Chapter 102: 102
If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again
Without a second word, Azrael leaps into the air. The grace and speed at which he darts his way through the first must be incredible, and yet I can barely feel it over the fading haziness of my conscience, the only thing keeping me from passing out from the pain being Azrael's hands clamped firmly over the lower half of my torso. Breath rises and falls from my lungs in inconsistent gasps.
I can't believe I am dying like this.
Perhaps if I had more energy, I might have cursed myself for being so stupid. I should have killed those vampires when I had the chance- what sort of an idiot lets another vampire intervene? I roll my eyes, groaning against the pain and rivulets of blood that stream down my torn up back like snaking rivers. Maybe I deserve this fate, if only for being so insolent. Azrael's icy voice cuts through any thoughts of self loathing with a wintry cold, laced with bitter venom.
"A nice necklace you have there," Azrael whispers, too specific to not be menacingly as he runs through the forest towards the faint glimmers of light in the distance, not caring the least as to whether or not I am listening. He barks a small laugh. "When exactly were you going to tell me that it is blocking me from getting to your sweet, sweet little mind?"
Behind us, Ithuriel gives a low warning growl. But in my hazy state, I brush it aside.
"Took you a while," comes my half alive reply as my head pounds with the mere effort of trying to keep it upright. I can't see this going well for me. Not now. Yet despite everything, I maintain my steadfast resolve.
A snide cackle echoes from the white haired monster's lips, and even from my state of half awareness, there is enough energy left in my body to fill me up with a cavernous dread. Despite the feverish warmth lingering on my face, my insides turn stone cold.
"You are lucky I can't seem to touch it, and that Soren currently has me under rather close surveillance, otherwise I would have delighted in twisting you little mind right now, just to see you squirm. You have made my endeavours such a pain these last few weeks- I can't slip into my brothers mind, and I can't slip into yours... It seems to make this soul of mine utterly useless. But no matter, I will wait. Oh, and thank you for informing my brother about my powers, I was getting rather bored waiting for him to figure it out. You have certainly spiced things up, even if I can't yet get into your head. No matter, I shall find out what you are hiding soon enough, I don't care how."
If I had any strength at all, I might have whimpered.
I suppose now it's only a matter of who is going to kill me first: Azrael, or the gaping hole in my back.
We must reach the palace in a matter of minutes, but it feels like hours, every second draining away with another flurry of blood that streams down my back. All the vampires can smell it- I know they can. But at this point, that is the least of my worries.
At some point beyond my recollection, Azrael bursts into the throne room.
"Prince Soren," he calls to a familiar figure pacing beside his throne with a feigning worry, slightly breathlessly, though from the running or the hunger, I cannot rightly tell. "Prince Soren the wretches are nearly dead, your fiancée-"
Heads turn to look at the commotion that has bolstered in unannounced through the wide arching doors of the throne room, some hissing like snakes, others recoiling, but all eyes red, glowing lustily with the fragrant lingering of my blood in the air, the epitome of vampiric temptation. Soren stops pacing before his throne, head raised in silent alarm, body rigid, eyes a flaming crimson of worry and deep set regret. In an instant, the room darkens.
Blood continues to leak from the gashes down my back, forming a steady, pattering drip, but all of that seems for nothing as I catch the flaring look in the Scarlet Prince's eyes, surveying the crowd to find his brother.
I'm sorry, I want to scream, my heart aching, but my efforts are futile, my head barely lifting from its lolling position on Azrael's rigid shoulder, my lips uttering little more than a despairing murmur.
As soon as Soren sees me, his expression softens.
"Give her to me," he whispers gently, in a voice so unusually raw with emotion that the whole room is quelled into an unbreakable silence. For once in his life, Azrael does not protest. He strides with the white fox through the crowds of vampires who part respectfully at his footfalls, none of them daring to lay so much as a finger on me as he carries me over his shoulder to the awaiting Soren, whose distress seeps out of him in waves of pulsing darkness on the top of the dais. Gingerly, Soren takes me into his arms, and I moan softly, curling up against his chest.
I'm sorry, I think desperately, I have caused you so much trouble, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
A soft voice in my head answers, cooing with a gentle fondness to ease the agonies of my heart:
Do not be sorry, Serena. You have nothing to be sorry for.
Soren brings up a trembling hand to cup my face.
