Midnight Whispers (The Midnight Duology #1)

Chapter 28

28

Her anger radiates off her in what could only be described as the heat from a blue flame. I know she’s angry now, but soon she will understand. If she must hate me right now, I’ll accept it.

“I don’t think that will work for us.” Octavia responds.

“You get your life for a life. That’s what all of this is about, right?”

“Do you think you’re really in a position to argue with us, Finnian?”

“Eudora, I don’t mean to argue. The law states it's a life for a life. Flora is offering herself to take Lillia’s place.”

“He has a point, Tave.” Griffith sighs. “We might as well just let him change this Flora girl and move onto other matters.”

He’s widely known to be the most agreeable of the four, where both Octavia and Balthazar are known to be the harshest. Eudora follows Octavia’s lead over all else. The hate in Octavia’s eyes burns holes through my skin as she stares at me.

Flora moves further away from the three of us and closer to the Counsel, clearing her throat as she stops movement .

“Look, I know I’m not part of this world. Obviously, I don’t know how things work, but I do know that Lillia has been the most constant thing in my world since I can remember. Let me take her place, with an agreement that she will be turned another time. We will come back with proof later, or you can come visit us in the town we live in.”

The four of them look back and forth between one another, Octavia and Balthazar staring at each other for longer than the others. After what feels like the longest moments of my life, Balthazar stands and clears his throat.

“We accept the life of Flora in exchange for Cedar. Finnian, you will change her today and then you guys will be free to go home. As for Lillia, she will need to be changed within a calendar year. If she is not, there will be hell to pay. You will not see it coming, is that understood?”

“Yes.” The four of us respond out of sync. Griffith looks pleased with the outcome of the meeting, but Octavia’s eyes are seething with hatred as she looks at me.

“Proceed.” Balthazar gestures toward me, his eyes looking between Flora and me. My shoulders sag with the feeling of remorse that floods through me with the heaviness of what is about to happen. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.

I wish there was another option.

Flora was adamant that Lillia shouldn’t be forced to change, and the points she made are valid. My girl had suffered enough trauma without adding being forced to become a vampire onto the list. It was important to both Flora and I that she be given a well-thought-out choice.

Lillian sobs in the background, begging Flora to change her mind.

“You’ll be changed when you’re ready, Lil. I know you well enough to know that you need to heal emotionally, and you can’t do that if you’re also trying to juggle wanting to kill everyone.”

Flora turns away from Lillia, wiping her tear drenched cheeks with the back of her hand, and nods at me.

“Any day now.” Eudora groans.

“Ready?” I whisper to Flora.

“Yes. If everything you told me was true, then I’ve prepared myself.”

In a quick movement, I bite into my wrists. Exhaling and closing my eyes, I lift my wrist up to Flora’s mouth. She looks at me and it’s almost like she’s saying please don’t fuck this up somehow or something with her eyes. She places her mouth to my skin and begins to drink, my blood and venom dance together and course through her body.

“Flora, that’s enough.” I whisper, she fights against me and pulls my wrist closer to her mouth. Asher snarls and begins to move closer to us. I hold up my free hand, signaling him to stay where he is. Reluctantly, she loses grip on my arm and withdraws her mouth from around my wrist.

“Sorry.” She says, wiping my blood from her lower lip.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Your reaction was nothing short of natural.”

“Get on with it already.” This time it was Octavia whose impatience was evident.

I look at Asher and without any instruction needed, he turns Lillia away so that she wouldn’t have to watch her best friend die.

“Will it hurt?” Flora whispers.

“Only for a moment.” I respond, unable to remember how it felt when I died. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, to prepare herself for something she’ll never be truly prepared for.

“Okay. I’m ready.” Swiftly, I lift my hands around the base of her head. I make sure her death is as quick as possible .

The sound of a neck breaking is never something I believe I’ll get used to. In fact, it’s one of those sounds that still send a chill up my spine. Lillia turns and runs toward us as I lay the lifeless body of her best friend down onto the cold floor of the throne room. She pulls Flora onto her lap, cradling her head as she sobs over her corpse. I don’t know if she realizes it or not, but she's rocking back and forth to soothe the overwhelming feeling of grief that is flooding her body right now.

“When… When will she wake up?”

“It could be as little as a couple of hours or as long as a couple of days.”

“A couple of days?!”

“That’s rare. It’ll more than likely be within the next two or three hours. That’s the most common.”

“Where do we go until then?”

“You will be taken upstairs.” Griffith, suddenly standing next to us, says. His hand is on Lillia’s shoulder to comfort her. “Please, it’s this way.” I know I’m a jealous mother fucker, but the way he’s looking at her makes me want to rip out his heart right here. She looks up at, tears streaming down her face, and looks back down at Flora with a sigh.

“I’ll get her love.” I respond, sliding one hand behind Flora’s head and the other along her lower back.

Lillia stands and Asher follows us as Griffith shows us to the elevator. He pushes the button marked two and the doors close, the elevator begins buzzing as we rise to the next floor. The entire ride Lillia was sniffling and looking down at Flora. Asher remains stoic, but I know him well enough to know he is dangling by a thread. When the doors open, I step out first, followed by Lillia and Griffith, and then Asher.

