Chapter 3: New Blood -
slave knelt beside her Mistress, head bowed, eyes lowered, the gnawing Hunger
staved off for now. It was never enough, but she was content to have served
well, and to have received her reward. Her sharp incisors sank into the soft
silk wadding of her gag. In her dim feral mind, she imagined them sinking into
yielding flesh, supping on the life-giving goodness within...Not mere drops,
sufficient only to keep her from wasting, but an endless flow - a feast. This
had sometimes been permitted by the grace of her Mistress, but was so rare an
occurrence to be the stuff of dreams. Her thoughts, such as they were, dwelt on
little else, but it had never occurred to her to question or feel even the
slightest resentment. It was the way it must be.
Mistress was oblivious to the thoughts of Her slave. Were it possible that She
could even perceive such faint, sluggish stirrings in that clouded mind, She
would not have given them more than cursory attention. It was a slave. It had
been fit for no other purpose, and would serve Her until She decreed otherwise.
What happened beyond that time was of no importance. But, they were not alone in
that deep secluded place, and Mistress' ruminations turned towards the other.
She rose and glided over to the third sarcophagus in the row of four. This was
identical to its brethren in every way, except for the very precious contents.
She cracked the lid, and swung it upwards, raising the heavy rectangle of wood
with no apparent effort. A faint gurgling scream instantly burst forth from
within.
She smiled down upon the occupant of the coffin. It was a kind, almost motherly
smile, but there was no hint of warmth in the glittering depths of those
crimson-tinged pupils.
Inside lay a girl, of perhaps 20 years of age. A thick mane of ash-blonde hair,
an unusual colour in this region, hinting at perhaps Scandinavian stock, flowed
around her normally cheerful-looking plump face, her cheeks ruddy and glowing
with health and vitality. Two terrified blue-green eyes darted from side to side
under thick eyelashes, striving to focus on the dark figure silhouetted in the
fierce light of the roaring torches. A muffled whimper was absorbed in the large
square of silk wadded thickly into her mouth and bound in tightly behind another
scarf.
Mistress reached out a cold pale hand and gently stroked the soft cheeks, the
pallid fingers a stark contrast with the pink skin across which they brushed.
The girl sobbed into her gag, twisting her head wildly from side to side in a
vain attempt to dislodge the icy touch. She writhed within the tight confines of
the sarcophagus, and the tighter confines of the garment into which she was
strapped. It was of white linen, swaddling her from waist to neck. Her arms were
encased in long narrow sleeves, which were crossed over her chest, pushing up
her ample breasts. The sleeves were wrapped around her body and disappeared
behind her back, where they terminated in closed ends to which were sewn strong
leather straps. These were buckled tightly, giving her the barest minimum of
movement, but with little discomfort. Mistress had no intention of harming the
girl; she was far too precious for that - she merely required safe storage until
she became of use. Beneath the garment, she wore a coarse black woollen dress,
and her legs were bare, save for the soft leather straps tethering her ankles to
the two bottom corners of the coffin, keeping her legs spread apart.
"Hush now," She whispered, almost sighed, as the girl squealed again. "Don't cry
little one. I will keep you safe. You are so very important to me..."
***
The storm had pounced with ferocious rapidity. The rain was lashing down as the
little trap rattled through the dripping woodland, now on an upward incline, as
the deep forest had begun thin out, giving way to the sparse foothills of the
Vrancean Mountains. Elena wrapped her arms about her chest, hugging herself in
her sodden cloak and fought to stop her teeth from chattering. Her silent
companion hardly seemed to register the change in weather at all, and the driver
merely pulled his hat lower over his eyes and hunched down into his seat, as if
he could repel the downpour with the force of his will.
Elena wondered, and not for the first time, why they could not have possibly
stopped somewhere for the night. It would do her prospects little good to be
stricken with a fever immediately upon arrival. She was a strong, hearty girl,
who had scarcely a day's illness in her life, but then her mother had been
caught in a storm exactly like this. Her throat constricted at the bitter
memory.
***
slave knelt once more at the feet of her Mistress. She could sense Her disquiet,
Her unease, and the tattered remnants of reason she had been allowed to retain
generated terror in her cold heart. she longed for her sister - she had watched
in terrified incomprehension as Mistress indifferently cast her out of their
world into the chaos outside and, her basest fear now was that the same fate
would befall her. her cheek rested against Mistress' thigh, which was now
discreetly covered by layers of silk and velvet, and she retreated back into
sensuality, allowing the feel of the supple collar around her throat, the
comforting softness of the cloth in her mouth, the security of the bindings
keeping her arms snugly behind her back to chase away the terrors, at least for
now. She almost purred as, without warning, soft but chill fingers began to
absently run through her thick tresses.
***
Their destination had been visible for some time now, and as they drew closer,
Elena looked upon Castel Sleampa with awe. The stone edifice soared out of the
rock as if it had been carved from it, as little detail could be seen in the
darkness, except when a shaft of lightning starkly lit up the area. Elena
shuddered upon seeing it. She was an uncomplicated, practical girl, but for some
unfathomable reason, the sight of the forbidding exterior of her new home filled
her with anxiety. It hardly seemed built of lifeless stone at all. Rather, the
lightning appeared to animate its facade, each new flash twisting it into a
misshapen travesty of itself, as if the place were alive and waiting for her.
***
Terror burned in Adriana's heart. She was all alone in the dark, the dank
blackness pressing in, not only on her body but also in her soul. Her struggles
were weaker now, her arms no longer flailing ineffectually against the
constricting linen sleeves that kept them tightly folded across her body. Her
shoeless feet were bruised and sore from hours of kicking against the implacable
wall and lid of her tiny prison, and her ankles were chafed by the straps that
so constrained those kicks. Her mouth was parched and sore, both from chewing on
the cloth wadded deep inside it, and her attempts to scream for help, for mercy,
for salvation.
She wept silently, unable to summon enough moisture to her mouth to scream
anymore, futile though it was in any case. Her feeble cries had been immediately
absorbed into the padded silk lining of her prison, and this exacerbated the
dread feeling that she had been buried alive, with nothing more to look forward
to than a slow suffocating death. At first her sense of panic had been
overwhelming. Her heart had pounded against her rib-cage and her chest had felt
so tight she could hardly breath. Her entire body had become numb, and she had
believed that she would surely die, but her body could not sustain such a level
of tension.
She was worn-out, but sleep would not come, not to a mind constantly invaded by
fear. The look in the Mistress's eyes, as she had raised the lid and had touched
that cold unfeeling hand to her perspiring face, had been petrifying. The light
had seared her eyes at first, but once her vision had returned, it had beheld a
grotesque look of affection, almost motherliness, on the face of her employer, a
face she had seen very rarely in the past, as her duties had been confined to
the kitchens. Her almost hysterical sense of relief that light had returned had
instantly dissipated at the sight of those eyes: cold, dark, yet aflame
with...desire, no more than that...with hunger - a ghastly gloating lust. She
had not known what this meant, but her muddled instincts had screamed at her,
screamed that she was in mortal danger. And then the lid had crashed down again,
returning her to darkness and providing her terrified mind with the seed of yet
another fear.
And now...now she was alone and she knew. She knew there would be no more light.
As sure as the animal dragged into the abattoir somehow senses its fate, she
knew that she would die. Her body cramped, parched and exhausted her mind barren
and brutalised by fear, restrained tightly in that confining prison, in that
coffin, she prayed to God, for a merciful release and for her soul.