"Oh my poor sweet dove," he laments under his breath, tenderly smoothing a thumb over my cheek to brush away the tears, "what have they done to you?"
"I'm sorry," I whisper once more, squeezing my eyes shut against the hordes of vampires that crowd my broken form. "I was stupid, I forgot everything you told me. I forgot about my powers, I thought I could take them with my sword, I was stupid, so stupid, I-"
Soren cuts me off sharply, unwilling to hear more.
"What's done is done. At least you will know for next time- your powers are much stronger than that flimsy silver sword. Just try and stay awake for me, okay? Keep your eyes open,"
In answer, I press myself further into him, a sob rising in my throat. Part of me wants him to scream at me, get angry, anything, anything but the kindness that I do not rightly deserve. But he does none of these things, instead carefully lowering his head and presses his lips to my forehead, shushing me into a lulling emptiness. Gratefully, I fall into it, screwing my eyes up against the blood and the pain, willing myself into a void of nothingness.
"Did you kill them?" Soren asks Azrael, raising his voice now, loud enough so that the eagerly awaiting crowd might catch a glimpse of the conversation, yet his eyes never leave my shaking form.
"She got one. The other two have had their necks snapped, but they have not been purged in the flames-"
Soren cuts him off sharply.
"Bring the remaining two here." he orders firmly. "Get the elves to bind them in silver chains and wait for them to reawaken. You know what to do after that."
"But what about Sere-"
"I said do it," he roars, rising up before Azrael who sinks under the shadow of his form, reduced to little more than an ashen figure under the might of Soren's wrath. Perhaps if I had the nerve and the strength, I might have laughed. Furiously, Soren continues on, his voice rising in a seething, angry despair.
"Did I not send you out to kill them, or do you plan to kidnap them and use them for whatever foul purposes you plan to enact, too? I know you let them hurt my fiancée to spite her for whatever foul reason you thought would be adequate- her heart has already told me everything so don't even deny it, and I have a good mind to kill you for doing so. But you and I have some talking to do, brother, so I will leash my urges for now. Now go and find those vampires and we shall talk about your little scheming later, or their blood won't be the only blood spilt on this floor tonight. Do you understand?"
The booming, coldblooded emptiness of his voice echoes around the room as the crowd recoils in a mixture of silent horror and terrifying respect, bowing their heads in acknowledgement of his wishes. Azrael purses his lips, something mad flashing in the backs of his eyes as he crosses his arms across his chest firmly.
"Certainly, brother."
Questions arise through the crowd, cries of protest, cutting through the tension like a hot knife through butter.
But Soren has little time to wait around for them, and neither, it would seem, do I. In a split second his whisks us away, leaving the anguished cries of his people far behind.
I groan at the feeling of being shadowshifted, my insides being torn apart by a thousand vicious claws only to be reformed and sewn together piece by piece to be reanimated elsewhere. It is a feeling I have never quite gotten used to, and probably never will, for while a vampire could spend their whole life with the feeling of being ripped apart and still be quite content, the same cannot be said for someone very fragile, and very, very mortal.
But considering at how quickly my body seems to be dying, its unlikely that will remain a concern of mine for much longer. I let out an agonised groan.
Soren shushes me gently as we emerge somewhere new, his fingers stroking across the pallid skin of my cheek, but my vision is too hazy to see or make out any discernible features of our new destination, a blood red thickening in the corners of my vision, fading out to a deathly black. My mind hums frantically. Blood continues to leak from the odious wounds on my back.
Perhaps a little frantically, Soren places me front down on something cold and hard, and my body aches its protest against the sudden emptiness, longing to be held in the safety of his embrace once more. But no comforting embrace comes.
"Be still," he instructs softly, bringing his face close enough to mine that I can make out the shimmering gold that swims in the depths of his eyes, alight with worry. "The more you move, the more blood you will lose. You are at a critical point, you must not lose any more,"
Soren moves from my vision, and I hear the methodical clattering of glass bottles from behind me, jostling in a cabinet as he slides them all aside, searching, looking strenuously for something he cannot seem to find. Then there is a sudden silence and a small gasp which tells me he has found what he is looking for. Carefully he places a bottle beside me- a small purple vial that sloshes with a dark liquid, and tears away the remaining scraps of clothes off my back, the cold air hitting my with a sudden potency causing my muscles to tense. I suck in through my teeth.
"Careful," he warns, unstopping a bottle with his teeth as he spits out the cork to the side of the dim room, the stopper bounding bluntly against the wall.. "This might sting."
