Black Hellebore Read online

  “Are you okay?” she asks gently, totally catching Lia off guard, but Lindsay doesn’t wait for an answer.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but I think you should stay away from Tru. She is not good for you.”

  Lia looks angrily at her. Why does everyone think they know who is bad or good for her? Isn’t she capable of deciding that for herself?

  “You don’t even know her, she is really nice.”

  “Yeah, but maybe she’s just a bit too nice. I think she wants a little more from you than you are willing to give, so maybe it would be better for you two to just stay away from each other.”

  Now Lia really doesn’t understand. How can someone be too friendly? When Lindsay sees how confused Lia is, she groans in exasperation.

  “God Lia, Tru is a lesbian! The whole school is talking about it, but you wouldn’t know about it because you always hide away from everyone!”

  Lia really wasn’t expecting that. She has heard lots of stories about Tru, but this one is new to her. Probably started after what happened this morning. It wasn’t even Tru’s fault; it was Lia, and it is also Lia who gets goosebumps every time Tru touches her. She can only hope that Tru won’t let this get to her and make her keep her distance. She would really be completely alone then. She brings this up with Lindsay.

  “What is going on with you? Are you mad at me?”

  Lindsay quickly shakes her head and smiles halfheartedly at her.

  “No, don’t worry about it; it’s nothing to do with you.”

  “But what is it then? You have been ignoring me for days and then you try to tell me it’s nothing to do with me?!”

  Lindsay looks at her blankly, and wishes that things could go back to they way they used to be when they were still best friends and could tell each other everything.

  Lindsay sighs sadly. “Sometimes you just have to move on, and you can’t do that when you surround yourself with hopeless people.”

  Hopeless? Does she mean her? Has she just had enough with Lia’s bad moods? Is she no longer willing to stand by her side? Even before Lia can feel the lump in her throat, her eyes fill with tears.

  Taken aback, Lindsay widens her eyes. “Lia, what’s wrong? I didn’t mean to upset you, but life goes on, even yours.” Her former best friend tries to console her while reaching out her skinny arm to try and comfort Lia, but she can’t handle it. How can someone try to comfort her and at the same time be saying they want nothing more to do with her?

  She takes a quick step back and wipes her eyes. “We have to get back to class.”

  She runs away, more eager to get to class than ever before, just anything to get away from Lindsay and her rejection. It doesn’t help that Lindsay shouts after her; “Lia, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She could see it in her only friend’s eyes what she really meant.

  - 12. Orlando Moundrell -

  “Orlando! Orlando, come quickly!” he hears an excited voice yelling, accompanied by hurried footsteps and before he knows it, Mary stumbles into his room with excited and curious eyes.

  “I think she is here!” she squeals with excitement and dances from one foot to the other.

  “Who?” Orlando wants to know, unimpressed as he crawls out of his black velvet bed and a charcoal pencil and piece of paper fall to the floor. It is the beginning of a drawing of Lia. He simply can’t get her out of his head.

  Mary is an early riser and because of that a real pain sometimes.

  “Liandra!” she blurts out, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and with that grabs his undivided attention.

  ”Where?” is the only thing her can manage to say.

  “Standing outside the gates, I saw her through the window! She has been standing there since I woke up and seems to be waiting for you! She looks good enough to eat!” Mary says joyfully, not having seen Lia before today. She also doesn’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation.

  This can’t be happening! Orlando quickly slips into his dark trousers and throws on his white shirt, then quickly rushes out of his room with Mary at his side to the nearest window on the ground floor.

  It’s true! There is a human woman standing outside the gates of Moundrell Manor, her back facing the house. She is pacing back and forth, and with every move her tight jeans accentuate her perfect round bum. She is wearing a seemingly wafer-thin red blouse which clings tightly to her slim, but well formed body. Her blonde hair is placed in an updo, leaving her swan-like neck provocatively out in the open. This alone lets him know who she is, but it’s when she turns towards him and her emerald green eyes glow like a flare in the darkness that he knows for certain. How is this possible? He never told her where he lives. If she only knew what kind of danger she is putting him and herself in for just being here. If Mary saw her, then she has probably been seen by others as well.

  “Should I go out and tell her you will be right out?” Mary offers excited, but Orlando just shakes his head in disbelief and walks back to his room to get his shoes.

  “That’s not very polite; one doesn’t just leave a lady waiting outside the door! Where have you left your manners?”

  “She shouldn’t even be here!” Orlando says annoyed.

  Orlando usually doesn’t leave the house through the front door, he always sneaks out the old cellar door, but right now he doesn’t seem to have any other choice. He ignores Mary, who is begging to go with him, and slams the door in her face as he leaves the house. It is still very quiet, so if he is lucky, nobody has seen her yet, but that would border on a miracle.

  When Lia spots him, a sparkling smile dashes across her face and she tries to hug him, but instead he just grabs her arm and pulls her quickly through the Italian Gardens and behind the nearest corner concealed by some olive branches. Instead of reacting defensively, Lia simply laughs, amused at his behaviour and playfully strokes his cheek. She is being far too loud and rowdy.

