"What did you use the Nullshade for?" asked the councilman.
"I gave it to her." He pointed to the maid. "She works inside the house while I work outside. Since they do not take blood from the workers outside, I decided to team up with her. Tell him what they did to you, Katie," he encouraged the girl, who had been silent the whole ti.
The councilman turned his eyes back to the girl, who then began to shake as she started to recount her experience with the people of the house.
"When he told to forget that he took my blood," she said, referring to Rav, "I forgot it then and couldn’t even rember it happened until I went to sleep last night and suddenly began to see flashes of the mories because of the pill I had swallowed. He took my blood in a jar and drank from it, and took more to take away..." She shuddered, as if she couldn’t believe it, then raised the sleeve of her dress to show the spot she had been bitten and cut for blood.
She had never seen a vampire and had only heard about them, and to think that the house she worked in were that—she couldn’t believe it.
"And I think they killed Dayna..." she sobbed with trembling lips. "I rember that Sir Rav telling us we should forget Dayna and we never knew her."
Already hearing what he needed, the councilman got up to his feet.
"That’s enough proof to go into this house. Mr. Rufford, I will advise you not to return to the house and go back ho. I will let you know the outco once we get these people into our hands. And Miss, that goes for you too. Go back ho and stay away until I inform you it is safe. If you’ll excuse , I have to gather my n."
The councilman strode out of the office, barking orders at his clerk to send the ssage to the king.
Ben could not help his relief and joy at finally proving himself to the councilman. He did not mind losing the stupid job, as he was certain that when all of this was over and those people were killed, he would be famous and get rewarded for this. Though the woman he had planned to marry had been killed, having money would allow him to marry a noblewoman for doing a noble job of exposing imposters.
Ben went ho that evening feeling proud of himself and what he had accomplished. He walked toward the common part of town where his small house was located. His ho was a small cabin nestled closer to nature than the bustling main city.
Stepping into the yard, he unlocked the door and entered the dark, cramped space.
Familiar with the layout of everything in his ho, he moved through the darkness, fumbling to find the lamp and tinderbox to light it. As he whistled to himself, thinking about how everything would soon change for the better, his eyes slowly began to adjust to the dark.
That was when he noticed it.
A faint spark of orange light flickered and dimd from the far end of the room, like the glowing tip of a cigar. His spine stiffened as the scent of cigar smoke wafted to his nose, and instantly, he knew what that spark ant.
Soone was inside his house.
He realized this in alarm, but he tried to control his reaction and began to silently back away towards the door as he noticed the faint outline of soone sitting on the single chair in his room, placed next to the hearth.
If soone was inside his house without unlocking his door to enter, it only ant danger.
The person did not move, and Ben kept his eyes on the outline as he reached the door and turned the knob to make an escape.
But the mont the door opened and he stepped out to leave, an unseen power seed to pull him back into the room, and the door slamd shut in his face.
When he crawled up from where he had fallen, ready to run, he tried to turn the knob again, but it did not move—and it broke in his frantic attempt to twist and pull. He looked at the knob now in his hand and at the tightly sealed door. He swallowed his first wave of dread and anxiety, knowing whoever the person in the room was... wasn’t human.
How did he pull him back and close the door?!
When there was no movent inside the dark room, Ben found the courage to turn and face the person—but his eyes widened when he noticed the outline was gone from where he had been sitting, smoking.
He frantically looked around him, trying to detect where the person was as he pulled a dagger out of his boot and held it with both hands in front of him.
"Sh-Show yourself!" he called out to the darkness. "I-I know you are in here."
He tried to be brave and face whatever was inside his house, as he couldn’t leave. But only silence t his words. There were no sounds or movents apart from his loud breathing and heartbeat.
It was almost as if he had imagined a person sitting in his chair smoking, and the door slamming on his face.
He began to relax when nobody appeared even after few minutes and decided he must have imagined it all. He brought his hand down slowly and then walked to the table in his small kitchen, finding the tinderbox and lamp.
He turned on the lamp, and the golden glow illuminated the space. He was turning to go back and inspect the room when, out of nowhere, soone appeared in front of him—right in the view of the light.
"Looking for , Rufford?" asked the person, gripping his neck and cutting off the scream of terror that rose in his throat the mont he opened his mouth. The lamp slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor just as his feet lifted off the wooden boards, dangling midair as he was hoisted by the throat.
"I have always wanted to do this since the first day I t you," said the calm voice of his attacker, who he recognized as the master with the unusual black eyes from the manor he worked in.
"You..." Ben tried to choke out but talking was impossible and his eyes could only widened.
Rohan had waited for the man, knowing where he was coming from and what he had been up to with the councilman. He had almost thought Ben wouldn’t return and was contemplating paying him a visit at the councilman’s place.
Now he watched as the man’s face turned red, struggling for breath, trying to pry Rohan’s fingers from around his fragile human neck, his eyes turning bloodshot.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. You should have just minded your business, Ben. You had to go and get yourself a death warrant."
He remarked as his grip tightened around the human.
"You’ve ssed up things for , and it’s only right I get rid of you."
If only Kuhn were here to feed on this human’s pathetic soul, Rohan thought, as his fangs grew in his mouth and his black orbs consud the entire white.
"I hope you journey safely to the land of the dead."
Saying this, Rohan sank his fangs into the human’s neck and drank his blood until life drained out of him—and his head fell off like a doll’s from his neck. He dropped the body and then used his gloved thumb to wipe off any trace of blood from his lips.
Instead of leaving, Rohan stood before the body and nonchalantly retrieved a cigar from his pocket, then crouched down to touch a fla from the lamp that was already spilling kerosene on the floor.
He took a deep drag from the cigar, and the scented smoke clouded his face for a mont before it cleared—his eyes still not returning to normal, with dark veins bulging beneath his skin like tiny, tangled roots.
The urge to kill still boiled inside him. He was done taming himself in a land he knew he did not belong.
He had wanted to do it because he believed his wife would want him to keep her safe before anyone else—but she had just proven to him that others ant so much more to her than he did. She had chosen soone she didn’t even know for long over him.
That thought stung at his heart more than he thought it would.
Rohan would have chosen her over a million people, no matter who they were. He would choose her over anything.
This morning, he had left the house early to stop this piece of shit from ever reaching the councilman and to get rid of whatever evidence he had gathered from sneaking around the house, like Rav had reported to him yesterday afternoon.
Rav had noticed the human being sneaky and then co to report to him imdiately.
Rohan had followed the man around, watching everything he was doing and studying him. But today, when he was finally ready to end it all and erase the evidence, his wife had made him realize he no longer wanted to live in hiding, or wait until she gave birth before taking action.
He would finish everything now and get it over with.
Sticking a finger into his ear, he pulled out the cotton he had made a habit of stuffing into them. He pulled both out, and imdiately, the sounds from miles away rushed in. Though it was uncomfortable, he could now hear what he needed to listen to.
Throwing the cotton away, Rohan stood up from his crouching position and dropped his cigar into the kerosene pooling on the floor. The fla sparked, then caught fire. He walked over to the chair, took his coat, draped it over one shoulder, and strode out the door with a steady gait, while a fire was already burning behind him.
The mont he stepped onto the porch, he opened his mighty black wings and flew into the night sky without looking back at the burning house.
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