Chapter 195: Taken Back
With one hand pressed against his bleeding arm, Ezekiel ran through the forest that was located behind the Belmonts’ residence.
Blood soaked through his fingers and it wasn’t from the beating but because the skin he had worn had begun to turn unstable. His breath came harsh as he stopped against a trunk of a bare tree, his vision turning hazy. When he pulled his hand away, there was blood on his palm.
Damn it, Ezekiel cursed. Just one more hour was all he had needed for the treaty to break.
He regretted fleeing from the debt collectors now. Instead, he had endured the beating for Ruelle’s sake, thinking he could still hold the dead man’s face long enough. But right now, Harold Belmont’s skin was turning unstable. He could feel his flesh burn as if something alive were chewing through the corpse from the inside. Rejecting him.
He had slipped out through the window before the ministers and others could see him.
He tried to clench his jaw only for the skin at the corner of his mouth to sag like melting wax.
Lucian Slater. Ezekiel had underestimated the bastard. He hadn’t expected him to gamble on something as petty as debt collectors. His fingers dug into the bark. He turned his head, staring back in the direction of the mansion through the dark trees, his half-melted mouth twisting.
Ezekiel gritted his teeth and swore in rage, "I’ll pay you back for this."
Back at the Belmonts’ house, the guards moved in and out of the corridors and rooms, their heavy footsteps echoing through the place. The sound made the mansion smaller.
Ruelle stood next to Lucian beside her. She glanced back at the room. There was too much blood on the mattress, and the sheets were damp with sweat where her father had lain. To think just a few hours ago, her father had stood in this corridor arguing that she wasn’t allowed to leave the mansion.
Mrs. Belmont fretted, her hands twisting together and she explained, "He was resting in the room when we last saw him. I don’t know where he could have gone when he could barely stand."
"It looks like someone butchered him. How badly did the humans beat him?" Elder Minister Carnifex frowned as his eyes moved over the blood-stained mattress. "A man in that condition should not be walking."
"Mr. Belmont must still be somewhere in this mansion. Unless all of this was planned," Minister Sylvan remarked before his eyes drifted towards Ruelle and Mrs. Belmont, as if weighing them.
Ruelle had expected this. She asked the minister, "Are you trying to say my mother and I had something to do with it?"
Minister Sylvan replied, "Of course not. But someone might benefit from your father’s absence, no?"
They did... her mind whispered. But she wasn’t going to say that to this man. Her father’s absence meant one less person trying to sabotage the treaty. When her eyes met the minister’s cunning ones, she disliked the way he smiled. He looked as though he was waiting for her to trip and make a mistake.
"The debt collectors must have seen us when we arrived," Ruelle explained. "They even came after me once when I was still in Sexton but thankfully the prince was there to take care of it. Which is why I don’t see who else would care enough to go that far."
"Are you sure?" Minister Sylvan asked her.
"Yes, why?" Ruelle asked as she stared back at the minister.
She hadn’t forgotten his remark on Lucian’s corruption. For such an old man to be intimidated by Lucian, she wondered if there was something deeper in play. After all, the Slater brothers would have their foot in lordship as well as in the courthouse.
"And why weren’t you inside the room with the patient?" questioned the elder minister with clear annoyance on his face.
The physician quickly bowed and replied, "Mr. Belmont didn’t want to get treated and he said he wanted you to come first. So I was waiting outside..."
After several minutes, the guards returned, and one of them bowed. The guard reported, "There is a trail of blood leading into the forest, sire. But it stops halfway in the forest. We do not know where Mr. Belmont might have gone after that point."
"How can a blood trail simply stop? Go check again!" Mrs. Belmont demanded with a bewildered expression. "Or I can go look for him."
"The guards are doing their best, Mrs. Belmont," Minister Gaile tried to pacify her. "If your husband was truly taken it is not safe for you to go out right now."
Ruelle caught the slight frown that formed on Elder Minister Carnifex’s face and the question continued to sit in her mind too. Where had her father gone?
She doubted he had simply wandered off. Not with the way he had been limping earlier. Not when he had been so determined to drag them before the ministers and end the treaty.
Had Lucian prepared for this too? The thought came fast enough that she turned to him. But Lucian looked almost as still as ever, save for the faint crease between his brows. It was barely there, but enough for her to know he had not expected this either.
A loud sigh left Elder Minister Carnifex’s lips.
"First the entire family disappeared. Then the daughter. And now the father." His old eyes looked tired, as though he regretted the decision of choosing the Belmonts for the treaty. "Send word out. Harold Belmont is missing and is to be searched for right away."
Before the ministers could leave, Lucian spoke, "Minister," halting them.
Ruelle’s eyes moved to him.
"If someone truly kidnapped Mr. Belmont, then this is a security issue. That means your guards are failing at their duty." Lucian’s gaze shifted. "I doubt you would enjoy the scandal if Mrs. Belmont or Ruelle were to disappear next."
Ruelle held her breath, her eyes shifting to the ministers whose eyes narrowed.
"Are you proposing that the Belmonts stay in the Slaters’ mansion when they have their own mansion?" Minister Sylvan asked raising one of his eyebrows. "Now it feels you are the one who benefited from his disappearance."
