The knot in Bela's chest tightened with each step she took down the stairs. Her heart stopped completely when she arrived at the antechamber leading to the bloodletting room and storeroom.
The ground was littered with dead. Blood splattered the walls, floor, and ceiling like a macabre painting. Bullet casings shined on the bloodstained floor, reflecting the warm torchlight. The stale air was heavy with the stench of blood, decay, and death, coalescing with the bite of gunpowder.
Not a single ghoul remained standing to mindlessly groan in response to their arrival. Ethan had put every single one of them to rest.
A low whistle from behind Bela alerted her of Cassandra's reaction. "Your man-thing certainly knows how to make a mess."
Bela could hardly keep the horror off her face when she glanced Cassandra's way. The brunette didn't notice Bela's expression. She was preoccupied setting her cleaning materials down – mop, bucket, broom, dustpan, and all – and moving up to the bodies.
"That pathetic fool was shooting like a madman. Look at all that spent brass." Cassandra chuckled under her breath, gesturing to the casings on the floor. She shook her head in a show of disbelief; her cocky smile remained ever present. "He must have panicked and gotten sloppy."
Cassandra bent down to inspect one body slumped against a wall. The grin on her face began to slip away with every second that passed, until only a frown remained. It was an uncharacteristically stoic look on her. Her keen eyes followed the dark trail of blood that went from head level and down to where the Moroaică now lay.
Her tone was decidedly flat when she declared, "He pinned this one up to the wall and shot her in the head twice. Right through the eye."
Cassandra was crossing the space and moving to the next body in moments as she muttered, "He got lucky. Maybe that was the first one he killed. I bet if you look around, we'll see plenty…"
Bela followed Cassandra's gaze, shifting from wall to wall, many of which were painted with blood.
"No bullet holes on the walls." Cassandra's voice was reduced to a murmur. Her eyes scanned each wall in turn for any chips and deformities from stray bullets. There was a long pause before she added, "He didn't miss."
While Cassandra may have been absorbed in how Ethan had dispatched of the Moroaice, Bela was far more concerned of the odds he faced all by himself. She was only halfway through counting the bodies when Cassandra called it first. Her voice was as solemn as it was silent. "He got all ten of them."
Ten to one. Ethan had been outnumbered ten to one, hadn't missed a single shot, and came out of it alive. With limited ammunition, light, and probably barely any rest in between, he killed them all and went on his way.
Bela didn't know whether to be proud or horrified. The amount of blood Bela could smell – Ethan's blood, since she was intimately familiar with its scent – steered her to the latter. No matter how good of a job he had done, he was still hurt. A particularly large sticky pool of Ethan's blood made Bela feel sick to look at.
One Moroaică's grotesquely bloody mouth called for Bela's attention. With stiff, numb hands, Bela slipped the torch she held into the closest mount on the wall. She took slow, unsteady steps and came to a stop before the cadaver. Blood – brighter and redder than that of the Moroaice – coated its mouth, chin, and the rags over its chest. This was the one that had mauled Ethan and taken numerous bullets to the head for its efforts.
Bela's fingers flexed at her sides in discomfort. She clasped them in front of her in the effort to keep them busy.
Ethan was lucky to keep his arm. If he had not treated the wound immediately, there was a high likelihood of infection.
Cassandra turned one of the Moroaice over with her foot in order to get a look at its front. The slimy sound of sticky, drying blood filled the air as it rolled over. It gave Cassandra an eyeful of the bullet holes marring its body. There was a twitch to Cassandra's finger, like she was mimicking each squeeze of the trigger as she counted the shots. Cassandra shared her findings aloud in an unfamiliar tone – almost detached, "Two shots to center mass, then two more to the head."
There was no more leering and mocking to Cassandra's expression as she went from body to body. Bela had never seen her sister like this. It was like she was a completely different person with how somber she was as she inspected the corpses. One by one, Cassandra announced to Bela, who remained perfectly quiet and still, the lethal accuracy Ethan had used to eliminate each of the ghouls. She didn't miss the way Cassandra's grimace soured more and more as she finally examined the last few bodies.
"When I gave him his knife back…" Cassandra was crouched down, taking the time to meticulously examine the ghoul's remains. "I did not think he would actually use it."
Bela's heart hammered in her chest. She took stiff steps forward to see what Cassandra was talking about; her hands at her sides trembled with sheer dread. The sight of the dead Moroaică wasn't what made Bela's stomach turn per se. Blood and torn flesh had never made her queasy, even before her rebirth into the Dimitrescu family. What made Bela squirm was the knowledge Ethan had needed to get so up close and personal to begin with.
The ghoul's throat was nothing but a mass of torn skin. It was more bloody meat than a neck. The Moroaică was locked in an eternal scream with its twisted mouth agape and its hollow eyes wide open. If Bela didn't know any better, she would have assumed one of the lycans, or those huge Vârcolaci were responsible for this. It was hardly the handiwork of a man with a knife – the same damaged knife which was now tucked into her pocket. This kill much more resembled a wild animal attack.
"Pinned her down and stabbed her in the neck until she stopped fighting." Cassandra's sharp eyes continued to study the lethal wounds. For what – Bela could only guess. Maybe she was trying to see how sloppy and amateurish, or precise and professional Ethan had been. With a light hand, Cassandra reached out to hold the Moroaică's head – to reposition it and view it from a different angle.
The ghoul's head nearly detached completely with how little tissue was left tethering it to its body.
"He really does know how to make a mess." If Cassandra's tone hadn't been so flat, Bela may have even suspected Cassandra of being impressed.
Bela was unable to share that sentiment. She was too busy thinking of how it could have easily been Ethan's mangled, shredded neck they were looking at. Fighting the Moroaice in such cramped quarters was dangerous in every sense of the word, contrary to what Cassandra may have imagined.
He could have died. All for Cassandra's fucking game.
Anybody else in Ethan's shoes would have died.
There were a hundred damn ways he could have died while outnumbered ten to one, and Bela wouldn't have suspected a thing. All because she spent the fucking night crying by herself like a damn teenager after a breakup.
