Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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Helia slept about as well as anyone did around here, sweating her ass off and barely able to grab an hour at a time. For some god forsaken reason, she'd insisted upon sharing a room with Horus, and he paced near every second he wasn't checking to see if Rodney was still alive. Rodney slept like a rock after he'd returned to them, completely out of it after he'd drank half the humans available. Something about the Sol castle was affecting him, and whatever change it was instilling within him had him conked out to facilitate it. Horus was convinced Talamayas Sol had poisoned him, but Helia highly doubted that.
Could vampires even be poisoned?
Ghost had never come back after Horus had treated him like garbage and neither had Stone after going off with his master. It worried her even though it shouldn't. Ghost had likely just wanted to give Horus time to cool off. Vice was safe here, this was his home, Talamayas was his master, and yet she had this nagging need to see that he was all right. Vice, in one body or another, hadn't left her side since the day he'd dropped from the void, not if he had any choice about it. It had her unable to get any real rest, and she slipped out of the room during an hour where Horus had finally passed out at Rodney's side.
It was nearing morning, but the halls were less populated than she expected. Most vampires slept during the day time, but more were resting now than normal. That meant they expected to be needed when the sun rose, but Helia hadn't been made privy as to what. Why would she? No one liked the Cinders, and Talamayas Sol thought she was stealing Vice away from him, so she imagined she was more unwelcome than most.
Talamayas Sol.
The man's energy was the easiest to track around the castle, its power humming through every wall of his domain and becoming thicker as she neared his location. Helia didn't have the first clue as to where Ghost had gone, but she knew Stone was with his master at the least. If he hadn't returned, they must still be together, but her doubts multiplied when she realized she'd left the main living area. Vampires gave her strange looks as she passed, but none stopped her as she headed down into what seemed like a hall of storerooms. Doors were left open to reveal provisions, supplies, and records all the way to the last room in the hall where Talamayas' magic pulsed.
Helia rubbed her sweating palms together as she reached for the long, curved, metal handle. Just touching it had her heart hammering, and it near exploded when she pulled and the hinges screeched. In reality, it was only a squeak, but to vampires any noise was an air raid siren. There was no use in delaying, so she entered the pitch room but kept her back pressed to the door so she could run if necessary.
Crimson eyes glowed in the darkness, flames lighting small candles around the walls from Talamayas' power. They gave her enough light to make out a room cramped with shelves on either side like a library closet. Books and papers overflowed a table by the door, but her focus was on the middle aisle where someone had just dropped a cot in like this was prime real estate for sleep. It was so small that Talamayas Sol near fell off it with his huge, muscled body, and he only managed to fit Stone on it by crushing him to his chest.
