Chapter 174: A Predator in Love
After dinner, Ruelle returned to her room while Peyton stood right outside her door. When she stepped further inside, her eyes caught a shadow near the fireplace, where the light fell on the fur.
It was Zhenya. At the rustle of her clothes, the wolf opened his eyes and lifted his head.
"What are you doing here all by yourself?" Ruelle asked the wolf, making her way toward the fireplace with a smile. "Were you waiting for me?"
Hearing her speak, the door opened. Peyton suddenly took a peek inside, her eyes conducting a rapid assessment of the space before her gaze found the wolf. Her dagger was quick to be pulled out.
"He’s a pet. Don’t hurt him!" Ruelle quickly shielded the wolf by coming in between, her hands raised on either side. A low growl came from behind her, the wolf’s eyes focusing on the vampiress.
The vampiress stared at them for a long moment before finally lowering the dagger. Soon, the wolf nudged its muzzle into Ruelle’s hand with particular affection. She noticed the vampiress’s eyes moved to look at the closed window and then back at her.
Peyton took a step back away from the door, bowing her head, she closed it. But just as the vampiress, turned, she caught a figure approaching in the corridor.
"Hello there, grumpy," Dane greeted.
Peyton didn’t respond through words or by action. Her face remained expressionless, her attention unwavering. She informed,
"Miss Belmont is preparing to sleep."
"Aw, that’s alright. I am here for you," Dane’s voice came with that particular warmth that made it impossible to tell if he was being sincere or manipulative. He pulled out two cookies from his pocket, a gesture so casual it should have seemed harmless. "You will die for boredom standing here like a guard dog. Might as well enjoy some treats while you are at it."
When Carnifex’s assistant briefly glanced at Dane’s hand, he added, "I noticed you didn’t have anything to eat, as you have been following Ruelle all day long. It would be rather harsh if you were to faint when you are in the Slaters’ mansion."
"I already fed myself in the courthouse. You don’t have to worry about such things, Mr. Slater," Peyton answered, before her eyes returned to the door behind which Ruelle and the wolf were in the room. Her ears were trained on the human to make sure she was safe as well as kept pure as per the instructions she had received.
"If you are worried about turning fat, don’t mind it. Women look much better when they have meat on the bones," Dane hummed, noticing her continued silence. "Or do you think that I have... laced something in the cookies?"
He then took a bite from one of them before swallowing. But the woman remained uninterested in his gimmicks.
They could hear Ruelle talking to the wolf inside the room. The vampiress said,
"I didn’t know Miss Belmont had a wolf as a pet."
"He suits her, doesn’t he?" Dane said, and something in his expression suggested he wasn’t talking about the wolf at all. "Lucian and she brought the wolf from the forest when they were little. She doesn’t remember it so my brother raised it."
The information hung in the air before he continued, "You might be curious as to why he didn’t tell her about it."
"I didn’t ask."
Peyton’s response came defensively, as if she should have stayed quiet.
But Dane only smiled. He replied, "You don’t have to be shy about it. Lucian doesn’t want to reveal their past moments, as if the fruit would be sweeter if she remembered it herself. He could help her remember, but instead he waits. He has patience."
"Let us hope it stays the same for the next nineteen days."
Dane chuckled at that. "Aren’t you a little too on them? Feeling lonely and projecting the dissatisfaction on the kids?"
When Peyton didn’t respond, Dane stared at her as if he had found a button to push and intended to keep pressing it. "Do you know if I were in my brother’s place, I would have revealed everything and also tied the person to me."
The door opened and Ruelle looked slightly surprised to find Dane standing outside her room. She asked, "Brother Dane, what are you doing here?"
"Making sure Peyton isn’t bored," his response came with innocence.
"Mr. Slater, I am content standing alone if you think I need your company. It would be better for you to find your amusements somewhere else," Peyton didn’t look at him as she said it.
"Woe is me. Care for some cookies?" Dane asked but then said, "On second thought, maybe not. Who knows what’s in it."
He then asked Ruelle, "Why haven’t you gone to bed yet? You know, in the past, there was a time when you and your family once stayed here, just for one night, and you were so scared that we slept together."
Peyton stared at Dane before he wished Ruelle a goodnight and the young woman returned inside the room.