If she hadn't fallen asleep, she wouldn't have forgotten her patrols. If she hadn't forgotten her patrols, Cassandra wouldn't have gotten her hands on Ethan. If her sister hadn't gotten her hands on Ethan, he would be well and whole, with no new scars or broken ribs and they could work on patching up their relationship and –
Bela pressed her hands into her face, taking a deep breath to reel it all in. She fought against every visceral urge and instinct that threatened to overcome her. She wanted to scream her heart out at Cassandra for every goddamn thing she'd done. She wanted to retreat to the sanctuary of her room and allow the walls to come down. She wanted to fly to Ethan in that very moment and tell him just how sorry she was for every fucking thing her family – herself included – had done to him.
This wasn't even the worst of it. They hadn't yet rounded the corner and ventured into the adjoining rooms. The smell of alcohol in the air was a bad sign. However, all the blood and gases of decay in this room were making it hard to guess the damages without seeing it firsthand.
Cassandra straightened up and clapped Bela on the shoulder as she stepped past her. It caused the latter to pry her face from her hands.
There was a wry look to Cassandra as she noted, "I didn't realize your man-thing was such a fighter." She gestured to the spent casings on the floor. "I counted. Not a single missed shot. Every round was to the chest or head. That one over there," Bela followed Cassandra's finger to one Moroaică, whose skull was splintered open by gunfire. "Has gunpowder residue around her mouth. I suspect he lost hold of his gun then, and that is when he resorted to his knife."
There was a pause as Cassandra turned away from Bela, facing the rooms ahead. Bela could imagine the conscious way her sister had to unclench her jaw as she added, "And that is how he won."
It sparked a sense of righteous anger in Bela's chest. Her face twisted into a sneer which went unseen by Cassandra.
Ethan had fought for his life both in the dungeons and in the main hall, and all Cassandra cared about was her fucking game. Bela had not expected any great show of empathy from her sister, but it was grating nonetheless to see her utter apathy. Being outplayed by a man-thing was all she could think of.
This wasn't even a rigged game. Cassandra had simply given Ethan a weapon and told him to go kill himself by throwing himself against unimaginable odds. What she'd wanted from Ethan was for him to commit suicide with a few painful, agonizing extra steps.
Bela parted her lips to give Cassandra a piece of her mind, only for the latter to speak first.
"Come," Cassandra sighed, having not caught so much as a glimpse of Bela's scowl, "Let us see the damages."
Bela bit down on her tongue and followed Cassandra into the bloodletting room. They hardly had time to take stock of their immediate surroundings – like the fact that their latest meal-to-be was done being drained from where she hung on the ceiling. Much more concerning was the sight that awaited them in the storeroom itself as the strong scent of alcohol overpowered the blood in the air.
An entire shelf was lying on the ground atop a mound of broken glass and bloody wine pooling on the floor.
"See, what did I tell you?" Was Cassandra's initial reaction, her tone notably uplifted. "He only got one shelf. This is hardly a dent in our supply. Just a drop in the bucket."
She stepped into the storeroom, shoes splashing into the bloody wine. She paused for a second, eyes fixed on the massive puddle at her feet. "Though mother did once say, 'what is a bucket if not a collection of drops.'"
Bela found herself frozen in place at the storeroom's entrance, watching the wine ripple out from where Cassandra had stepped.
In the grand scheme of things, one shelf was not a lot. They had much more where that came from. But when one looked into how much work went into said shelf –
Bela's throat tightened as the numbers began to run in her head. There were four rows to each shelf. Some quick math led Bela to a rough guess that at least a hundred bottles had been destroyed.
Not a lot of blood went into Sanguis Virginis. Unbeknownst to her mother, Bela had been tapering that practice off for nearly a decade, around the same time she had Tatyana step in. The bloodier side of the winemaking process was something Bela no longer took pride in. She would much rather that the duties be delegated to someone else. Tatyana was a quick learner, and they'd greatly reduced the amount of blood added to the wine in the past years. If Cassandra took notice of the changes, she made no fuss about it.
The bigger problem here was that not all of the bottles on the shelf were wine. Others were purely blood, meant for the entire household's consumption. Dozens of lives were pooling at their ankles in that very moment, while hundreds and hundreds more were bottled around them.
There were bloody handprints on the shelf which caught Bela's attention. Ethan's handprints.
Her mother would demand retribution.
Blood for blood.
This wasn't just some accident she could try and pin on someone else. He was the only one down here as the lone culprit. Ethan had signed his suicide letter by destroying the shelf.
Every bottle that had gone to waste, her mother would want Ethan to repay. He would be strapped to a chair in the neighboring room and steadily bled for days on end. He would know no rest or peace. The collection of bloodletting tools would be used to their full potential to keep his wounds from clotting. He would bleed enough blood for dozens of men. Each bottle he destroyed would be replenished and every single drop of blood and wine would be repaid. It would go on over the course of agonizing weeks until her mother was satisfied.
No – there would be no satisfying her mother. It would go far beyond simple retribution for the stock lost. The act itself – Ethan's defiance and rebellion – would be punished. Ethan would not leave that bloodletting room for months. He would be excruciatingly bled for the rest of his life with no end in sight, since Miranda currently forbade his death. When the day came that Miranda declared he was no longer useful, he would still know no reprieve. The torment would go on, because their mother would deem it so, and there wouldn't be a single fucking thing Bela could do to stop it.
There would be no cuddling and hugging in the safety of his cell. No steady conversation until the late hours of the evening, with no one to bother them but the flickering lamplight.
Ethan would cling onto his life in a limbo, teetering between unconsciousness and brief gasps of painful lucidity.
Her mother would make it a point to assign Bela and Cassandra to the task – no doubt still part of their punishment. Bela would be made to ensure Ethan was hydrated and fed enough to replenish his blood, only for it to continue being taken from him. Cassandra would be there to ensure Bela got no bright ideas, such as letting Ethan go or ending his misery early.
