Emma was aware that the guards had mostly been deployed at the ball. She hadn't gone there. Lazarus had said that he was about to come to her in less than half an hour. Even Olya was not liking it at all, but the four of them had to maintain the façade.
She had asked the maid to close all the doors and windows. She wanted to draw the curtains, but she didn't. All at once a high-pitched howl came from somewhere near the back garden. She was on the bed. She got up, snatched the shawl from the couch and wrapped it tightly around her. She padded her way to the window to see who that was. It was pretty dark on the outside and all she could see were the burning torches that lit the palace. "Could be a lone wolf…" she mused.
Seeing that there was no one, she went to the chair near the fire hearth. The howl came again. This time nearer. It was accompanied with a hiss. Emma jerked at the sound. It was as if someone spoke to her. Her heart thundered too loudly in her ears for her to hear it better. The hiss sounded like there was an anaconda sitting right there on the ledge of her window.
Emma swallowed down her throat and then the glass of the window shattered. A lamp knocked over and the whole room plunged into darkness. Emma's arms folded around her as she crouched on the ground, scared to move even an inch.
"There you aree…" the voice hissed. "I have been trying to get to you in so many ways…"
Emma heard the sound of footsteps closing in on her. But what was strange was that the steps were not of a single person. It was as if there were two people behind her. Her teeth chattered as she remained crouched in her position. And then hands grabbed at her. Hands that were too strong. Hands whose grip was like a vise on her shoulders. Hands that hurt. Emma screamed and then turned sharply, unleashing a bottle of liquid on her assailants.
Somewhere in the darkness, the scream emerged as the two people she now saw clearly tottered to the side, losing their hold on her. "What have you done, bitch?" said one of them, shrieking in pain, leaning against the wall.
In a matter of seconds, Lazarus, Magnus and Yul traced to the room. Lazarus and Magnus rushed to the back of the vampires and pulled their hood down. Yul removed a torch from the wall and lit it with the fire of the hearth. He walked closer to the two vampires and chuckled as he saw their faces.
"Didn't I tell who they would be?" Yul said with a snarl.
Emma glared at Nora and Cora—Lazarus's twin step sisters.
"This is insane!" Nora shouted as she cried in pain, her face turning red with the liquid that Emma had sloshed on her.
Cora's fangs had lengthened and so did her claws. She turned sharply and attacked Magnus. "You bloody swine!" she said as she elbowed him. "You are on the wrong side! You are defending someone who should have been killed a lot earlier!" She clawed at him, but Magnus traced and kicked her from behind. Yul punched her face from the side. She tumbled to the floor as her jaw cracked. She screamed with pain. "We had come here only to eliminate this bitch!"
Nora was still fighting with the pain on her face as she scratched and scratched it until she was bleeding.
"Guards!" Lazarus shouted and the guards came in. Not one, two or three, but the whole lot that Emma thought had gone to guard the ball. Lazarus hadn't sent them anywhere. It was only a decoy. The guards came to catch the two girls. Instantly they were shackled in fae iron.
Yul caught Nora's hair and yanked her head back. "She was the one who was attacking the humans and sucking them dry!"
"And then throwing their bodies near the blood forest!" Lazarus snarled.
"Yes, I was!" she spat. Her breath was labored as she glared at Lazarus.
"You were doing that and the humans were suspecting me," Lazarus said, his voice deathly cold. "In the last meeting with the rebels, had Emma not heard about this, I would have been in the blind as always."
Cora shot a glare at Emma. "She was always a nosy whore! She—"
Lazarus's slap converted her words into a blood-curdling scream. "Don't you speak against my mate!"
Cora panted as tears ran down her eyes.
"You thought that you were the only smart one out here, huh?" Lazarus said. "You dressed as a man and entered Emma's chamber when she was taking a bath the day we had returned from the meeting with the rebels. It was Nephie who saved Emma."
"But how did you know that it was us?" Nora asked through all the pain that she was experiencing. She had thought that she and Cora would suck the warm blood of Emma. They had become really desperate after Lazarus had sent a large number of soldiers to guard the villages after the meeting. They both needed fresh blood every other day because they had become addicted to it. And the only way to get it was to get a man from the village. Earlier Gladys would also participate in their human hunts, but ever since she had disappeared, they were left to themselves. Earlier, Gladys would easily ensnare men into their palace and then the three would feed on them.
Their occasional blood lust had become a dependence before they knew about it. It was then that they started hunting men and sucking them dry. Because of heavy security in the village, they couldn't get their fill. To take revenge from Lazarus, they targeted Emma. They convinced their father to host a ball in Olya's honor. They made sure that Emma wouldn't attend it. When everyone was at the ball, they surveyed the wing where she was holed up. Being a royal, it was easy for them to trace anywhere. It was an icing on the cake when they came to know that Yul had ordered most of the guards to guard the ballroom.
It was their chance. The two didn't waste time and traced to Emma's room, but they didn't know that Emma would be equipped with something so deadly. She was acting like a bait for them when they thought that she would be a good feast and they would also avenge Lazarus.
"How did you know about us?" Cora asked, repeating her sister's question when Lazarus didn't answer her.
"You will come to know about it when you are in the same dungeon as Gladys," he replied in a menacing voice.
Both the sisters jerked their heads back. "Gladys?" Nora said, her voice faltering.
"Yes." Lazarus signaled his guards to take them away.
The twins screamed and pulled against their shackles despite it being fae iron, but their pleas died down the corridor because all the royals were in the ballroom.
Once they were gone, Lazarus pulled Emma in his embrace. "How are you?" he asked in a soft voice. He had given her a poison to throw on her attackers before leaving.
"I am well, Lord Lazarus," she said, burying her face in his chest, trembling.