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
Without a second word, Azrael leaps into the air. The grace and speed at which he darts his way through the first must be incredible, and yet I can barely feel it over the fading haziness of my conscience, the only thing keeping me from passing out from the pain being Azrael's hands clamped firmly over the lower half of my torso. Breath rises and falls from my lungs in inconsistent gasps.
I can't believe I am dying like this.
Perhaps if I had more energy, I might have cursed myself for being so stupid. I should have killed those vampires when I had the chance- what sort of an idiot lets another vampire intervene? I roll my eyes, groaning against the pain and rivulets of blood that stream down my torn up back like snaking rivers. Maybe I deserve this fate, if only for being so insolent. Azrael's icy voice cuts through any thoughts of self loathing with a wintry cold, laced with bitter venom.
"A nice necklace you have there," Azrael whispers, too specific to not be menacingly as he runs through the forest towards the faint glimmers of light in the distance, not caring the least as to whether or not I am listening. He barks a small laugh. "When exactly were you going to tell me that it is blocking me from getting to your sweet, sweet little mind?"
Behind us, Ithuriel gives a low warning growl. But in my hazy state, I brush it aside.
"Took you a while," comes my half alive reply as my head pounds with the mere effort of trying to keep it upright. I can't see this going well for me. Not now. Yet despite everything, I maintain my steadfast resolve.
A snide cackle echoes from the white haired monster's lips, and even from my state of half awareness, there is enough energy left in my body to fill me up with a cavernous dread. Despite the feverish warmth lingering on my face, my insides turn stone cold.
"You are lucky I can't seem to touch it, and that Soren currently has me under rather close surveillance, otherwise I would have delighted in twisting you little mind right now, just to see you squirm. You have made my endeavours such a pain these last few weeks- I can't slip into my brothers mind, and I can't slip into yours... It seems to make this soul of mine utterly useless. But no matter, I will wait. Oh, and thank you for informing my brother about my powers, I was getting rather bored waiting for him to figure it out. You have certainly spiced things up, even if I can't yet get into your head. No matter, I shall find out what you are hiding soon enough, I don't care how."
If I had any strength at all, I might have whimpered.
I suppose now it's only a matter of who is going to kill me first: Azrael, or the gaping hole in my back.
We must reach the palace in a matter of minutes, but it feels like hours, every second draining away with another flurry of blood that streams down my back. All the vampires can smell it- I know they can. But at this point, that is the least of my worries.
At some point beyond my recollection, Azrael bursts into the throne room.
"Prince Soren," he calls to a familiar figure pacing beside his throne with a feigning worry, slightly breathlessly, though from the running or the hunger, I cannot rightly tell. "Prince Soren the wretches are nearly dead, your fiancée-"
Heads turn to look at the commotion that has bolstered in unannounced through the wide arching doors of the throne room, some hissing like snakes, others recoiling, but all eyes red, glowing lustily with the fragrant lingering of my blood in the air, the epitome of vampiric temptation. Soren stops pacing before his throne, head raised in silent alarm, body rigid, eyes a flaming crimson of worry and deep set regret. In an instant, the room darkens.
Blood continues to leak from the gashes down my back, forming a steady, pattering drip, but all of that seems for nothing as I catch the flaring look in the Scarlet Prince's eyes, surveying the crowd to find his brother.
I'm sorry, I want to scream, my heart aching, but my efforts are futile, my head barely lifting from its lolling position on Azrael's rigid shoulder, my lips uttering little more than a despairing murmur.
As soon as Soren sees me, his expression softens.
"Give her to me," he whispers gently, in a voice so unusually raw with emotion that the whole room is quelled into an unbreakable silence. For once in his life, Azrael does not protest. He strides with the white fox through the crowds of vampires who part respectfully at his footfalls, none of them daring to lay so much as a finger on me as he carries me over his shoulder to the awaiting Soren, whose distress seeps out of him in waves of pulsing darkness on the top of the dais. Gingerly, Soren takes me into his arms, and I moan softly, curling up against his chest.
I'm sorry, I think desperately, I have caused you so much trouble, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
A soft voice in my head answers, cooing with a gentle fondness to ease the agonies of my heart:
Do not be sorry, Serena. You have nothing to be sorry for.
Soren brings up a trembling hand to cup my face.