When he finally succumbed to his despair, death would probably be too kind of an end for him. More likely was that her mother would take the Cadou to him. She would ensure that he was doomed to wander the dungeons as a lycan for the rest of eternity – a guard dog. It was the final slap in the face Bela would receive for the endearing name she had given him.
Maybe she should have let him go scot free when she had the chance.
Just like all the others she'd had the chance to let go.
Bela took a shallow breath. She pried her eyes off the dried handprints long enough to swivel her head around – to take in the sight of the blood-soaked storeroom around her. It was easy – merciful on her sanity, even – to forget the harsh reality. She rarely ever visited the storeroom these days precisely to avoid reminding herself of the facts, and her ultimate failure.
Each bottle and every cask of blood and goddamn bloody wine in this cellar – those had been people.
People that Bela had assisted in capturing, imprisoning, bloodletting, and finally killing.
People that Bela had once locked in what was now Ethan's cell, with the attempt of prolonging their lives in the most painless way possible.
People that Bela had failed, because they all wound up dead within twenty-four hours anyway, most often by Cassandra or Daniela's hand.
And Bela was tired of failing people. If Ethan knew of how many souls had perished in that cell of his, he probably may not be able to sleep at night – as if he slept very well to begin with.
It was tiring. It was all so goddamn tiring.
Bela shut her eyes tight, even if it did little to block out the outside world and give her any sense of reprieve.
Even when filled with good intentions, and the hopes of sustainable, torture-free blood, things inevitably failed. Bela's life had been nothing but a long string of failures, even from before becoming a blood-sucking monster.
She'd failed the village and everyone she ever knew.
She'd failed every man or woman she tried to lock up and treat well in between the bloodlettings.
And now, she failed Ethan.
He was doomed to a slow, miserable death of endless bloodletting, and there wasn't a single fucking thing that could change it.
Bela would be forced to stand aside and watch in horror – and all for what? A few broken bottles of blood and wine? A twisted game? Whatever it was Miranda was planning?
What about his daughter? Was she next – another premium keg of blood until Miranda wanted to get her hands on the child?
Perhaps that was what drove Ethan into his destructive, albeit short-lived rampage. He was tired of all the depravity and failing his family – even if Bela may wholly disagree with that – and let the rage out in the only way he knew how. And perhaps it was the same revelation – that these bottles had all once been people – that had stopped it.
Not that it mattered. The why or how to Ethan's mess wouldn't matter when Bela was forced to strap him into a chair and bleed him until his body gave out. Her mother would undoubtedly supervise her every move to make sure that not a single fucking drop of blood would go to waste.
Through the ringing that Bela hardly noticed had settled into her ears, she heard Cassandra's voice break the silence.
It started as a slow, sinister laugh. With a wicked grin, she voiced what she found so damn funny. "Wait 'til Mother hears about the damage he caused."
There was no getting out of this. Not with Cassandra in the picture.
Ethan was a dead man. His fate was sealed the moment that shelf crashed down onto the floor.
If Ethan had died by the Moroaice's hands in the previous room, it would have been a much more merciful end for him.
"Mother is going to be furious. That man will pay." Cassandra's smile turned bitter, and she snarled out, "That will teach him not to trifle with me – to not belittle me."
Her fists balled at her sides as the anger only rose in her face as she stared at the wine-soaked ground. "He will pay for each insolent taunt he dared spit my way." Cassandra turned around to face Bela as she went on. "He –"
Bela was vaguely aware that Cassandra's eyes were on her now. She was too busy staring at Ethan's bloody handprints on the shelf to take notice. Her legs moved with a mind of their own, sending her past Cassandra. Her heels did little to keep her dry from the wine pooling in this part of the chamber, just under ankle-deep. She reached her destination by the side of the shelf. Clear as day, she could see Ethan on the ground, slumped over the shelf and heaving with exhaustion.
He'd been through so much. He would only go through more.
And there was nothing a failure like her could do about it. Failing people was all she was good for.
Bela fell to her knees with a soft splash and little regard for how she soiled her dress in the wine. Her hands settled over the bloody handprints on the shelf, for what little comfort they could give her.
She closed her eyes, and her head began to crane down, allowing her messy blonde hair to cascade over her face – as if it would shield her from the harsh, deathly reality ahead.
Bela didn't want this for him.
She wanted him to have his second chance at life – far from the clutches of Miranda and her family. She wanted him to carry Rose in his arms and raise her like the wonderful father she knew he was. She wanted them to live out their days to the fullest with the sun on their skin and the wind in their hair and not a single worry to trouble them.
She envisioned Ethan on the beach, just as he described it. She could picture his messy hair kissed by the salty wind. The ruffle of his loose shirt as it clung to his broad chest. The shorts he wore – damp from his dip in the seawater. His bare feet digging into the sand, leaving large tracks as he walked.
Little Rose to his side, holding his hand. Probably an oversized hat to protect her sensitive head from the sun. Her footsteps in the sand would be tiny compared to her father's.
Some nights, Bela imagined herself wrapped around Ethan's other arm. She held him tightly, protectively even. She could taste the sea salt on his skin when she pressed her lips to his cheek and promised him that nobody would hurt him again.
But none of that was real, and none of that would ever be real.
When Bela met Cassandra's gaze, she let her lips part. All the thoughts, hopes, and images of better days that would never come – they flooded Bela's mind. She could hardly process the words as they came out of her mouth.
"I don't want him to die, Cass."
Bela's small voice felt unfamiliar to her own ears. As if she were listening to someone else using her mouth to speak.
Cassandra heaved a sigh, and allowed the silence to settle between them for only a moment. "He is a man who crossed Mother Miranda and our family, Bela. When Mother Miranda no longer finds him important, you know that mother would not want him to live a moment longer."
"It doesn't have to end this way." Bela wasn't sure when it was the last time she had pleaded with anyone over anything. "I don't want it to end this way."
