Chapter 14

Olivia’s POV

“Rose,” Damien said, calling my new name.

Slowly, I lifted my head. I was sitting on my blankets at the foot of his bed, but he was standing a few feet away, nearer his desk and bookcase.

I blinked slowly and looked at him with a bleary-eyed expression.

Inside, I was totally numb. After that escape attempted and all of the horrors I had witnessed, I was becoming resigned to this fate, but it was crushing me inside.

I was a shadow of the person I had once been.

“Come here,” Damien said.

Obediently, I stood from my bed and walked toward him. He finally turned to look at me, and for a moment our eyes locked.

Damien stared at me as if he could see me down all the way to my soul. I was looking back at him, but I felt nothing at all. Could he see in my soul how defeated I was? How much my spirit was broken?

He turned away from me in a flash. “Do not dare to make eye contact with me again.”

Immediately, obeying his command, I dropped my gaze back down to the ground.

“Leave me,” Damien said. “Out of this room. Go.”

I stepped around him and walked out of the room without question.

I stepped out of the room and then descended the spiral down to the lower hallways. I didn’t have a goal in mind, but a command to leave from Damien likely meant he wanted me gone from his sight entirely. In his tower, I didn’t have many places to stay and wait that would be out of the way enough for him to not see me if he left his room.

To properly obey his command, I had to fully leave the tower.

Unfortunately, as I finally exited the stairwell and into the hallway, Sophia spotted me.

“What are you doing down here?” she snapped.

“Damien sent me from the room…” I said.

Sophia narrowed her eyes, but at the same time she started to smirk, giving her an air of maliciousness.

“Well, you won’t be allowed to simply saunter about. Even pets are given tasks when not needed by their masters. To keep from being punished, you will need to clean Damien’s wing of the castle.”

I nodded, accepting this task as numbly as I accepted everything else anymore.

“Which rooms?” I asked, needing more clarification before I started.

Sophia sneered. “All of them.”

Damien’s wing of the castle held many rooms, but at least the task would keep me busy. I got to it at once, finding the other slaves who were daily assigned to such work and joining them.

With a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush, I crawled around the floors of the castle on my hands and knees, cleaning as best I could.

The work was hard, and my knees were sore. I didn’t complain though, and not just because no one would listen if I did. Work like this kept my mind from wandering. If I was focusing on the cleanliness of the floors, then I wasn’t thinking about how I was Damien’s blood pet, and how anyone who tried to help me had been killed.

Eventually, the other slaves and I had cleaned every room in Damien’s wing of the castle except for one. The last room was behind a closed door. A sign hung from a nail driven into the door, which read, Absolutely NO Entry.

The other slaves were gathering up their supplies to go elsewhere, but I had been tasked with cleaning every room. This was one of them.

Still… the sign did say not to enter.

From down the hall, I heard Sophia shout, “You better be working quickly, slave, or you won’t eat today.”

I was hungry already from the work we had done. Unwilling to risk not eating, I ignored the sign on the door, grabbed the handle, and pushed it open.

Walking into this room was like stepping into a different time period. It was a woman’s bedroom, but done in a style that had long been outdated, with tapestries rather than paintings on the walls. All of the furniture was thick wood and ornately carved. Along the wall was a shelf of beautiful hand-crafted figures, all intricately designed and detailed, and also well preserved.

A layer of thick dust sat over everything, as if this room had remained untouched and unvisited for a very long time.

Across from the bed, hanging on the wall was the only painting in the room, a massive portrait of a woman in a regal gown.

I froze, seeing her face. We looked so similar that I could easily be the woman in the portrait.

Was this possible? Who was this woman? Why did we look identical?

Was this why Damien had chosen me to be his pet? Because I looked so much like this mysterious woman from his past?

“You shouldn’t be in here,” growled a voice from behind me. Damien’s voice.

Slowly, I turned to face him, and only now realized how far I had wandered into the room. I had come in here as if in a trance, and now, looking at Damien, that trance was abruptly broken.

The vampire’s usually indifferent face was filled with rage.

I never should have come in here. Had Sophia known that entering this room would make Damien furious with me? Had she set me up for this outcome?

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“There’s a sign,” he said. “Can’t you read?”

“I can, but Sophia told me to come in here. She was going to deny me food if I didn’t. You can ask the others, they heard her too.”

Damien glared at me so coldly, I shivered. Then, he called out, “Sophia, bring those other slaves and come in here.”

We waited a few terse moments as Sophia barked orders to the slaves, and the small group, as well as Sophia, stepped inside the door. They didn’t enter far, only a foot or so inside. Sophia, bolder, came a few feet more, but all seemed unwilling to disturb this space…

Unlike what I had done.

To Sophia, Damien spoke clearly, “My pet Rose has said that you instructed her to enter this room.”

Sophia lifted her chin with defiance. “That is a lie. I gave no such command. She was merely supposed to scrub the floors of the hallway.”

Damien turned his gaze onto the slaves who had been lined up. Each glanced at him and then at Sophia, who returned their looks sharply. Then they lowered their heads.

“My pet claims you lot heard Sophia’s command,” Damien said. “Is this true? Did you hear Sophia command my pet to enter this room?”

My heart beat quickly, hope slowly returning. Perhaps I could find allies in this place, after all. If we stuck together then perhaps we could all find ways to survive this experience, together.

The slaves were clearly frightened of both Sophia and Damien, but I still hoped they would be willing to do the right thing.

So I stepped forward. “Please,” I said. “Tell him the truth.”

Yet, with Sophia still glaring at them, they didn’t dare to even look at me, let alone defend me.

“Sophia gave no such order,” said one of them. This one waved at me. “She’s lying.”

Any hope left in my heart withered away.

Once more, I felt alone.