"Oh my poor sweet dove," he laments under his breath, tenderly smoothing a thumb over my cheek to brush away the tears, "what have they done to you?"
"I'm sorry," I whisper once more, squeezing my eyes shut against the hordes of vampires that crowd my broken form. "I was stupid, I forgot everything you told me. I forgot about my powers, I thought I could take them with my sword, I was stupid, so stupid, I-"
Soren cuts me off sharply, unwilling to hear more.
"What's done is done. At least you will know for next time- your powers are much stronger than that flimsy silver sword. Just try and stay awake for me, okay? Keep your eyes open,"
In answer, I press myself further into him, a sob rising in my throat. Part of me wants him to scream at me, get angry, anything, anything but the kindness that I do not rightly deserve. But he does none of these things, instead carefully lowering his head and presses his lips to my forehead, shushing me into a lulling emptiness. Gratefully, I fall into it, screwing my eyes up against the blood and the pain, willing myself into a void of nothingness.
"Did you kill them?" Soren asks Azrael, raising his voice now, loud enough so that the eagerly awaiting crowd might catch a glimpse of the conversation, yet his eyes never leave my shaking form.
"She got one. The other two have had their necks snapped, but they have not been purged in the flames-"
Soren cuts him off sharply.
"Bring the remaining two here." he orders firmly. "Get the elves to bind them in silver chains and wait for them to reawaken. You know what to do after that."
"But what about Sere-"
"I said do it," he roars, rising up before Azrael who sinks under the shadow of his form, reduced to little more than an ashen figure under the might of Soren's wrath. Perhaps if I had the nerve and the strength, I might have laughed. Furiously, Soren continues on, his voice rising in a seething, angry despair.
"Did I not send you out to kill them, or do you plan to kidnap them and use them for whatever foul purposes you plan to enact, too? I know you let them hurt my fiancée to spite her for whatever foul reason you thought would be adequate- her heart has already told me everything so don't even deny it, and I have a good mind to kill you for doing so. But you and I have some talking to do, brother, so I will leash my urges for now. Now go and find those vampires and we shall talk about your little scheming later, or their blood won't be the only blood spilt on this floor tonight. Do you understand?"
The booming, coldblooded emptiness of his voice echoes around the room as the crowd recoils in a mixture of silent horror and terrifying respect, bowing their heads in acknowledgement of his wishes. Azrael purses his lips, something mad flashing in the backs of his eyes as he crosses his arms across his chest firmly.
"Certainly, brother."
Questions arise through the crowd, cries of protest, cutting through the tension like a hot knife through butter.
But Soren has little time to wait around for them, and neither, it would seem, do I. In a split second his whisks us away, leaving the anguished cries of his people far behind.
I groan at the feeling of being shadowshifted, my insides being torn apart by a thousand vicious claws only to be reformed and sewn together piece by piece to be reanimated elsewhere. It is a feeling I have never quite gotten used to, and probably never will, for while a vampire could spend their whole life with the feeling of being ripped apart and still be quite content, the same cannot be said for someone very fragile, and very, very mortal.
But considering at how quickly my body seems to be dying, its unlikely that will remain a concern of mine for much longer. I let out an agonised groan.
Soren shushes me gently as we emerge somewhere new, his fingers stroking across the pallid skin of my cheek, but my vision is too hazy to see or make out any discernible features of our new destination, a blood red thickening in the corners of my vision, fading out to a deathly black. My mind hums frantically. Blood continues to leak from the odious wounds on my back.
Perhaps a little frantically, Soren places me front down on something cold and hard, and my body aches its protest against the sudden emptiness, longing to be held in the safety of his embrace once more. But no comforting embrace comes.
"Be still," he instructs softly, bringing his face close enough to mine that I can make out the shimmering gold that swims in the depths of his eyes, alight with worry. "The more you move, the more blood you will lose. You are at a critical point, you must not lose any more,"
Soren moves from my vision, and I hear the methodical clattering of glass bottles from behind me, jostling in a cabinet as he slides them all aside, searching, looking strenuously for something he cannot seem to find. Then there is a sudden silence and a small gasp which tells me he has found what he is looking for. Carefully he places a bottle beside me- a small purple vial that sloshes with a dark liquid, and tears away the remaining scraps of clothes off my back, the cold air hitting my with a sudden potency causing my muscles to tense. I suck in through my teeth.