Cassandra took slow steps to stand closer to where Bela knelt. She deliberately stepped over the larger shards of glass as she splashed over. With one shoulder raising in a shrug, she remarked, "It is not for us to decide how it ends for him." She motioned to the shelf, "He sealed his own fate with his recklessness."
Bela could only stare at the bloody handprints on the aged wood. She thumbed over the marks in slow, repetitive motions.
"Are you blaming yourself again?" Cassandra asked with just a tinge of exasperation, "The man-thing's fate does not, and did not rest on your shoulders, sister."
But it did. If only she'd reeled her emotions in sooner, she would have been awake for her patrols, and Cassandra's game would never have begun. They would not be where they were now – ankle-deep in bloody wine and surrounded by countless lives reduced to bottles of blood.
"And look – even if it did, what does it matter? What did you hope to accomplish with that man?" Cassandra gave out a laugh void of any mocking or humor – more incredulous than anything else, "Were you hoping to – to what, change the way he sees you?" She drew a sharp gesture with her hand towards Bela and herself, shaking her head as she did so. "Sees us?"
"No matter what happens, we will always be monsters to people like him. We kill them for their blood and meat." There was an air of finality to it as Cassandra stated, "They would be insane to not see us as beasts preying on them."
Bela eyed her hands as they ran over the marks Ethan had left on the shelf. Her hands had saved lives, taken them, and failed them.
Bela's lips parted, and she closed her eyes as the thoughts, images, and memories all ran amuck in her mind.
She felt the snowflakes in her hair. She felt her mother's hand on her back and the crunch of snow under her shoes as they rushed on to the village square. She smelled the diesel in the air from the military's trucks. She saw her father's bright blue eyes damp with tears as they embraced.
She saw blood on her gloved hands – but it wasn't a dirty feeling. Her heart raced with exhilaration as her eyes ran over her handiwork: a muscular arm stitched back together after a wolf hunt gone wrong.
She felt the chilly wind blowing through her blonde hair, while a voice was warm against the back of her neck – deep, teasing, and supportive all in one. The hunting rifle in her hands, unused for years since her father's passing, was steady. A pair of hands closed over her own, adjusting her aim, stance, and form.
After a lengthy pause, Bela began, "Do you remember what it was like to be alive?"
Like flipping a switch, any concern Cassandra may have had was replaced with contempt. "Alive? I feel more alive in this life than I did in the last – you know that." She took a forceful step forward as a snarl split her lips, "You think I enjoy looking back on that life? Being beaten bloody and reminded that I was nothing and I would always be nothing?"
Cassandra's eyes flared with anger as she bared her teeth. "If that was what being alive was, then I don't want to remember a single moment of it."
The sharp rise and fall of Cassandra's chest was quelled with a deep breath. She unclenched her fists, and shook her head as if to banish the memories. With a more levelled tone, she sighed, "I recall you said it was different for you."
Bela allowed Cassandra a moment longer to breathe. This was a topic Bela would ordinarily approach with much more tact, but Bela was all out of that at the moment. She was done.
"Ever since I woke up on that operating table, I have felt nothing but anger and hunger. There is a…" Bela eventually settled a hand over her heart, "A hollowness in my chest. A void. It wanted nothing but to hurt and kill people and drink all of their blood. Then at least they would be as empty as I was."
"And then you remembered," Cassandra muttered as her eyes flitted over Bela's face. She watched Bela's smallest movements for any clue as to what was going on in her head.
The small humble house and clinic. The smell of wood and herbs in the air. The rifle mount above the mantelpiece. The hidden nook in the back of the fireplace.
Bela shut her eyes hard. She clung onto the broken shelf – over Ethan's bloody handprints – like it was her last lifeline. The buoy that kept her afloat, lest the sorrow and grief sweep her away and into oblivion. She went on, despite the growing tightness in her throat, "I remember so much, Cass."
"I know, Bela."
"That – that thing in my chest, it changed. Not immediately, but it was a different sort of hollowness. Not just anger and hunger, but now sadness too. Longing." Bela gulped, opening her eyes. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Longing for a life I lost – the people I lost, and nothing I ever do is going to get them back."
"I tried to shut it away for the longest time," Bela tore her eyes from her hands to glance once at her sister, "We have not spoken of what we remember since that one time, ten years ago. I have not brought it up with you, nor Daniela. But you know what?"
Cassandra crossed her hands before her and nodded in silence to urge Bela on.
"I am tired of locking it up. I am tired of pretending that life was not my own. I am tired of being a monster, Cass." Bela's hands tightened on the shelf – over Ethan's handprints.
"That pathetic man-thing you nearly killed with your fucking game – he is the first person in half a century to look at me like I'm not a monster. Like I'm not a blood-sucking heathen who does nothing but leech off of humanity." Bela laughed softly – sounding more like a sob than anything else. "To him, I am just… like him. An ordinary person."
The words were spilling out. Now that the dam had broken, it showed no sign of stopping.
"When I'm with Ethan, I can talk about my life – my human life. I do not have to shut it away and pretend it never existed to begin with. If I do that – if I pretend there was never a life before this castle, then it is like none of it ever existed." Bela stared into Cassandra's sharp eyes and her impeccable poker face. "Who will remember them, if not me?"
"The truth is, sister, I have felt dead inside for longer than I can say. This life of ours, of blood and death, is not a life I wanted to live. Before it all came back, it was an emptiness I could only try to fill with more blood and pain. And now that I remember all that I do – it is even worse." Bela bit down on her bottom lip for a second. Her eyes grew vacant, glossing over as the memories piled up. "I can see them, Cass. Their faces, their smiles. I remember how we laughed together on the good days, struggled together on the bad ones – especially towards the end."
Her lips hung open for a moment longer. Laughter echoed in her head, only to be drowned out by screams of anguish. "I can hear them. We were friends. Neighbors." The words stalled in her throat, refusing to come out – as if saying it out loud would make them even more real. "I killed them. We killed them."
"I have been a monster that causes nothing but blood and death for more than I have been alive. I'm tired of it, sister." Bela's grip tightened on the shelf, enough to turn her knuckles white. "I'm so fucking tired of everything."
