she was but I was afraid to. I took a step back, knowing now that I wasn’t simply against another catty woman acting like a bitch with a grudge. She was dangerous and I…
I was in danger.
“Ah, finally you are starting to see. Well I will grant you with the sight you chose to ignore, so you can see this place for what it really is. Consider it my gift to you, that and my helping you escape,” she told me calmly pulling out a tube of lipstick from her bag and reapplying the red stain to her pouting lips.
“But you said that you don’t help my kind.”
“Yes, but it will be done so for my gain,” she answered me calmly.
“You want me out of the way.” I guessed and she grinned, her lips reaching higher on one side.
“It is only a matter of time until he casts you aside anyway, I am simply speeding up the process,” she threw at me, straightening her long platinum hair off to one side. I couldn’t help but look at myself in the mirror in comparison. No makeup, I looked tired with sore eyes that had been self-abused with my crying. My hair lay in a mass of wavy curls the colour of straw, loose and untamed. My clothes black and plain, just like I was.
“Did you really think a man like Dominic Draven could want something like you. Look around his world and see the beauty that fills it…you certainly won’t find yourself there but more like cast to the shadows where you belong.” She told me playing on my insecurities like a puppet pulling strings of a doll that didn’t want to hurt herself but couldn’t get away. I hated her but I hated myself even more for believing…if only for a second. She was right. Why would a man like Draven ever want…
Want me.
“What about Candra?” I asked deflated but knowing that if she was the only one who could get me out of here, then I would have no choice but to take what warped help she had to offer.
“Leave her to me, all you have to concern yourself with is getting yourself gone.”
“And how do I do that when the only exits are either locked or guarded?” I asked hating myself even more for it.
“There is a side door. It is hidden from sight by a red curtain. I made sure it was left unlocked. I will create a distraction and when I do, you can run for it,” she told me, making it obvious she had planned this from the start.
“Where does it lead to?” This was something I needed t
o know if I was going to be successful as she no doubt hoped I was.
“It leads to the roof.”
“Oh, and let me guess, you want me to then jump off it.” I mocked sardonically. She gave me a flat lipped look as if to say, ‘Funny but no’.
“Well if you would prefer then please don’t let me stop you. But if falling to your death doesn’t appeal, then take the staircase down. It leads around Draven’s private chamber and balcony.” I thought on this and hated the idea that my last few steps in Afterlife would be in the place I had dreamed of being in the most…Draven’s room.
“Once there you will be able to slip through his chamber and into the main hallway. This leads directly back into the club…from there on I think you know your way out,” she said, stinging me with this last piece of venom and emphasising that my station in Draven’s life was always meant to lead to one place… outside his front door.
“Of course, I don’t have to remind you never to set foot inside these walls once again or I cannot be held accountable for what may happen to you,” she threatened, looking down at her nails as if waiting for them to change into claws so she had a weapon to back it up with.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I snapped.
“Well I should hope not but just in case you momentarily lose what sanity you have left, I will leave you with the gift I spoke of.” This was the only warning I received before she attacked. I tried to scream out as she landed on top of me but her hand slapped down over my mouth. I tried to bite her and kick my legs from under her but it was as if she had the strength of ten men. I couldn’t understand it, that was until her eyes started to glow red and I knew in a terrifying heartbeat that she wasn’t human…no, she was one of my demons!
“Now you will see the horrors that no longer hide under your bed but above it, with you beneath us like the insects you are!” She growled down at me before biting into my neck to open a wound. I screamed in agony under the restraints of her hand as I felt her teeth pierce the taut skin arched back with her hand pressing hard on my forehead, holding me still. Then she released me, pulled back a bit and seemed to spit in the open wound she had created. Her sadistic mouth smiled as she looked down at me, with long strings of crimson ribbons dripping from her lips as my blood escaped her.
“Now you will see the true nature of the nightmare you dream of having in your bed,” she snarled down at me just as my vision started to blur. I closed my eyes as a strange feeling started to rise up in me. I felt drugged and I shook my head feeling her hand now slip away.
It was done.
She had finished and so was I.
Visions of Draven flickered through my mind over and over as though they were being played out in some kind of flicker book my mind had created. I would see him first as a man and then he would change. A great shadow would slowly appear behind him until the images would change quicker from man to monster until pretty soon no part of the man was left. What was happening? What had she done to me?
I don’t know how long I remained on the floor but at some point, I started to open my eyes and the ceiling above came into view. I raised my hand to the pain in my neck and looked back to see my fingertips painted red. I decided I needed to move. I didn’t know what I was going to do next but I couldn’t stay here. What if she came back or worse, what if Draven found me and what she had shown me was true. What if the secret Draven was trying to hide wasn’t that he spent his time in a private sex club at all.
What if it wasn’t what Draven was into but what if it was what Draven was. Either way I needed to get out of here and my last hope started and ended with that crazy bitch’s schemes. So, I pushed my body to move, no matter how much it hurt to do so. The aches and bruises from having her land on top of me and tackle me to the ground would mean pain tomorrow no doubt but that wasn’t my main concern right now. It was making sure that there was a tomorrow for me that was what I needed to ensure and getting my ass up was the start of that.