  “What’s wrong? Are you ashamed of me?” she asks him brazenly, and if Orlando hadn’t already seen it in her icy eyes and her outfit, he would definitely have seen it in her seductive behavior and silky voice. This attitude has no effect on him anymore however, in fact, exactly the opposite; it’s making him angry. She is treating him like a stupid little schoolboy. He knows that Lia is not exactly herself right now, but instead a person who she really doesn’t want to be.

  “How do you know where I live?” he asks sternly while dragging her at dizzying speed across the deserted park lane.

  “I felt you!” she exhales, her hot breath touching him as her lips make their way towards his earlobes. Orlando grips her arm tightly and turns her towards him so she has no choice but to look him in the eye.

  “You can NEVER come here again, do you understand?!”

  Lia laughs.

  “I understand, you want to keep our little affair a secret. That’s fine by me, that make’s it all the more exciting and cancels out the question of whether we should go back to yours or mine.”

  Though her alluring smile gets under his skin, and less than a week ago he wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation of her offer - but all that is over now. As enticing as this creature was to him before he knew the real Lia, he now just sees her more and more for what she really is; a demon. But demons are not invincible, and he knows that from personal experience and he wants to prove it to Lia.

  With that, he follows her home, playing into this little game of hers, but really he is just making sure that she doesn’t do anything stupid. Again, this is completely out of character for him, because usually it wouldn’t bother him what became of a girl after he had had his fun with her. But he also never got to know any of them like he did Lia. She is no longer just some girl to him; she is someone special, someone who doesn’t deserve to be killed. She is his Liandra.

  When they arrive in her room, it takes her less than a second to cross over to him, with a speed he has only seen in immortals before, and tear his shirt from his shoulders, kissi
ng his neck with her full, warm lips. The offer is enticing, and it makes it that much harder for Orlando to control himself and push her away.

  For the briefest moment, he sees what looks like disbelief in her green eyes, only to disappear behind her lusty gaze again. Only after one thing, she walks towards him again and tears her blouse from her body, making the buttons fly towards his chest and fall to the ground with a quiet clatter. She stands bare-chested in front of him, her eyes fixated on his. God, she reminds him so much of Mary when she is in one of her murderous frenzies. Even her pupils are large and black as night.

  He is ready to give up as she forcibly pressed his hands against her warm naked breasts and moans sensuously into his ear. After all, it seems to be what she wants. He eagerly presses his lips against hers and doesn’t fight when she pushes him down on the bed. He runs his fingers through her soft hair, which smells like fresh strawberries. He would love nothing more than to bury himself in her, but the look in her eyes hits him like a smack in the face, bringing him back down to Earth. Those same eyes were filled with such sadness and desperation only yesterday, and for the first time in what seems like forever, he had let his heart reach out to someone other than himself.

  “It’s as if someone else takes over my body, and I have no control over anything.”

  The memory of Lia’s words makes it clear to him that this is not what she would want. At least not like this. It takes a lot of will power and effort on his part to get himself off her. She clearly likes being in control, because she looks at him angrily as he leans over her. But the power she has makes him truly consider the possibility that she might really be possessed by something. Until now, he had just assumed that her strange behaviour was due to some mental problem, but it would be very new to him if something like that would give her some kind of super powers. As an immortal, he possesses powers like no other living being, but Lia shouldn’t have this kind of strength. Not only that it’s impossible for him to drink her blood, but also that he can’t seem to keep his hands to himself when he is near her. Like a wild cat, she arches up and screams, and then tries to lure him in again with her sugary sweet words. The muscles in his arms are aching from the constant battle waging within him not to give into her and his forehead beads with sweat. This has never happened before, because nothing has ever been so strenuous that it has made him sweat. Her screams are getting louder and louder, burning in his ears, making him lose focus for just a moment. In that split second, Lia makes her escape. In one swift move, she is up off the bed and out the bedroom door.

  Reeling, and with a ringing in his ears, Orlando follows Lia down the dark staircase. She has a slight advantage in the fact that she lives here, but she has no intention of hiding from him, rather the exact opposite it seems. As he stands there considering where to look for her first, he hears the large front door slam shut. Orlando doesn’t hesitate for a second and jumps down to the ground floor in one step, just in time to see Lia running down the driveway with no top on and in her bare feet. It’s a good thing her father isn’t home, because if he saw her like this, he would either think that Orlando is a murderer, or that his daughter is completely insane, and ready to be committed.

  “Keep up the charade!” Orlando hears in his mind as he leaps from the ground, landing a good ten metres ahead of where he started and right on top of Lia. His body throws her to the ground, her screeches echoing frightfully in the night time. He can only hope that nobody calls the police. With a similar super-human jump, he brings Lia kicking and screaming back to the house with him. He ignores the pain that courses through him with every swing she takes at him. He carries her back to her room in his iron grip, very much against her will. It would be easier for him to just tie her to the bed before she disappears again and does something that she would later regret, but that seems cold and heartless to him. She is not herself, and so he feels he needs to make sure she at least keeps her dignity. He quickly wraps her blanket around her half-naked body to cover her up, and like a small child he holds her against himself, tightly wrapped up. Her hands are restrained in the material like they would be in a straight-jacket, making it impossible for her to hit him. Her body is moving and wriggling trying to angrily break free and she is insulting him with words he has never heard before, but after a while that all dies down.