"I tried to do good – be better. All those people the past decade," Bela found a snarl forming on her lips before she could reel it in, "I could not do a fucking thing for them either. Because you would rather play with their insides than let them live for over a day in the dungeons."
With a sharp gesture upward, Bela growled, "And because Daniela loses her temper at the flip of a fucking switch. And then there's mother who decides the inventory suddenly needs a fucking restock."
Cassandra was unfazed by Bela's anger. Without any fuel to the flames, the rage was quick to simmer down. The dread and ache in her heart made for much more potent and visceral feelings.
"The life I lived the past decade has not been living. It is more akin to survival than anything else with how empty I have felt. And then," Bela gave another sad laugh, "And then here comes the man-thing. The only person to make me actually feel alive for the first time since – since…"
"Yes," Cassandra saved her from further heartache by voicing her apparent understanding.
"Even after I hurt him when we first met, he talked to me. After everything we've done to him and his family – even after me locking him in that fucking cage, he –" Bela cut herself off with a shake of her head.
Even after all that, Ethan had taken her into his arms and held her until she stopped her pathetic weeping. It wasn't something Cassandra needed to know.
"That emptiness in my chest is bearable with him. With Ethan, it's as if I am not a blood-sucking monster. To Ethan, I am just Bela and," She scoffed, more to herself than anyone else, "I don't think I ever realized how long I have wanted to be just Bela."
Bela's eyes settled over the ruined shelf – the final nail in Ethan's coffin.
"When you tell mother what happened down here…" Bela couldn't find the strength to say the words out loud – to verbalize the torture and agony Ethan would have to endure. Her eyes glazed over as her blank stare fixed on the handprints.
"All the things that will be done to him to settle the score and repay the wine…" Bela's voice grew faint. "He will loathe me too much to ever rebuild what we had. That will be the end of that."
The scenes playing out in her mind were painful. It hurt all the more speaking to Cassandra, who would ensure Ethan's demise.
"The last person – the only person to ever make me feel alive and human will just see me for the monster that I am once more." Bela's lips remained parted for a beat longer. She added with resignation in her voice, "I think when that day comes, I will kill him swiftly, so he need not suffer by your or mother's hand any longer."
She would take his head off in a single fell swoop. Sever his vertebrae so he would not feel a thing.
"Maybe I will bury him in the village below when the weather improves." A forlorn ghost of a smile creeped onto Bela's face. "Next to those people I know only from my memories."
Ethan deserved better. He deserved the whole damn world. All he was getting instead was agonizing months of torture and then a shallow grave. If that was not injustice, Bela did not know what was.
If Bela's life had been one failure after the other in the world's longest list of failures – Ethan would be the final one. There would be no turning back after that. Her humanity, and any hope she had of embracing it would die with him. Even if she tried to hold onto that part of herself, there would be no one that would see her the way Ethan did – look at her the way he did. Ethan had given her a chance, and she had blown it by allowing the chain of events to culminate in this broken shelf which sealed his fate.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with myself when I lose him."
Maybe it would be time for her to leave and never come back. She could walk until she grew tired, and night would eventually fall. She could allow the cold to take her, and succumb to the endless, echoing void in her chest, finally bringing a close to the nightmare of her life. Yet even that was far too merciful of an end for a monster like her.
Bela had no more words to express her devastation and dismay. A heavy silence settled between the two sisters. Cassandra remained rooted where she was, her expression pointedly blank. Bela stewed in the bloody wine on the floor, fingertips grazing along the bloody marks Ethan had left. She knew that it may very well be the closest she would get to laying her hands on Ethan that didn't involve strapping him down for bloodletting.
The quiet was eventually pierced by footsteps descending the stairs in the room beyond. They lacked the signature weight of their mother's strides. In moments, Tatyana rounded the corner, stopping at the storeroom's entrance. From behind her veil, she appeared to take the sight of the destruction in for a moment. In her hands, she clutched the ledger Cassandra had requested.
"Tatyana," Cassandra cleared her throat, closing the distance with splashing footsteps. "Is this up to date?"
"It is, Lady Cassandra." Tatyana gave a nod. "I've also brought the wheelbarrow to the top of the stairs." She spared a glance to the bodies strewn across the next room over, appearing completely unfazed. "It will take several trips to deliver them all outside."
"I hope you brought a sheet so as to not scare the other servants, then." Cassandra cracked a wry smile, earning a soft, if not dry, chuckle from Tatyana.
"I came prepared, madam."
Cassandra clapped a hand on Tatyana's shoulder as she remarked, "Glad to know we can count on you, Tanya." She then looped her arm over Tatyana's shoulder to lead her to the next room over. Bela watched them round the corner to the scene of the fight as Cassandra suggested, "I believe we can fit perhaps three bodies in the wheelbarrow at a time."
There was no getting out of this. Tatyana seeing the ruined stock for herself probably didn't help, either. But at this rate, nothing was going to help.
With a sigh, Bela began the arduous task of getting to her feet. She took hold of the ruined shelving for balance as she got up, not trusting her body to function unsupported. She wasn't keen on listening to the casual chit-chat between Tatyana and Cassandra. She could start the cleanup work in here. It was the best she could do to try and keep her thoughts at bay, if only for a moment.
Bela gave Ethan's handprint one final glance before she tugged at the panel. The wood creaked in protest before coming free. Bela haphazardly tossed the long panel of wood into the next room over without a single shit to give. It landed with a loud clatter, not that anybody would complain. Not Cassandra and Tatyana, who were beginning to carry bodies upstairs. Certainly not the maid who Daniela had sentenced to death the day prior, and was now hanging from the ceiling, drained of all blood.
The motions of dismantling the shelf's remains were enough to keep Bela's anxious hands occupied for the time being. The shelf's tiers were undone one by one and tossed into the next room. In time, the entirety of the destroyed shelf was reduced to a pile of scrap wood.