Going to the bed, Ruelle wondered...Was Brother Dane trying to woo Peyton? But at the same time, something didn’t feel right about it.
Climbing inside the bed, she patted the mattress. The wolf was quick to jump on the bed, walking in circles before curling next to her. The wolf’s warmth was comforting and she ran her hand through its thick coat.
"Shouldn’t you be sleeping in Lucian’s room next to him?" she murmured. Hearing the wolf whine, she laid her head on the pillow, watching its eyes stare back at her.
When her thoughts drifted to what she had dreamed, a soft sigh escaped her lips.
The memory had left uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. Fragments of the past bleeding through. But she told herself it was in the past.
The present was different. Lucian wouldn’t reject her.
Which was why it was important that they followed all the conditions, thought Ruelle to herself. She didn’t want to be torn away from him.
"Wonder what he is doing now..." she whispered.
It was funny how she wished to return to Sexton. Where she had gotten used to watching him as she fell asleep. At the same thought, she wondered how Hailey and Kevin were faring in the presence of King Septimus.
"Let us dream something good this time." Ruelle buried her head into the wolf’s fur, which was more than happy to nudge closer to her.
And while Ruelle tried to get some sleep, far away from the Slaters’ mansion and near one of the town’s edge, Harold Belmont counted the change in his hand which he had won through gambling.
"I will be making good money in no time. Just need to pay the minister and they will let Caroline off the hook," Harold muttered, slipping the coins back into his pocket.
After leaving the Henley’s residence, Mr. and Mrs. Belmont had gone to stay in one of the relatives’ houses. A temporary arrangement, they’d been told. Just for a few days until Ezekiel brought a new place. His son-in-law—who had disappeared last afternoon—had appeared before them to inform them he was trying to get help today.
And also that Lucian Slater had put Caroline in the dungeon!
"I should put him inside the dungeon," Harold huffed, his breath escaping in fog that caught the lamplight.
The absurdity of the threat—that he, a human, could do anything to Lucian Slater—didn’t occur to him. Or perhaps he was so consumed by his own arrogance that he needed to imagine scenarios where he held control.
He looked around, as if waiting for the late local carriage to return. It was then that he noticed a shadow fall on him. The shadow elongated, the movement of something getting closer.
When Mr. Belmont turned on his heel to see who it was, a rusted metal came in contact with his face with a force that made his thoughts pause for a few seconds. When the metal and the bone of his head collided, it made a sharp clang sound without warning. His head spun and he fell sideways onto the snow-covered ground.
He groaned as the pain shot through his jaw and he felt something in his mouth. When he spat, a bloody tooth fell on the snow.
"What the fu—fuck?!" Mr. Belmont opened his mouth wide, feeling the pain radiate like wildfire. Blood spilt out of his mouth and coated the snow next to his hand.
When Mr. Belmont turned to see who had dared—his eyes widened. Dark red eyes stared down at him without emotion.
Lucian Slater stood there holding the shovel loosely in one gloved hand, his black coat blending almost seamlessly into the night behind him.
"Wh—what are you doing here?" Mr. Belmont demanded, his lips trembling with shock and fear. "I will report your doings to the courthouse and make sure you and Ruelle don’t stay together. Don’t you know about the treaty?!"
"I know you will," Lucian answered calmly, tilting his head to the side, staring at the human with the particular interest one might show an insect. "That is precisely why it needs to be fixed."
"My wife will tell! We have told others what you did so you can’t silence me," Mr. Belmont threatened, even as he tried to scramble away from the pureblooded vampire.
Lucian closed the distance by walking toward Mr. Belmont. The shovel scraped against the cold ground, a sound that promised nothing good. Right now, his eyes were colder than they had been before leaving the mansion.
But Mr. Belmont was only a human, one who was a coward and his threat didn’t stand strong at the sight of the shovel. His voice cracked, "What do you want?! Why are you coming after me?"
"To kill you."
Mr. Belmont’s eyes widened and he looked terrified. Having already gone through pain by Lucian’s hands, he tried to stand and began to run. He tried to get back to the town from which he had come earlier, and his lips parted in panic to scream, "ANYONE THER—"
The shovel smacked the back of his head, strong enough to make him lose his balance and his head rang harder than before. He fell right on his face and fear had caught on to his legs which refused to move. Lucian came to stand above him, his silhouette blocking out whatever light remained. His expression remained calm.
