Chapter 72: Blood
Mira’s blood ran cold at the sound of Aurelian’s voice.
Every instinct in her body was screaming at her to run. To bolt for the door and never look back. But she knew deep in her bones that running would be a death sentence.
She forced her body to move, slowly pushing herself up from where she’d been kneeling by the trapdoor. Like she’d just been examining the floorboards, not discovering a hidden prison with someone trapped inside.
She brushed imaginary dust from her dress with shaking hands. Tried to make her movements look casual, normal, even though her heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest.
She turned to face him. Arranged her features into what she hoped looked like mild surprise instead of gut-wrenching terror.
"Uh... uh... You startled me."
He didn’t blink. That chilling smile never even wavered from his face. "I see you’ve balanced yourself quite well in this house. You’ve made yourself so comfortable that you wander into private libraries in the dead of night."
His voice was like silk wrapped around a blade. Smooth on the surface but deadly underneath.
"I... I needed fresh air after dinner. I couldn’t sleep," she stammered. The lie felt flimsy and transparent, like he could see right through it but she continued with it anyways, better than nothing. "I thought I’d find a book to read."
"Read?" Aurelian repeated the single word slowly, letting it hang in the air. His tone dripped with skepticism. His eyes flickered toward the fallen binder on the floor, the one with those horrifying anatomical images splayed open for anyone to see. "Read what, exactly?"
Panic seized her throat, threatening to choke off her air.
Then she remembered.
The contract. The black leather folio was still on the floor where she’d dropped it earlier in her shock.
"This!" The word came out too loud, too desperate. She practically lunged toward the folio and snatched it up with both hands. She shoved the black leather folder at his chest. "I came to read the marriage contract. Lucas and I had a... disagreement about it earlier. At dinner."
Aurelian looked down at the folio like it was a piece of garbage someone had thrown at him. Then his eyes moved back to her face. His expression was completely unreadable and he made no move to take it from her.
A long, tense silence stretched between them. The only sound was the frantic pounding of her own heart in her ears. So loud she was sure he could hear it.
Aurelian finally spoke, looking at the folio as if it personally offended him. "A disagreement? My nephew must be losing his patience with your constant theatrics."
"No, he promised me things," Mira insisted. "He’s not holding up his end of the deal and he claims some shit so I have a right to read what I signed."
"Oh please, you have no rights here," Aurelian corrected her softly, taking one slow, deliberate step closer. His voice was quiet but somehow more terrifying than if he’d yelled. "You have privileges. And right now, you are abusing the privilege of breathing my air."
She took an involuntary step back, her spine hitting the bookshelf.
"Also, you should just read whatever the fuck you came here to read," he said, his voice dropping to a menacing whisper that made her skin crawl, "instead of poking your delicate human nose into business that will get it sliced clean off your face."
Human nose.
The word hung in the air like smoke. A confirmation of everything she’d just read in those books and binders. Everything she’d seen in the woods.
Even if they made no sense to her yet.
She nodded quickly, a jerky motion that probably looked as terrified as she felt. "Yes. Of course."
She didn’t wait for him to say another word. Clutching the folio like it was a shield that could somehow protect her, she practically fled across the library to a high-backed leather chair in the center of the room. As far from that trapdoor as she could possibly get.
She sank into the chair, turning her back to him. Blindly opened the folio and stared at the dense legal text without actually seeing a single word. The letters blurred together into meaningless shapes.
Every single fiber of her being was screaming at her to run. To get out of this library, out of this house, off this cursed estate and never look back.
But she stayed rooted to the spot. Because she knew... she knew with absolute certainty that if she bolted now, she would be confirming every single one of his suspicions so she had to play the part of the oblivious woman who’d just been caught reading her contract.
She could feel his gaze burning into her back and drilling holes between her shoulder blades. She could tell that he was still standing there, still watching her.
But then he soon moved.
She heard his footsteps, but they didn’t head toward the exit like she’d desperately hoped.
They headed toward the trapdoor.
Her blood turned to actual ice in her veins even though she didn’t dare turn around to look.
She heard it the distinct, heavy clink of metal on metal.
The sound of the padlock being unlocked and opened.
"No... please, no more..." A weak, broken voice whimpered from below the moment the lock clicked open. The desperation in that voice made her stomach turn.
Aurelian ignored the plea completely as she heard the groan of old hinges as the trapdoor was lifted, followed by the soft thud of it being set aside against the floor.
Then footsteps followed. Not on the library floor, but descending. On what sounded like wooden stairs leading down into the earth below. The sound was also soon swallowed by darkness.
She sat frozen in the chair. The contract was trembling in her hands, the pages shaking so hard she couldn’t have read them even if she wanted to.
Muffled, indistinct voices drifted up from the opening in the floor. She couldn’t make out actual words. Only tones. One calm and authoritative, definitely Aurelian. The other desperate and pleading, choking on fear.
She strained her ears. Her whole body was tensed like a coiled spring ready to snap. But the voices were too low, too muffled. The words were lost in the library’s huge space.
She caught only fragments. Something that sounded like "My patience" from Aurelian, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper, "is gone."
The pleading tone grew more frantic. Rising in pitch like a kettle about to scream.
Then it was cut off abruptly.
Mira flinched so hard she nearly dropped the folio. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the gasp that tried to escape. Her stomach twisted into a knot of pure ice.
The scream echoed in the ringing silence that followed. It was the most horrifying sound she had ever heard in her life.
What did he just do? Oh god, what did he just do down there?
A moment later, footsteps began again. Calm and measured and completely unbothered. Coming back up those stairs.
She heard the trapdoor being lifted. The heavy, final sound of wood meeting wood as it was swung shut.
Then the definitive, cold click of the padlock being snapped back into place.
Aurelian’s footsteps now echoed on the library floor, moving in her direction. Getting closer
and closer.
She stared blindly at the contract in her lap. Her vision was swimming with terror and tears she refused to let fall.
He didn’t stop at her chair though, instead, he just walked right past her without even a glance, like she was nothing more than another piece of furniture in his way.
"Read the contract well, Lorena." His voice was eerily calm. Almost conversational, like he was just making polite small talk, like he hadn’t just done some crazy shit in that place he was coming out from.
"Good night." He added as he continued walking toward the library’s main doors.
As he passed behind her chair, his back to her, her eyes, which were of course wide with horror, dropped down to his hands.
They were hanging loosely at his sides in a completely relaxed manner
And they were covered in fresh, glistening, crimson blood.
It stained his knuckles in dark smears that streaked across his palms.
They were so dark and wet... and so obviously fresh it couldn’t be anything else.
He also didn’t even try to hide it.
He didn’t wipe them on his expensive trousers nor even try to clean them off. He simply walked out of the library with bloodied hands like it was the most normal thing in the world.
She could see a few faint, bloody smudges left on the polished floor where he’d touched something. The marks stood out stark against the light wood.
The soft click of the library door closing behind him was somehow the loudest sound Mira had ever heard.
And even as she remained paralyzed in the chair she was sitting in, the image of his bloodied hands was burned into her mind like a brand. Playing over and over on repeat.
What on earth did he just do?
Who was down there?
Are they even still alive?