Bela wrung her dress of wine – just to avoid adding even more to the mess – before exiting the storeroom. She retrieved Cassandra's mop while the woman in question was preoccupied with the bodies. She dragged them up the steps, one after the other, where Tatyana was waiting to wheel them away.
Bela took the mop back to the storeroom and got to work. There was a floor drain a short distance away, and it was just a matter of mopping the mess over to that. It would be easier to sweep up all the broken bottles once the area was relatively dry.
It was repetitive, slow, and mind-numbing work – but nowhere near enough to let Bela's mind blank and forget about all her troubles. No, she was nowhere near lucky enough for that.
The time that trickled by allowed her to play the scenarios out in her mind – of just what she could do to try and mitigate her mother's wrath.
Perhaps she could shuffle a new shelf into the broken one's place. Maybe rearrange some of the bottles from deeper within the cellar.
But no, the damage was too great. The sheer amount of the loss would not go unnoticed by her mother. Even if she somehow got away with it, there was still Cassandra to contend with.
Any other ideas Bela had fell flat almost immediately. Her mother would be livid once she learned of what had transpired. It was highly likely that Ethan would be swiftly removed from Daniela's custody and brought straight to the bloodletting room. If he was lucky, he wouldn't lose a limb in the immediate aftermath as payback.
The human body only contained about five liters of blood. That was just under seven bottles filled to the brim, barring any losses and spillage. If he lost about half of that in one go, he would die. Knowing her mother, and Miranda, they weren't about to let that happen. It only ensured he would be stuck bleeding to replenish the supply, and pay for his sins for a long, long time.
With how much bleeding Ethan had to do, no doubt the Lady of the castle would want the payback to begin immediately. It gave Bela little time to interfere and change his fate.
Bela didn't know if she had it in her to stand up to her mother. She'd never done so over the winemaking process, and all the souls lost to the barbaric practice. The times Bela did complain about Cassandra and Daniela spoiling the prey she locked up in the dungeons, their mother was largely apathetic – dismissive, even. To her, it just seemed as though Bela was trying to keep her own personal stash, rather than let her sisters in on her catch.
Even if Bela tried to lie the entire thing away, Cassandra would only shoot her down, and the lid would still be blown wide open.
Breaking Ethan out seemed like a fool's errand. Either of Bela's sisters would undoubtedly stand in the way, and she did not want to imagine what that escalation would look like. Ethan himself likely wouldn't be compliant in the jailbreak. He was not leaving here without Rose, and Bela had still yet to lay eyes on the child. And even if she somehow got Ethan out of the castle – what then?
It was the middle of winter in rural Romania. That was no place for a man on the run and his infant daughter. The lycans would be swarming after him in moments. To top it off, there was that Chris Redfield psychopath going around killing Miranda's minions, as if his bloodlust hadn't been sated by killing Mia. What if he came back to finish the job and murder Ethan?
If Bela gripped the mop in her hands any tighter, it may just –
The snapping of wood reverberated throughout the storeroom.
Bela hurled the mop's remains onto the mostly dry floor. She gripped her hair in tight fistfuls, where they wouldn't get any bright ideas like swinging for the shelves and knocking them over in her despair. She bit down hard on her lip to keep the screams in.
All the half-baked plans in her mind were down the drain, much like the wine she had mopped away.
It was fucked. Ethan was fucked.
Bela steadied her breathing to the best of her ability when she heard Cassandra's footsteps drawing nearer. She rubbed her hands against her face a final time before Cassandra filed into the storeroom. The latter's dress was covered in dark blood – a byproduct of handling so many bodies.
Cassandra only spared the broken mop a single glance, and said nothing. Bela took the time to retrieve a spare mop from outside before returning. It would take extra elbow grease to un-sticky the ground after all the blood and wine had pooled on it. She could at least channel her frustration into those harsh strokes on the stone floor.
Meanwhile, Cassandra swept the pile of glass shards and other debris. When she was done, she began scrubbing on the walls, which had an ample amount of stains on them as well – blood and wine alike. Neither of them said a thing, and the silence was only interrupted by Tatyana rifling through the wooden debris – likely to bring it upstairs to that wheelbarrow of theirs. In time, the storeroom was as clean as it was going to get. You would hardly be able to guess that a man's fate had been sealed in this room.
Cassandra took over the hauling, instructing Tatyana to return to her duties upstairs. There was a brief exchange between the two which Bela overheard – mostly having to do with if they needed the table set for a meal, since they skipped breakfast and lunch, while dinner was still a few hours away. There was still work to be done, so Cassandra declined. Bela did not have much of an appetite and frankly couldn't wait to get far away from her sister – her entire family, really.
Maybe she could pay Ethan a final visit before everything went straight to shit.
But no, Bela was unsure if she had it in her to face Ethan either. Not with the bad news she had to bear. Not with how their last argument had gone, and they still needed to talk things out. It didn't seem like they would even get said chance at the rate things were going.
The last of the debris was eventually hauled upstairs, where Tatyana wheeled it away for disposal. It left the antechamber as the final room for cleanup now that the bodies were gone. The mopping and scrubbing of drying blood was more wordless work split between Bela and Cassandra. With how visceral the pitched fight had been, there was no shortage of cleaning to be done. After an inordinate amount of time went into ensuring the room was blood-free, the bullet casings, bone fragments, and other bits were swept up. Cassandra retrieved and pocketed the discarded magazines from Ethan's gun.
With the bulk of the work completed after the long hours of labor, the sisters returned to the storeroom, where Cassandra held the ledger. It was a quick matter of checking which shelf had been destroyed and verifying its contents in the book.
"A hundred and forty bottles," Cassandra read aloud. "Of which, fifty-six were Sanguis Virginis – 1991 – and the rest were blood, more recently bottled."
Bela could pass out then and there.
It was a lot of premium vintage, and a lot of blood. 1991 had been a good year for harvest, and an equally bloody year of hunting.
Fortune was not kind enough to have made it so that Ethan had only destroyed a shelf of their personal alcohol instead. Their mother would not be as vengeful if it was just the vodka and palincă that had been the casualties of Ethan's rampage.