"Let me go—Let me—"
"Shh," Lucian’s voice came almost gently, which somehow made the terror in Mr. Belmont’s chest worsen. He crouched before the human, one gloved hand reaching calmly for Mr. Belmont’s ankle. "You spent years calling yourself a man while breaking down your own daughter. Surely you can endure something this small."
The next second, Mr. Belmont’s eyes widened from the sharp pain that erupted along with crack of the bone. But before he could scream, Lucian swung the shovel across the human’s face, and the man, this time, fell unconscious.
Lucian stared at Harold Belmont’s unconscious face for a long moment. Snow continued to fall quietly around them while blood spilt beneath the human’s head. It wasn’t enough.
Something violent moved beneath Lucian’s skin. The memory of Ruelle standing at the edge of that cliff refused to leave him and the thought alone made something inside him turn vicious.
Without a word, the pureblooded vampire bent down and seized the human by the arm before dragging him deeper into the nearby forest. Harold’s body scraped against the snow-covered ground behind him.
Once they reached the heart of the forest, he dropped the human.
Pulling a cigar from inside his coat, Lucian slid it between his lips before lighting the end of it. The brief flare of fire illuminated the sharp lines of his face and the dark red of his eyes, casting something almost wicked across his otherwise composed expression.
He took a slow drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs while the scent of blood and winter lingered in the air around him. For a moment, silence settled through the forest once more. He then exhaled.
The smoke curled lazily past his lips, drifting upward through the cold night while the ember at the end of the cigar burned red against the darkness.
"Is he dead? I guess not." It was Dane, who walked towards where his brother stood. Mr. Belmont stirred in pain, groaning and whimpering, while he tried to gain a complete conscious state. The human had begun to sob. "What did he do to get you this pissed?"
"What would you do," Lucian asked, the ember of the cigar glowing briefly between his fingers, "if you found the one thing you hold most dearly almost ceased to exist before you could reach it?"
The question lingered in the cold air.
Cease to exist, even thinking the words felt wrong to him. The soul bond was more than what was spoken and known about. It allowed the marker to draw in the person’s essence, to peek into dreams and he had seen and heard it all.
Ruelle could have disappeared before he ever reached her. The thought settled inside him violently. As though something precious had nearly been stolen from him before he even realised it belonged to him at all.
The muscle in Lucian’s jaw tightened.
Mr. Belmont held his head in his hand, his face scrunched in pain as he tried to focus his eyes on not just one but two pureblooded vampires.
"Well, it is simple. Rid the root of the problem, of course," Dane answered with a smile that held no mercy.
Lucian walked to where Mr. Belmont had tried to get up only to end up shrieking at the broken ankle.
"I am telling you—Don’t hurt me!" Mr. Belmont tried to reason through the pain. The futility of it was almost pathetic. "How do you think Ruelle would feel if she found out that you killed her father?! She has a soft heart, and she might have been okay with you hurting my hands, but death is too extreme! You will make her hate you!"
Lucian didn’t respond.
He simply raised the shovel before bringing it down onto the human’s leg with enough force for the bone to crush beneath it. A sickening crack split through the forest.
When Mr. Belmont was about to scream in pain, Lucian caught the man by the jaw and forced the burning end of the cigar into his mouth. The sharp scent of burnt flesh filled the cold air instantly.
"Mmgh—!"
The scream turned into a choked, broken sound. Lucian’s hand remained firmly over the human’s mouth while smoke, ash and the taste of charred skin were forced down the human’s throat. Tears burned from Mr. Belmont’s eyes as his body convulsed helplessly beneath him.
Yet Lucian’s expression never changed.
"I told you to stay quiet," Lucian said in a low voice, the look in his eyes eerily calm.
Dane looked amused by the sight before him. "Hard to imagine how Ruelle turned out this sweet with people like him."
"Please let me go!" Mr. Belmont begged, after he was forced to swallow the cigar down his throat. The desperation in his voice had transformed into pure panic. "I will stay far away from Ruelle. Megan and I will never see her again!"
Lucian leaned forward, staring at the human with the intensity of a predator observing its prey. He questioned, "Do you know why you are here, Harold Belmont?"