"Careful," he warns, unstopping a bottle with his teeth as he spits out the cork to the side of the dim room, the stopper bounding bluntly against the wall.. "This might sting."
Without a second word, Azrael leaps into the air. The grace and speed at which he darts his way through the first must be incredible, and yet I can barely feel it over the fading haziness of my conscience, the only thing keeping me from passing out from the pain being Azrael's hands clamped firmly over the lower half of my torso. Breath rises and falls from my lungs in inconsistent gasps.I can't believe I am dying like this.Perhaps if I had more energy, I might have cursed myself for being so stupid. I should have killed those vampires when I had the chance- what sort of an idiot lets another vampire intervene? I roll my eyes, groaning against the pain and rivulets of blood that stream down my torn up back like snaking rivers. Maybe I deserve this fate, if only for being so insolent. Azrael's icy voice cuts through any thoughts of self loathing with a wintry cold, laced with bitter venom."A nice necklace you have there," Azrael whispers, too specific to not be menacingly as he runs through the forest towards the faint glimmers of light in the distance, not caring the least as to whether or not I am listening. He barks a small laugh. "When exactly were you going to tell me that it is blocking me from getting to your sweet, sweet little mind?"Behind us, Ithuriel gives a low warning growl. But in my hazy state, I brush it aside."Took you a while," comes my half alive reply as my head pounds with the mere effort of trying to keep it upright. I can't see this going well for me. Not now. Yet despite everything, I maintain my steadfast resolve.A snide cackle echoes from the white haired monster's lips, and even from my state of half awareness, there is enough energy left in my body to fill me up with a cavernous dread. Despite the feverish warmth lingering on my face, my insides turn stone cold."You are lucky I can't seem to touch it, and that Soren currently has me under rather close surveillance, otherwise I would have delighted in twisting you little mind right now, just to see you squirm. You have made my endeavours such a pain these last few weeks- I can't slip into my brothers mind, and I can't slip into yours... It seems to make this soul of mine utterly useless. But no matter, I will wait. Oh, and thank you for informing my brother about my powers, I was getting rather bored waiting for him to figure it out. You have certainly spiced things up, even if I can't yet get into your head. No matter, I shall find out what you are hiding soon enough, I don't care how."If I had any strength at all, I might have whimpered.I suppose now it's only a matter of who is going to kill me first: Azrael, or the gaping hole in my back. We must reach the palace in a matter of minutes, but it feels like hours, every second draining away with another flurry of blood that streams down my back. All the vampires can smell it- I know they can. But at this point, that is the least of my worries. At some point beyond my recollection, Azrael bursts into the throne room."Prince Soren," he calls to a familiar figure pacing beside his throne with a feigning worry, slightly breathlessly, though from the running or the hunger, I cannot rightly tell. "Prince Soren the wretches are nearly dead, your fiance-" Heads turn to look at the commotion that has bolstered in unannounced through the wide arching doors of the throne room, some hissing like snakes, others recoiling, but all eyes red, glowing lustily with the fragrant lingering of my blood in the air, the epitome of vampiric temptation. Soren stops pacing before his throne, head raised in silent alarm, body rigid, eyes a flaming crimson of worry and deep set regret. In an instant, the room darkens.Blood continues to leak from the gashes down my back, forming a steady, pattering drip, but all of that seems for nothing as I catch the flaring look in the Scarlet Prince's eyes, surveying the crowd to find his brother.I'm sorry, I want to scream, my heart aching, but my efforts are futile, my head barely lifting from its lolling position on Azrael's rigid shoulder, my lips uttering little more than a despairing murmur.As soon as Soren sees me, his expression softens."Give her to me," he whispers gently, in a voice so unusually raw with emotion that the whole room is quelled into an unbreakable silence. For once in his life, Azrael does not protest. He strides with the white fox through the crowds of vampires who part respectfully at his footfalls, none of them daring to lay so much as a finger on me as he carries me over his shoulder to the awaiting Soren, whose distress seeps out of him in waves of pulsing darkness on the top of the dais. Gingerly, Soren takes me into his arms, and I moan softly, curling up against his chest. I'm sorry, I think desperately, I have caused you so much trouble, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.A soft voice in my head answers, cooing with a gentle fondness to ease the agonies of my heart:Do not be sorry, Serena. You have nothing to be sorry for. Soren brings up a trembling hand to cup my face."Oh my poor sweet dove," he laments under his breath, tenderly smoothing