And speak of their mother –
The heavy, sharp click of their mother's footfalls echoed throughout the dungeon's lower level. Cassandra and Bela turned away from the storeroom to stand at attention. The former closed the ledger in her hands, holding it in front of her.
Lady Dimitrescu stepped into the bloodletting room, head stooped low to avoid the ceiling. It prompted the sisters to backpedal enough to allow their mother to step with them into the storeroom, where she could stand up to her full, towering height.
Their mother's cheeks were flushed from the cold weather, and loose flakes of snow clung to the winter jacket draped over her shoulders. She took the fuzzy ushanka off her head to thumb at the melting snowflakes atop it. "I never did enjoy coming down here. Stooping down that stairwell alone is enough to make my back ache."
With a sigh, their mother remarked, "Tatyana told me the two of you have been hard at work," She gestured vaguely to the upper floors with a long arm, "It appears she was correct."
After the earlier tension between them, neither Cassandra nor Bela spoke up. They simply nodded in affirmation, which prompted Lady Dimitrescu to ask, "Well, how bad is it?" Her brow began to crease into a frown as she motioned to the space behind the sisters. "I'm quite sure there should be another shelf here."
Cassandra spoke up first, "Fifty-five bottles of 1991 Sanguis Virginis. The fifty-sixth is upstairs in the wine room," She took a breath before adding, "Eighty-four bottles of blood."
Their mother had at first seemed somewhat pleased by the fact they cleaned up the mess upstairs and in the dungeons. All traces of that were gone now as she spoke through a tight sneer. "Tell me then. What happened? Start from the beginning."
Cassandra turned her head towards Bela, who kept her hands clasped in front of her, while her eyes were downcast.
There was no getting out of this anymore. Ethan's fate was sealed, and all she could do about it was ensure his death was swift when it came down to it. No amount of lying would save him. Not with Cassandra seeking to get even. What was the point?
"I… became somewhat protective over," Bela consciously picked her words, forcing the air inside her lungs and the words through her teeth, "Over the man-thing. In order to maintain the quality of his blood, I forbade Cassandra from torturing him."
It was a massive oversimplification, but she wasn't about to tell her mother everything she had told Cassandra. It's not like she would understand, anyway. Bela didn't have enough strength or mental fortitude left to go through that again.
"Cassandra attempted to sneak into the dungeons several times throughout the past week, but I accosted her and sent her back to her room each time," Bela stared hard at the ground as her voice grew slower and smaller. As if prolonging the end of this story would prolong Ethan's peaceful existence for a moment longer. "I did not do my routine patrol last night, and so Cassandra was able to reach the man early this morning."
With her shoulders slumped and defeat in her eyes, Bela glanced at Cassandra in silent direction to take over. Ethan's bloody sentence was going to be meted out either way. It didn't matter which of them gave the gory details. At least this way, it wasn't Bela who personally hammered down the final nail – or corked the bottle of his last drops of blood.
"I was supposed to retrieve a bottle of Sanguis Virginis for you, mother. I decided… perhaps against my better judgment, to get some entertainment out of it in the process." Cassandra fidgeted with the book in her hands as she spoke. She took turns looking at the floor in front of her, and then up at their mother. "I instructed him to go to the storeroom and retrieve a bottle, bring it to the wine room, then return to his cell."
Cassandra took a big inhale before admitting, "To increase the stakes, I snuffed all the torches and uncaged the Moroaice."
"Uncaged," Lady Dimitrescu interrupted, holding a hand up. "When were they caged to begin with?"
Bela admitted, "That was my doing, mother. I imprisoned them to make the path clear for when…" It hadn't quite occurred to Bela in all their walks that she would ever have to explain them to her mother. The strolls she took Ethan on were something Bela purposely tried not to make a big show of. The more lowkey it was, the less likely her sisters would casually bring it up over family breakfast. With a clearing of her throat, Bela finished, "For when I took the man-thing out of his cage to stretch his legs."
Even as Bela avoided looking at her mother, she could feel the tall woman's gaze boring into her.
"I see." Something told Bela that wasn't the last their mother had to say on the matter. "Well, Cassandra – go on."
"To give the man-thing a fighting chance, I outfitted him for the task. His sidearm, two spare magazines of ammunition, a knife," Cassandra listed them out with a corresponding tap on the ledger in her hands. "… a flashlight, and a bottle of disinfectant."
"We actually haven't yet been to the other parts of the dungeon," Cassandra spoke quickly before their mother could chide them, "But I don't believe there is any more cleanup to be done elsewhere. I counted the rounds the man-thing expended. He did not get into any fights in the upper dungeons. He evaded the Moroaice and made his way down here to retrieve the wine."
This was it. The final nail in Ethan's coffin. The last light of her life about to be snuffed out far, far too soon.
Creatures like her hardly deserved redemption. Maybe this was what she deserved. This was her punishment for seeking something better after being nothing but a savage beast for decades.
"He entered the storeroom, where the Moroaice ambushed him. All the bodies we disposed of were found in this room. The shelf must have been knocked down in the struggle when the Moroaice attacked him. We all know how dumb and clumsy those creatures are."
Bela's heart stilled as she couldn't believe her ears. She turned her head Cassandra's way, to find her sister's neutral expression on display. She held her mother's gaze as she reported on, "He killed ten of the Moroaice, grabbed a bottle of Sanguis Virginis from an intact shelf, and then proceeded upstairs. I believe you know the rest, mother."
Their mother's tired eyes studied Cassandra for a moment. She heaved a sigh before asking with dubiousness in her tone, "Are you saying the man-thing isn't at fault for this mess?"
Cassandra allowed the question to hang in the air for just a moment before she gave a bitter smile, "You said so yourself, mother. The man-thing is not to be underestimated. He surely realized retribution would await him if he caused further damage to our stock. He knew what was good for him, so he grabbed a bottle and ran. It was either that or be eaten if more Moroaice followed the noise of the crash."