“Just this way, please.” He places his hand on Lillia’s lower back and gestures to her down the hallway.

The second story has been completely modernized. The floor is a black marble with swirls of white and gold, accented by the off-white walls that are lined with gold sconces. Unlike the one downstairs, there’s no portraits in this hallway, but there are statues placed along the exterior.

“This one will be yours.” He says to me, pointing at a door to his left. “Asher.” he gestures to the door across the hall. “Lillia, darling, if you’ll come with me. Yours is down the hall.”

“No.” she says abruptly. “I’ll sleep with Finn. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Noted.” He responds and bows before he turns and walks back in the direction of the elevator.

“Flora will be with me.” Asher says his voice stern.

“Of course.”

“You’ll get me when she wakes up?”

“He won’t need to love, I’ll feel it.” Her eyes grow wide.

I transfer Flora to Asher’s grasp and turn to go into the room I’ll be sharing with Lillia. He goes into the room and shuts the door without looking back.

“He loves her, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but he won’t admit it to her until he thinks she’s ready to love him back.”

We go into the room and close the door behind us.

“Don’t think this means I’m not angry at you. I just get a weird feeling about that Griffith guy.”

“So, you are angry?”

“Did you expect me not to be?”

“No. I expected you to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, but I wish you guys would have discussed the plan with me first. I didn’t like being so out of the loop.”

“Next time we plan to go up against the Counsel we will definitely talk to you, love.”

“Can there not be a next time?” She sighs.

“I will take full responsibility for the plan, so don’t be mad at Flora.”

“Oh, no no no. I know her better than that and I know she probably agreed with little to no fight.” Lillia responds and rolls her eyes. “Anyways, what happens next?”

“Well, Flora and I will share a sire bond. She won’t be able to lie to me or kill me. I will be able to feel if she’s hurt or… if she dies.”

“That happened with Wren?”

“Yes.” My answer is abrupt.

“What will she be like?”

“That’s hard to know for sure. Her feelings that she had when she was human will be amplified.”

“Anything else?”

“I may not be able to get her to start eating animals right away. She may need to begin on a human diet. I think it would be best if she moved into the manor, since she’ll be a part of a coven with Asher and I.”

“Oh okay. So should I sell the cottage?”

“That’s up to you, my love. We have plenty of room in the manor if you would like to move in, but I won’t ask that of you.”

“I don’t want to live alone. The only reason I bought that cottage was so that Flora and I could live together. She’s the only family I have and vice versa.”

“We can start the moving process for you whenever you’re ready.”

“And…” She chews on her lip. “I’ll be a part of your coven one day too, right?”

“That’s entirely up to you.”

“Why didn’t you want to change me today?”

“Flora and I felt that you had been through too many instances of life making choices for you. We wanted this to not be one of them. ”

“I guess I can’t be mad at you guys for that, but I am still upset that you guys didn’t include me too.”

“It won’t happen again. I promise.” I respond and kiss the tip of her nose.

We turn on the television that's mounted above the fireplace, switching through the streaming services. Lillia can’t stop fidgeting so I know she won’t be able to stay still long enough to watch anything long.

After scrolling mindlessly for thirty minutes, we finally decide to watch Queen of The Damned. It’s one of my favorite movies and it just so happens that my girl loves all things vampires. The events of the day must have caught up to her because she fell asleep in the beginning of the movie. My chest tightens in a familiar way, and I gently nudge Lillia awake.

“My love, it’s time.”

She jumps up, throws the blankets across the bed, and is out the door faster than I could process a human moving. Honestly, I’m impressed with the speed at which she just ran across the hallway. I follow behind her, trying to respect the space I’m sure she will need. She flies through the door.

Flora is standing in the middle of the room, looking down at her hand as she flips it over slowly. Her already light skin is now pale ivory and hard as the marble we stand on. Lillia sobs and runs into her arms, Flora accepts the invasion and wraps her arms around her, but the grimace on her face is obvious.

“I heard you die.” Lillia cries into her hair.

“I’m here, Lil. You’re stuck with me for life.”

“Neither of you are off the hook for not being honest with me about what was going to happen this trip, by the way.”

“I didn’t expect to be. I know you well enough to know I’d be in trouble.”

A knock on the door causes Lillia to jump.

“It’s Griffith.” I say as I open the door.

“Flora, we’re so happy to see your change has been completed. You’ll have to eat soon. We do have servants here that are specifically for feeding purposes.”

“No thank you.” She snaps.

“Well, you guys can be taken back to the airplane now that the change has gone smoothly. We will be visiting you in a year's time.” He walks to stand in front of Lillia. “I look most forward to seeing you again.” Griffith says right before he lifts her hand and places a kiss on her knuckle. I hold back the snarl that is building in my throat. The four of us can’t get out of the castle fast enough and practically run out to load into the dark windowed SUV.

Flora wraps her arms around herself to get warm. The change in body temperature is something that takes some time to get used to. She stares out the window for most of the ride, no doubt trying to gain control of her new thoughts and a better understanding of the urges that course through her body.