Lenoir spoke before she opened her eyes. She wasn’t sure that she even could, with how bad the space behind her eyes was pounding. Like a thousand tiny sledgehammers were beating into her skull.
She lay where she was, not moving, just taking stock of her situation. Her throat was dry; it had been sometime since she had had some water, clearly. Other than the headache, her ribs hurt, which wasn’t abnormal for her, and her palms felt sore and raw. There was a heavy weight on her ankle and she instinctively knew she was chained up. It was cold and drafty, but there was a resounding, echoing silence surrounding her.
Wouldn’t be the first time she was in this sort of predicament.
Lenoir took a deep breath and tried to remember what put her in this situation. She had been on a job. Sent on by the guild master. She and her team had been sent to take care of some trouble far from the capital. Her team, her friends ended up not being the help they normally were. A useless team that all ended up—
She opened up her eyes just to get rid of that train of thought. They were mercenaries; dying on the job came with the territory. They signed up for this, just like she did.
Her newly unlocked sense gave her perspective on where she was. A dungeon, lit by a few flickering torches. There was an empty cell across from her. She was aligned on the stone floor. She didn’t want to look around her just yet. She had to remember.
Yes. On the job, in a little tumbledown village near the border. The reports had come flooding in about bandits that had been taking as they pleased, a whole makeshift guild of them. Lenoir could have easily taken them, if it was just that. But there was word that there was a monster in their ranks, which was what the team was supposed to help with, before they became monster mash themselves.
Lenoir was distracted from a new pain in her neck. It was sore, in a way that terrified her to her core.
The clack of footsteps drew her attention away from her mind and her fear. She pushed past the pain and sat up, which was no small feat. Whoever was coming either walked really slowly, or they were giving her a chance to ready herself. She had barely been awake for five minutes before someone came to check on her.
The shadow can between the troches and Lenoir stared at the woman, no monster in front of her.
“Well, that didn’t take long,” the monster said.
Lenoir studied the monster. She was in the body of a woman, and Lenoir supposed she was one before she became undead. She wore a frilly black shirt with a black corset over it that was for show more than function and short pants with thigh-high heeled boots. Her curly hair was loose around her face and down her back with silver accessories that matched the adornments on her boots and corset. Her face caught Lenoir’s attention more. It had sharp features from her pointed ears to her arch of her eyebrow to her dual-toed lips. They shone in the low light, and Lenoir lingered on them, knowing somewhere in the pit of her stomach that those lips had already had a taste of her skin.
Slowly, Lenoir finally drew her attention to the monster’s eyes. Dangerous, dark eyes that felt like they were piercing right through Lenoir.
Lenoir didn’t say anything; she moved her eyes to the lips, then back to the eyes of the monster. The soreness sharpened to a point at the mere remembrance of the brief pain that had come from her bite.
“You must be thirsty,” the monster said.
Lenoir squinted. She hadn’t noticed the tray that the monster was carrying with a pitcher and cup on it.
Lenoir swallowed in a great effort down her dry throat before speaking. “Not if that’s poisoned.”
The monster quirked an eyebrow. “Why would I poison you? If I wanted you dead, I would just eat you.”
Which, Lenoir supposed, was true enough.
The monster set the tray down on a nearby table between the two cells. She poured the water. “You’ll have to come close to the bars so I can let you drink, you know. I’m not stupid enough to open a door for a hunter, even if you are weakened by my venom.”
“I appreciate that,” Lenoir smirked at her captor. That explained the heaviness and weakness. Lenoir knew it wasn’t from a lack of sustenance, or something much more concerning.
She did her best to scoot closer to the bars, as far as her ankle chain would go. It rattled with her movements. The monster handed her the cup, and Lenoir squinted at it and sniffed it just for good measure before taking slow sips. Relief washed down her throat in the cool water, and it wasn’t before long that she downed the entire cup.
“Thank you,” Lenoir said.
“I don’t think I have ever had a prisoner thank me,” the monster said.
“You have never had me as your prisoner,” Lenoir said simply. “I don’t suppose me thanking you is a ticket out of here.”
“Oh no, not at all,” the monster said with a light laugh. Lenoir would not admit that she liked the sound. It was a monster’s sound. “But I can tell you my name. It’s June.”
“June. June the vampire. Not a terrible ring.”
June smirked. “Now you tell me yours, pet.”
“I may be polite, but I’m not dumb. I’m not giving a monster my name.”
June’s face scrunched in disgust. “I am not the monster here”
Lenoir was glad that her strength and snark had returned with the water. “No, seriously. You kill people, and you don’t think that you’re the monster?”
“Me? I’m not the one that slayed her own comrades, thank you very much.”
Lenoir froze. “I…what?” She had done what?
“Aw, does the pet not remember? Cutting down your own like they were vines tripping you up? Do you not remember the screams of the skinny blonde? Your bright sword that just appeared in your hand to slay everyone in your way?” Melenie.
That…wasn’t possible. It wasn’t supposed to be; everything she had done was supposed to prevent that from ever happening again. They were supposed to have taken it from her. “You’re lying,” she rasped. Her throat was dry again.
June sorted. “Hardly. There you were, you are your pathetic squad, trying to take down the bandits, and there I was, watching for fun. I saw the whole thing, pet. And then all of a sudden, one of the bandits had hit the back of your neck to knock you unconscious while you were fighting two in front of you, and then, BAM.”
Lenoir jumped, a sick feeling in her stomach.
“You went down and the others started freaking out. Then you came back up, and started to glow, and this magic sword came into your hand, and you killed all three of the bandits in one swoop. Then the sword changed into a bow, and you shot down three more. I watched your whole little rampage.”
The world was spinning. It was hard to breathe. It wasn’t true. She couldn’t have killed them. It couldn’t have happened again. She had worked so hard.
Hands found their way into her hair, and she gripped hard, causing pain that made her eyes water. Pain made her think clearer, but why couldn’t she remember?
All she could hear was an awful hasping noise and screaming. Men, women, children. Flashed to faces and the blur of a bright light. Sizzling and pain and smoke and blood. Burnt hair and iron flooded her nostrils, and there was that awful gasping.
She barely felt the small stab on her neck. Only that the world was going dark, dark, and the gasping stopped, and the screaming was fainter. There was a tight pull on her hand and a steadying voice in front of her, but she couldn’t hear what was being said, only that it radiated worry and comfort.
The last thing Lenoir saw before the darkness took her was beautiful, panicked, steadying eyes.
