Chapter 3

Miaka’s P.O.V

“He’s alive.”

I’d nearly forgotten that he was beside me when his voice cut through the rush of blood in my ears. I couldn’t fathom what I was seeing in front of my eyes. A lump formed in my throat and I was having difficulty breathing past that.

A boy of about four or five years old was inside the room, chained to the wall like a dog. He was left naked just like the rest of the captives, face sunken in and dark bags under his eyes. His lips had dried blood around them, which led me to believe that he was a vampire. Several tubes were linked to his skin which had turned a sickly ash colour. Some of the tubes drew out blood from his body that was being collected into several jars, while the remaining tubes carried some kind of clear liquid into his body. I have no idea what the liquid was, but it was the cause for worsening his condition.

“Hey!” Someone shook my shoulders hard and snapped me out of my trance. I was met with eyes of pure violet and blue and grey, and it felt like I was finally able to breathe again. “You need to get him out of here. They brought him in last night and he was still in a much better condition that he is now. Can you help him?” The last words were gritted out.

“Yes.” I finally found my voice. I removed his hands from my shoulders and stepped into the room and headed straight for the little boy.

I yanked the collar off the wall, careful not to let the spikes pierce his skin and removed the cuffs from his hands and legs; then I proceeded to do the same with the tubes. While I was still unhooking him from the tubes, the violet eyed man came inside the room and this time he was carrying a bag in his hands which he used to shove in all the blood jars as well as some of the vials containing the clear liquid. “I don’t know what’s in here, but try and get these tested so it can help him recover.”

Tubes removed, I took off my leather jacket and draped it around the little boy’s frame. Young vampires can be very dangerous especially when they’re starved but the boy was too drugged to react. So I picked him up in my arms and carried him out of the room, the man following behind me. “Why are you helping me? You’re one of them.”

“I’m not one of them, I work for them; there’s a difference.” His voice was hard, gritted out through clenched teeth. “I don’t support what they’re doing. If I had I wouldn’t have helped you.”

I felt that there was something he was holding back from me, so I turned to face him and looked him in the eye. “But now that you have, what do you plan to do next?”

“I won’t do anything. My shift was already over when you attacked so I wasn’t technically here. I only came back because I forgot my keys and then…”

I gave him a stern look, trying to determine if he would run while I handed the boy over to Rain or not. But my gut told me to trust him. It came as more than a surprise since I didn’t even trust my own shadow. Then why did I get the feeling that he could be trusted?

 “Stay here. I’ll hand him over to my guard and come back for you.” I told him and accepted the bag, slinging it over my shoulder.

I sped past the slaughter house and went towards Rain where she awaited me in the highway. She was equally mortified by the sight but I told her to rush to the nearest healing centre as fast as she could.

“But, what about you?” She asked after she placed the boy inside the car.

“I need to burn down the house, wipe all evidence. Go before it’s too late!” I urged her to get into the car and drive away, only turning around once she was gone.

He was standing in the middle of the warehouse when I returned. He handed me a piece of paper when I came to stand in front of him. “What’s this?” I asked, opening the paper to find a phone number written in a hasty handwriting.

“My number.” He said. “I’m Kaleb Takeshi and the group I work for is known as The League. I don’t know who all the top members are, the person who recruited me was one of them but he died of a heart attack a year ago. Since then, all my orders have come in the form of text messages from untraceable numbers. I’ll give them to you once I get back to my apartment. But wait at least a week to call me.”

I nodded, agreeing with him and trying to stall what I had to do next. Not everyone had been alive when we began the rescue and it was a loss I would mourn. We had removed them from the cages and unshackled them and their bodies now lay on the ground along with the dead guards.

“Are there security cameras here?” Several of my guards had used scanners to investigate this spot before confirming that there were none or even if there were, they didn’t transfer images outside the building, but it doesn’t hurt to double check things.

“No. Security cameras could be used against us so they were all removed months ago.” He told me before nodding. “It’s time. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine...at least I hope so.”

“Worry?” I raised an eyebrow at him. Did he really think I was worrying about what might happen to him after I left? Did he even comprehend just how conceited that sounded?

I was about to retort to his smug comment when I noticed a drop of red on his cheeks. Blood? That wasn’t there before.

“You have blood on your cheek.” I told him.

“Blood? Where?” He wiped at his cheeks in confusion but only managed to smear the stain. “I think it’s from the boy. Some of his wounds were bleeding when we unhooked him.”

“You smeared it.” I told him, looking at the angles of his face. He really was handsome and I didn’t know why I even thought that.

I was the demon king, raised in a court filled with exceptionally beautiful men and women. He didn’t come close to the beauty around me, but still…there was something about him that just drew me in.

Before I had realized what I was doing, I had raised my hand and pressed my palms against his cheeks, wiping away the tiny speck, before I looked up into unflinching violet eyes. Kaleb looked a bit startled at first, but as soon as our eyes locked…everything else just faded away. The blue and grey swirled in the centre, creating a unique pattern and I couldn’t help but get transfixed by them. I pulled my hand back so I could create some distance between us but instead, found myself drawing closer inch by slow inch.

What was I doing? Why had I placed my hand on his cheek anyway? And why couldn’t I look away from him? And why was my hand tingling at the contact?

“You should go.” I told him as I took a hasty step back…before I ended up doing something stupid. “Go before someone comes.”

“Are you sure?” He frowned, looking at me with eyes that had the power to captivate me.

“Yes.”

With that, I turned towards the warehouse without a second glance and watched as flames engulfed the walls, slowly burning its way up and soon the entire building was a blazing inferno. This was no ordinary fire; it was Hell fire, the fire that is used to punish the evil, tainted souls. It took mere minutes to burn down an entire building and soon, the sirens of a dozen fire trucks sounded in the air.

When I turned back to where Kaleb had been a few minutes ago, I found the spot empty and the cool night breeze ruffled through my hair, whispering the news of his departure. I shouldn’t be searching for where he went, but I found myself looking around for him nonetheless.

With one last glance at the warehouse, I turned towards the direction of the healing centre and dashed forward without any backward glance.