"It—It is my fault! It is why I am here!" Mr. Belmont replied in haste, desperate to provide the answer that would save him. "Because of Ruelle, right?"
"You almost killed her. How do you think that makes me feel?" Lucian asked, his eyes hollow and emotionless. "I kept you alive for her, thinking you might apologise to her. But I see it was useless. Just like you."
Mr. Belmont swallowed, his lips trembling. He replied, "I raised her. If it weren’t for me, you two wouldn’t have met."
"I would have let Caroline out, if you would have begged Ruelle. But then again, you are busy gambling. All you care about is your greed," Lucian’s tongue ran across his sharp canine as he looked in the direction of the town they had come in, which had gone quiet as it was the hour of night.
"Ruelle won’t like it," Mr. Belmont repeated once again, his voice a broken record of desperate hope. "She is a soft-hearted girl. You want her to despise you for the rest of your life? If not, let me go. We can forget this ever happening!"
Lucian ran his hand through his hair, a gesture almost contemplative, as if he were considering the proposition.
"What makes you think she will know about who killed you?" He cocked his head in question. "She is too pure despite the dirt she grew around with, and it is my responsibility to get rid of the dirt."
Mr. Belmont’s eyes widened, realising these pureblooded vampires were going to kill. So he beseeched them, "Please! I will do anything! I will beg for her forgiveness. I will try to fix everything you feel is wrong! I—"
"You want to fix?" Lucian asked, and the human nodded his head eagerly. "Her mother. Your first wife, what happened to the rest of her family? Relatives."
The human blinked, unsure of what this pureblooded vampire wanted to do about it. He replied, "They passed away. She had told her family passed away and she was alone."
"Where was she from?" Lucian asked, standing up straight.
Mr. Belmont looked fearfully at Lucian, not realising he had been trembling since he had regained consciousness. He was shaking. "She... She said she came from the east region. It was love at first sight."
"Doesn’t seem like it," Lucian commented. "Where in the east region?"
"Can’t I tell this on the way to the physician?" Mr. Belmont asked, but the same time his femur bone was crushed and he screamed. The man writhed, his lips trembling while he tried hard to swallow the pain, which was cut short upon seeing Lucian raise his hand.
"Which place?"
"...."
"Mr. Belmont, the sooner you answer and appease Lucian, the sooner we will be leaving from here," Dane sighed while he stared at his nails that he noticed needed to be trimmed. "You need to visit the courthouse tomorrow and we need to talk about it too. Don’t want loose lips."
"It was Starfall...Why are you interested in her?" Mr. Belmont questioned through gritted teeth.
"Why does it matter?" Lucian questioned back. He then extended his hand for the human to cautiously take it with relief beginning to ease his face even though he was in pain.
"I won’t tell... tell about this to anyone," Mr. Belmont murmured in fear more than truth. He couldn’t take a step forward with how much damage Lucian had done to his legs.
"Don’t worry about it."
Mr. Belmont was internally annoyed by the pureblooded vampire. This person had broken his limbs and was now telling him not to worry about it? He quietly gritted his teeth.
That’s when he caught Lucian dropping the shovel and pulling out a dagger.
"I—I thought we had an understanding—The dagger—"
"You don’t have to be worried about being missed," Lucian remarked, and the next moment, he ran the dagger through the human’s neck. Harold tried hard to get away, but he was no match against the pureblooded vampire. The human struggled, but Lucian moved the dagger, ripping the man’s throat as blood began to gush and spill on the clothes.
When Lucian let go of Harold Belmont, the human lost his balance and fell on the ground with blood spilling on the ground. The man continued to choke on his blood before his body finally went still and his heartbeat stopped.
Dane watched Lucian stare at the dead man. With the treaty conditions, he could only hope that Harold Belmont’s death would not stir anything unnecessary.
"Did you bring it?" Lucian questioned, his head turning to the side.
"Mm," Dane hummed in response, and he pulled out things from his coat that belonged to someone. "I was wondering where you were going to plant them when you asked me to get it all."
Lucian was aware of Dane’s eccentric habits and he was also aware of how his older brother liked to collect things that belonged to people. The things his brother had brought belonged to Ezekiel Henley, who would take the fall for Harold Belmont’s death.