  Her rage soon turns to pure desperation, and finally she lies there helplessly, transformed into a mess of snot and tears. Her whole body trembles and shakes as he gently rocks her back and forth. It is no different to when Mary is overcome with her bloodlust. Her tantrums are the same, but Orlando was never willing to deal with them, always leaving her to be dealt with by someone else, usually Vivienne. He knows it should be him that rocks her to sleep, but maybe he can make it all better by doing a better job with Lia.

  As the morning approaches, she is finally asleep and the clear marks of the many tears she shed can still be seen on her face. Her hair is standing on end and looks very dull and lacklustre in the dim light. Her skin seems thin and pale, as he carefully strokes her arm, which is discoloured from where he tried to restrain her. One look at her body frightens him; not only because of all the bruises that are covering her - but she also looks unsettlingly thin, as if she is starving to death. Her ribs are sticking out unnaturally far, leading Orlando to ask himself how he could ever have thought she looked healthy and well-built. It is simply not possible to lose that much weight in a single night. He doesn’t want to leave her, he wants to stay until she regains consciousness to protect her from herself, but his enemy the sun forbids it. Now she must fend for herself, and if she is lucky, maybe she is so worn out that she won’t even wake up until the next evening. Still, Orlando leaves feeling guilty and can’t shake the nervous feeling growing inside him.

  - 13. Chasity Moundrell -

  Chasity protectively throws her arms around her own body, as if she needs to hold herself. She hasn’t spoken a word for at least an hour now, ever since Claudia showed her the inevitable. Even though she knows Claudia told her out of duty and not spite, she wishes that she didn’t have to find out, because then she wouldn’t have to deal with it. She has looked the other way so often with Orlando, and of course she knew that he never showed himself at any of the council meetings and that it was always Vivienne who was there to comfort the screaming and raging Mary. But as long as she didn’t know exactly where he was and what he was doing, she didn’t need to deal with him. How does it go again? Innocent until proven guilty, but unfortunately his guilt had just been proven.

  She saw the young woman standing outside the front door with her own eyes.

  But it wasn’t just her, because Claudia and countless others saw her too.

  If it had only been her, she could have just forgotten about it.

  She could even perhaps convince Claudia to stay silent, but not the whole clan. Such a request would be a betrayal to them all.

  If the girl had just shown up and stood there, then she could at least try to come up with some kind of excuse for it. She could have told the others that many human women are drawn in by the presence of vampires, and that it didn’t have anything to do with Orlando at all.

  But he had to go with her; he couldn’t just chase her away. She watched as he jumped ten metres in the air, in the middle of a brightly lit courtyard to catch a screaming woman. There is no way to logically explain that kind of behaviour to a human. Orlando broke the most important rule and all for just a bit of fun with a woman that didn’t even want him. She ran from him. She wanted so badly to intervene and run to help the poor thing. Even though she doesn’t value humans very highly, no woman deserves to be raped by a man, especially one as strong as Orlando, leaving her no chance to get away. She could never have imagined that Orlando would be capable of such a vile act. Why, there was no need for violence on his part at all, when women literally lined up to get to him. It makes her heart swell every time she sees how lovingly her cousin takes care of his adopted daughter; her second cousin
Mary.

  The crown being passed down through her family is not just due to her birth right, but also because of her beliefs. As opposed to her father, she has always said that a good queen is one that listens to her subjects and values their opinions as much as her own. She even set this as her main law and rule. She has always listened to her subjects, listening to their input instead of just making decisions on her own accord.

  1460 AD, England: John Moundrell swills the expensive red around in his Venetian Chrystal glass, his gaze fixed on the prince of Warwick. His older brother Richard partied like a king. He sat on the throne, his fat belly covered with a jewel-encrusted fur coat, as he laughed so hard, that the fatty piece of turkey he was eating spilled back out of his mouth.

  It wasn’t intelligence or looks that made a man rich. It was money, and Richard Moundrell had more than enough of that. Even the king of England took loans from him. Richard was neither clever, nor smart. The only thing he had going for himself was that he was the eldest son. He inherited the entirety of their father’s estate, and instead of sharing it with John, he banished him to the furthest corner of the ballroom to sit with the soldiers and servants, while he sat amongst the fine ladies and gentlemen. Let him choke on that wine!

  It wasn’t the first time John had wholeheartedly wished for his brother’s death, but he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. He and Richard always competed against each other – who was the better horseman, the better fighter, the better lover. There were only two years between them, but that was enough of a gap to change everything after their father died. While Richard inherited all of his father’s businesses, John was banished from his family’s estate and put into a small hut on the edge of the forest. He only invited his brother back for official events to keep up appearances, but even then he didn’t have any good intentions. He just wanted to make fun of John’s shabby clothing in front of the people in attendance. He didn’t hire a court jester – after all: he had his brother for entertainment.