a thumb over my cheek to brush away the tears, "what have they done to you?""I'm sorry," I whisper once more, squeezing my eyes shut against the hordes of vampires that crowd my broken form. "I was stupid, I forgot everything you told me. I forgot about my powers, I thought I could take them with my sword, I was stupid, so stupid, I-"Soren cuts me off sharply, unwilling to hear more."What's done is done. At least you will know for next time- your powers are much stronger than that flimsy silver sword. Just try and stay awake for me, okay? Keep your eyes open,"In answer, I press myself further into him, a sob rising in my throat. Part of me wants him to scream at me, get angry, anything, anything but the kindness that I do not rightly deserve. But he does none of these things, instead carefully lowering his head and presses his lips to my forehead, shushing me into a lulling emptiness. Gratefully, I fall into it, screwing my eyes up against the blood and the pain, willing myself into a void of nothingness. "Did you kill them?" Soren asks Azrael, raising his voice now, loud enough so that the eagerly awaiting crowd might catch a glimpse of the conversation, yet his eyes never leave my shaking form. "She got one. The other two have had their necks snapped, but they have not been purged in the flames-"Soren cuts him off sharply."Bring the remaining two here." he orders firmly. "Get the elves to bind them in silver chains and wait for them to reawaken. You know what to do after that.""But what about Sere-""I said do it," he roars, rising up before Azrael who sinks under the shadow of his form, reduced to little more than an ashen figure under the might of Soren's wrath. Perhaps if I had the nerve and the strength, I might have laughed. Furiously, Soren continues on, his voice rising in a seething, angry despair."Did I not send you out to kill them, or do you plan to kidnap them and use them for whatever foul purposes you plan to enact, too? I know you let them hurt my fiance to spite her for whatever foul reason you thought would be adequate- her heart has already told me everything so don't even deny it, and I have a good mind to kill you for doing so. But you and I have some talking to do, brother, so I will leash my urges for now. Now go and find those vampires and we shall talk about your little scheming later, or their blood won't be the only blood spilt on this floor tonight. Do you understand?"The booming, coldblooded emptiness of his voice echoes around the room as the crowd recoils in a mixture of silent horror and terrifying respect, bowing their heads in acknowledgement of his wishes. Azrael purses his lips, something mad flashing in the backs of his eyes as he crosses his arms across his chest firmly."Certainly, brother."Questions arise through the crowd, cries of protest, cutting through the tension like a hot knife through butter.But Soren has little time to wait around for them, and neither, it would seem, do I. In a split second his whisks us away, leaving the anguished cries of his people far behind. I groan at the feeling of being shadowshifted, my insides being torn apart by a thousand vicious claws only to be reformed and sewn together piece by piece to be reanimated elsewhere. It is a feeling I have never quite gotten used to, and probably never will, for while a vampire could spend their whole life with the feeling of being ripped apart and still be quite content, the same cannot be said for someone very fragile, and very, very mortal.But considering at how quickly my body seems to be dying, its unlikely that will remain a concern of mine for much longer. I let out an agonised groan.Soren shushes me gently as we emerge somewhere new, his fingers stroking across the pallid skin of my cheek, but my vision is too hazy to see or make out any discernible features of our new destination, a blood red thickening in the corners of my vision, fading out to a deathly black. My mind hums frantically. Blood continues to leak from the odious wounds on my back.Perhaps a little frantically, Soren places me front down on something cold and hard, and my body aches its protest against the sudden emptiness, longing to be held in the safety of his embrace once more. But no comforting embrace comes."Be still," he instructs softly, bringing his face close enough to mine that I can make out the shimmering gold that swims in the depths of his eyes, alight with worry. "The more you move, the more blood you will lose. You are at a critical point, you must not lose any more,"Soren moves from my vision, and I hear the methodical clattering of glass bottles from behind me, jostling in a cabinet as he slides them all aside, searching, looking strenuously for something he cannot seem to find. Then there is a sudden silence and a small gasp which tells me he has found what he is looking for. Carefully he places a bottle beside me- a small purple vial that sloshes with a dark liquid, and tears away the remaining scraps of clothes off my back, the cold air hitting my with a sudden potency causing my muscles to tense. I suck in through my teeth."Careful," he warns, unstopping a bottle with his teeth as he spits out the cork to the side of the dim room, the stopper bounding bluntly against the wall.. "This might sting."