Her fingers drummed on the ledger once as she added, "It was probably a good thing he fled when he did. Mother Miranda would not take it lightly if the man-thing had been killed by the Moroaice."
Lady Dimitrescu's scrutinous eyes studied each of her daughters in turn. Bela focused on appearing as neutral as possible as her heart ran a mile a minute.
Cassandra – Mother's most reliable Cassandra – the Cassandra who'd rather eat her own sickle than admit she was wrong – that very same Cassandra was covering for Ethan.
What on earth was going on? Why would she do this?
After a pregnant pause, their mother sighed again, "If this was not that man's fault, then the responsibility falls on you two – particularly you, Cassandra."
With that same emotionless mask, Cassandra nodded once. "Yes, mother."
Their mother took a second to massage a hand on her tired face. "I think it was mostly punishment enough to make you two stick together and clean up your mess for the better part of the day." She wagged a finger Cassandra's way as she added, "Maybe you ought to work with the maids when they do their cleaning for the rest of the week. Perhaps that will teach you not to play with your food."
"Very well, mother." Cassandra sighed before nodding deeply, holding her mother's eye contact all the while.
This could not be real life. This was not happening. Cassandra, who tortured Ethan for her sadistic entertainment, was now lying for him? Taking the blame in his stead? Any moment now, Cassandra would break character and start laughing – then she would tell their mother the truth, which would condemn Ethan to an agonizing lifetime of suffering.
It took all of Bela's willpower to not snap her head in Cassandra's direction to stare at her in disbelief. She would need to pick her mouth off the floor if she met her sister's gaze.
Lady Dimitrescu took the moment to sigh, looking between her two daughters a final time. "I best be off." She set the ushanka back atop her head. "Mother Miranda hardly let me slip away to check in on you two. Give your mother a hug before I depart."
It was easy to step into their mother's open arms when Ethan's impending demise was no longer tugging at every fiber of her being. The castle matriarch bent down to accommodate her daughters, who pressed themselves into her in a big hug. Bela shut her eyes tight as her face pressed into the fuzzy fabric of her winter coat.
A kiss was pressed to the top of either of Bela and Cassandra's heads in turn before their mother straightened up. She ran one hand through Cassandra's dark hair, while giving Bela's shoulder a firm squeeze with the other. "Goodbye now, girls."
"Take care, mother."
"Safe travels, mother."
Lady Dimitrescu stooped out of the doorway. Her weighty footfalls began to grow distant, leaving Bela alone with her sister.
Bela's vision began to blur as the relief flooded her.
Things were going to be okay. No strapping Ethan to a chair and bleeding him for months on end until his body gave out. No more despair and feeling like death every day for the rest of her seemingly immortal life – not for now, at least.
And against all odds, it was thanks to the one person who was most unlikely to take the blame on Ethan's behalf.
Bela turned to Cassandra as the relieved tears crowded her vision. Her sister wore the slightest uptick at the corner of her mouth.
"Cass," Bela's voice broke, and she found herself at a loss for words. She hardly trusted her voice to form a whole sentence.
Her sister gave a slight sigh, but broke into a small smile. "I think the words you are looking for are, 'thank you.'"
Bela all but threw herself at Cassandra to wrap her sister up in a tight embrace. She sniffled and blinked the tears away, taking care not to get them all over Cassandra's hair. "Thank you, Cassie."
The tightness in Bela's throat was keeping her from saying much more – such as asking why Cassandra had taken the blame. Hours ago, she was itching for the opportunity to get even with Ethan in the most brutally disproportionate way imaginable.
Cassandra rubbed a hand up and down Bela's back in comforting strokes. She rocked Bela back and forth in slow, soothing motions. It made Bela sniffle and weep all the more as the feeling of just being cared for mingled with the relief.
That was the answer to Bela's question of why right there – Cassandra cared about her. Underneath the prickly, violent exterior, Cassandra cared. She cared far more than she would ever admit aloud to anyone.
"Hey, enough of that," Cassandra chided in the gentlest way imaginable. She pulled back enough to get a look at Bela; she rubbed a thumb across Bela's tear-streaked cheeks. "You'll get your man-thing back in one piece tomorrow, isn't that what you wanted?"
Bela nodded fervently in the affirmative. She cleared her throat as best as she could and sniffled out, "It is. I am just – I," She laughed slightly – more of a happy sob than anything else. She wiped at the tears on her face and managed out, "I'm so relieved. I can't believe it – I thought he was a goner."
There was the slightest weariness on Cassandra's face, but that was hardly amiss. She was taking the fall on Ethan's behalf, after all – even if her punishment was not even remotely as severe as what would have been done to Ethan. Cassandra still smiled in spite of it, and shot Bela a wink. "You owe me one."
It was a welcome change that the idea of owing Cassandra one no longer filled Bela with dread.
A/N: Thank you fellas so much for reading! Do please fave, follow, and all that good stuff!. Drop me a review to let me know how you felt about this one! You know how much I love hearing from you guys!
So... this was a heavy one, I think. Hopefully the ending over there is an ample amount of light at the end of the tunnel as we fully enter the second arc of this story now. We get more glimpses into Bela's past, and just *how much* Ethan's started to mean to Bela by this point. Cassandra also shows some of her 'true' colors beneath all that sadism. *Insert Vin Diesel voice line of "family" here.* It may not have shown up until this point, but Cassandra's character is a really interesting one to me, and things only get more interesting with her as we move forward. As I've said lots of times in my notes, and replies, she's got layers on top of layers. When you peel them all away, if you survive the peeling process, you're in for a treat.
Next chapter is Ethan and Dani's fun time. What game are they playing, I wonder? Monopoly? Snakes and Ladders? Strip poker? Your guess is as good as mine.
I'll warn you guys off as early as now that I might not post by next weekend. I'm really taking my time with these Dani chapters. Expect the next update in maybe 2 weeks time. If we're lucky, it'll go up earlier. If not, maybe a little later. I'll keep y'all posted in the replies if I'm way off schedule. For now, I hope you enjoyed this update, take care, and I'll see you all around soon. Cheers!