I pulled myself first to my knees and then, placing a hand on the sinks, I pulled myself to my feet. I looked in the mirror to see that my neck had been torn into and the streams of blood that trickled down it were the result. I stepped over to the shelf, falling side on into the wall thanks to the affects her bite had caused. I still felt drugged, which was why my hands were shaking as I reached for the folded black hand cloths that I guess were used to wipe your hands after washing them.
I placed it by my neck to aid in stopping the bleeding and grabbed another one for when I needed it, stuffing it in my pocket. Then I pushed open the toilet’s main door a crack to see if Candra was still there…she wasn’t. It looked like the bitch was keeping her end of things at least I thought with a sneer. Well it was now or never. I pushed myself through the door and looked around trying to see what her idea of a diversion was.
I squinted as my sight started to blur once more and then it would clear after I rubbed my eyes with my one free hand. My other was trying to keep the cloth in place and I could feel the blood dripping from beneath it down my side. Then just as I starting to write Layla off as the traitorous bitch she was, there came a loud noise from one of the waitresses serving a rowdy group of drinkers. It was Layla and she slapped a man before kicking him in the chest. He fell back onto another man and quickly a fight broke out. My eyes automatically went to Draven who had motioned for his men to sort it out.
This gave me my opportunity as the door she spoke of became accessible. I turned around, looking down as they passed and then back again to the door. I ran towards it at a steady pace as I didn’t want to make a scene as I pushed passed people but thankfully they seemed too busy in getting in on the fight to take much notice of me.
I just reached one table and the effects of Layla’s bite started to take hold again. I bent over it for a moment as my vision went and my legs with it. I managed to hold myself up using the edge of the table until it started to clear but before it did, I looked left, testing that vision and saw the unbelievable.
A girl’s face changed from being beautiful to horrendous with one shake of her head. Teeth, row after row of them embedded not only in her elongated mouth, but down the line of her chin. Eyes like fire burned back into mine as if she knew I could see her for what she truly was. She snarled at me and I turned to her friend who made me want to vomit. Red flesh hung down in patches as if she had been sown together over a rotting corpse. They were terrifying and I stumbled back and would have fallen had it not been for another table behind me. I looked to its occupants and they too were monsters. It was all true. My demons were back and this time they were everywhere!
I turned and ran as fast as I could to the door and just as I pulled it open I turned to look.
I knew it was wrong.
I knew it was a mistake.
But I had to know…I just had to know.
And I was right.
Draven was a Demon.
Chapter 32
Bathroom Blood.
Book 1
NEW
I pushed open the door and ran to save my life as my heart had already been lost in the sight of what Draven really was. If I were to live until the grand old age of a hundred, I don’t think any sickness of the mind would be strong enough to eradicate that image and cast it aside, putting it down to madness. I wished I could have believed I was simply drugged and it was all an illusion but the problem I had with this theory was that I had seen Layla for what she really was before she had bitten me.
So that, along with all other excuses for Draven sat upon his throne with dark wings and purple veins pulsating around his body, were all but spent. I had nothing left but dangerous questions. Questions I certainly wasn’t stupid enough to stick around to have answered. Hell, but I wasn’t even sure that if he ever did get his hands on me that he wouldn’t just kill me saving himself the bother. It wasn’t exactly as if he wouldn’t be able to make it looked self-inflicted, not with my past and scars to go with it.
I shuddered this horrific thought away, casting it from my mind as much as my current situation would let me. Instead I ran up the stairs and like Layla had said, it led onto the roof. It was freezing up there and with the winter’s chill, it had also started to rain. It felt like icy shards were cutting into my skin, whipping and lashing down at me like the Gods above were angry.
I looked behind me, my hair becoming soaked as waves clumped together and stuck to my face. But I didn’t care, what I cared about was whether or not I was being followed. I released a small sigh of relief when I saw no one and I continued around the stone roof looking for a way down.
The small walls enclosing the space looked like they had been taken off a castle, with square dips in the blocks so that someone could peer over the sides. Well that wouldn’t be me, that was for damn sure as I hated heights. A thought that hit me full throttle when I saw the winding staircase she had spoken about.
“Shit!” I said out loud, wondering if jumping off hadn’t been a better option right now, as I was sure my nerves would never survive such a thing. The steps that wound around the turret like structure were without balustrades or anything to stop you from just falling off the edge. They were wet and slippery and being this high up in the dark it looked like a never-ending abyss below me. But what other choices did I have?
None.
I knew this when I heard an almighty bellow of rage, that was quickly followed by the shattering of what sounded like a thousand windows. I knew then.
I had been found out and…
Draven was coming for me.
So, I took a deep breath and just hoped that I didn’t fall to my death.
“No time for being clumsy today, Keira,” I said taking that first step. Then I took another and another before I no longer thought about it and desperation took over my fear. A greater horror over another could do that for a person, I found as I thankfully reached the bottom.