Lucian held the council minister’s gaze and then remarked,
"You speak as though Harold Belmont objected to the treaty. Strange, considering he was the one who offered her." His eyes shifted briefly before returning and he said, "You wanted the appearance of her living with her family. You had it. The Slaters’ mansion is safer. There is no reason to continue this farce."
Ruelle caught the elder minister turn to look outside the window, his lips twisting in thought.
He then said, "Alright." The old vampire wasn’t interested in dragging the matter longer than necessary. "Given the circumstances, Miss Belmont and Mrs. Belmont may stay at the Slaters’ mansion. I will send Peyton to keep watch."
Ruelle lowered her gaze, as smiling right when her father was missing would make them look at her as if she had lost it. Even if Peyton was going to watch over her, she was happy to stay where she could see Lucian.
But Lucian didn’t seem convinced. For a brief moment, Lucian disappeared into one of the rooms and then brought a parchment and a quill. He handed it to the Elder minister,
"Just to make sure you don’t change your mind again."
Elder Minister Carnifex’s lips were set in a thin line, but he signed it. He then turned to Mrs. Belmont and asked,
"I believe you know the men your husband owed money to?" and when Mrs. Belmont nodded, he continued, "Visit the courthouse tomorrow. The men who beat your husband will be punished accordingly, and their families will be paid what was owed to settle the matter once and for all."
The last thing the courthouse wanted was noise from debt collectors on the wedding day. Carnifex cast one final glance at them before stepping out of the mansion, heading towards his carriage. The sound of his boots faded with Minister Sylvan following him. Just as the elder minister climbed inside the carriage and the door was about to close, Minister Sylvan spoke.
"Elder Minister. Don’t you think you are being too lenient with the Slater boy? It is evident he had something to do with what happened to Mr. Belmont."
Carnifex wore a grim expression. He then responded, "I cannot hold him accountable without proof. Bring me the proof." After a pause he said, "I hope our goals are the same, Sylvan. The end goal is to see the treaty completed."
"Of course," Sylvan bowed before going to his own carriage and leaving the place.
After what felt like an hour, Mrs. Belmont finally agreed to leave, though reluctantly, after Minister Gaile assured her his men would continue searching for her husband.
By the time they arrived at the Slaters’ mansion, night fell over the sky.
Ruelle stepped out of the carriage and looked up at the mansion. Finally, she was back, her mind whispered. Four days in the Belmonts’ new residence had felt longer than the time she had spent in Sexton. At the entrance, Maude stood waiting and she greeted,
"Welcome back, Master Lucian. Miss Ruelle."
The warmth inside the mansion wrapped around Ruelle the moment she stepped in, and even her stepmother seemed to notice it. It smelled faintly of cedarwood and old wax, somehow it seemed to relax her shoulders. To think a place could make her feel relief so quickly. Or maybe it wasn’t the place but the person. Her eyes shifted briefly to Lucian.
"Show Mrs. Belmont and Hailey to their rooms. Assign a maid to attend to them," Lucian said.
Hailey looked at Lucian with admiration and bowed deep.
Mrs. Belmont’s face softened immediately, touched by what she thought was consideration. Lucian rarely bothered himself with others’ comforts. But Ruelle knew better. He was placing her stepmother somewhere where she could be watched.
"Forgive me for before..." Mrs. Belmont said, lowering her gaze. "I know all this is for Ruelle’s sake but you have been generous to us. You found Caroline and brought us here. I will always be grateful."
Lucian gave only a short nod, neither accepting nor denying the gratitude. Maude then led Mrs. Belmont away, their footsteps fading down the corridor until it was replaced by silence.
And suddenly it was just the two of them. It was ridiculous how her skin warmed before her thoughts caught up. She felt embarrassed with how she seemed the only one to be affected, while Lucian wore a composed expression.
"I should go to my room..." Ruelle turned, thinking distance might cool the heat crawling under her skin.
But before she could take a step, Lucian caught her wrist. When she met his intense gaze, his fingers closed around her wrist, warm even through her sleeve, and her pulse jumped wildly beneath his touch.
"Come with me."
The words uttered were simple yet something in them left no room for refusal. Lucian guided her through the quiet corridors which was lit by candles on the walls, and his hold only loosened when they reached the other side of the mansion.
When he stopped before a door and pushed it open. For a moment, Ruelle wondered if her room had been moved closer to his. But it was when he stepped aside for her to enter first that her steps faltered.
She realised this was Lucian’s bedroom.
His room was far larger in space than the one she had stayed in this mansion. The place was designed in deep blues, dark walnut and black, where the candlelight turned the place warm and amber against the wood. A king-sized bed rested against the far wall, its tall dark posts rising into charcoal curtains that fell from the ceiling like shadows.
There were books placed on one side of the wall in an order. A couch and armchairs sat near the hearth where the fire burned now. The bedroom was connected to another chamber that led to a marble bath.
Ruelle’s eyes moved to the steam rising from the bath before she felt Lucian lift a loose strand of her hair between his fingers, as if testing if she were real. When she turned to look at him, he was closer than she realised. His eyes moved from the strand back to her face and for a long moment, he said nothing.
Then his fingers slid through the length of her hair before falling away. He said, "Let me keep you tonight."
Comments