I Sold My Blood to Pay My Sister's Debt, and the Vampire King Who Bought Me Swore I'd Be His Queen or His Ruin novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Contract

The cells were under the guard hall, down a stair that smelled of wet stone.

Emmeline's was the last one.

She sat on the edge of a plank bed in her grey thrall's dress, with her hands folded in her lap.

There was no window.

There was no lamp but the one Corin carried.

She'd been in the dark for a month.

She looked up when the light reached her and squinted, and smiled.

"You came," she said.

"You said you had something to tell me. Tell me."

"Sit down, Ella."

"No."

She sighed.

She looked at Corin.

"Does he have to be here?"

"Yes," Corin said.

She shrugged, the same little shrug she'd given in the Montcalm cellar.

"Do you remember the lamp?" she said. "I want you to know what I did while you slept."

"I remember."

"After he'd gone, when you were asleep, I went to the racks." She held out her left arm and pushed the grey sleeve up. "And I opened this, and I filled another one."

I stared at her arm.

There wasn't a mark on it.

There never would be.

"Gold wax on the stopper," she said. "Same glass, same wax. I swapped mine in and took yours out. One a night. Sometimes two."

"Why?"

"Because I was going to sell yours myself." She said it without any shame at all. "To the East. I'd have got ten times what she'd ever pay me. I just needed the right night to walk out with them."

"And the case you gave her in the courtyard."

"Everything under the top row is mine." She smiled. "I left the top row real, so she'd taste it and never think to check. She'll have drunk the top row by now. On the east road, in the envoy's garden, showing off."

"And the rest?"

"Dead blood," Emmeline said. "Like mine. Like hers. Nothing in it but a month of thirst."

Corin had gone very still behind me.

"Where are mine?" I asked.

"Behind the loose brick under the fourteenth step in the Montcalm cellar." She tipped her head. "You'll want to burn them. I would."

"Why tell me now?"

"Because if she wins on those steps, she'll burn me by lunch." Emmeline leaned forward. "And because when she drinks one at sunrise and steps out into the light, Ella, it's going to be the last thing she ever does. Don't you want to know that? Don't you want to stand there knowing it?"

She was enjoying it.

I could see her enjoying it.

"So," she said softly. "That's a gift. That's your sister giving you the crown. Now."

She held out both hands to me.

"Now take me home."

I looked at her hands.

They were white and smooth and perfect, and they'd knocked on our mother's door.

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

Her face lit up.

"You'll still stay here," I said.

I turned around and walked back up the stair.

She was screaming my name before I reached the top.

Corin shut the door on it.

← Chapter 20 · All chapters · Chapter 22 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend