Moonlit Surrender
Chapter Nineteen

The old door to Lucy's dwelling made an awful commotion of rattling and creaking as it was carelessly swung open by Doris, waking the girl out of a dreamless, yet welcome sleep. She sat up on her cot and squinted as Doris flooded the room with the candelabrum she carried with her. Lucy could feel a deep ache in her body, a weariness that seemed to reside within the marrow, as she forced herself to swing her feet over the edge to touch the cold stone floor. "Breakfast!" Doris announced in a sing-song vibrato as she set a tray down on the table.

Lucy felt the woman's grating voice split through her skull as she rubbed her eyes and made her way to the table and chair in the corner. On the tray she found a less than appetizing spread of flavorless oatmeal, yet another off-brand protein bar she had never heard of, and a small plastic cup filled with an array of pills with a glass of milk to wash it all down. "What is this?" she asked with a disapproving scrunching of her nose and brow.

"Oh?" Doris faked concern. "Is our kitchen not up to the royal standard the princess is used to?" She let out a terrible laugh, the one that reminded Lucy of a machine gun going off or an old crone's cackle. "My apologies, Your Highness, I'll have a word with the staff."

She felt her jaw tighten, straining to withhold her temper.

"What are the pills?" she rephrased with sharp enunciation. "What drugs are you trying to cram down my throat?"

"So distrusting. You're lucky he feeds you at all."

"Why does he if he's just going to kill me?"

"Kill you?" she laughed. "No, not anymore. Not for now, at least. John has finally slipped and made the grave mistake of caring for something. We need you breathing, little brat." She stepped behind Lucy's chair and without warning or permission began to roughly work her long black locks into a halfhearted braid. "You've lost a lot of blood recently. Everybody wants a taste it seems. Men..." she huffed. "Most of the pills are vitamins and supplements to keep you up and running, only a couple are actual prescription strength - a little something special from my old stash after too many trips to the ER. People were getting suspicious, so I helped myself to a couple extra bottles when no one was looking. Obviously, I won't be needing them anymore." She sighed contentedly as she did a twirl to show off the little red dress she was sporting this evening.

Lucy hid her contempt and instead worked her way through the tray of food and pills.

Doris took a seat on the cot and slung one knee over the other as she waited impatiently. "Master says that if you're to stay here, you're to earn your keep. So, once you're finished, I'll take you upstairs to start cleaning the castle." Lucy choked on a spoonful of oatmeal and took a moment to regain her composure. "The entire castle?" she asked in shock.

She nodded.

"That seems a little... ambitious. That could take weeks... months."

She shrugged. "Have to start somewhere I suppose. He wants to start getting this place in order, ready to rebuild his following - and he says he's going to make me his high priestess! Can you believe it? Isn't it just wonderful? Me! A priestess!" She let out a girlish sigh as her eyes settled on the cold hearth with a faraway look.

Lucy pushed the tray away, having finished every last flavorless bite and swallowed each tablet and pill. And thought to herself, Fucking spectacular. What the fuck does she want from me? I couldn't care less. I just want out of this castle of doom.

"Wonderful," Doris jumped up. "Let's get started."

"Let's? As in we, the two of us?"

"Well who else did you think was going to oversee your duties? The others have their own jobs to tend to."

She shrugged. "I guess I just figured someone bigger, scarier, a real vampire."

The back of Doris' hand came down so swiftly across her cheek that Lucy sat stunned for a long moment trying to figure out what had happened.

"I am a real vampire," Doris hissed frightfully. "You'd do well to remember it! Now get up. You've got a castle to clean." She pinched the girl's upper arm tightly as she tugged her onto her feet and thrust the tray into her hands to carry with them back up the winding way to the castle's ground floor.

Once Lucy had washed her dishes, Doris equipped her with a bucket filled with cleaning supplies and set her to work in the foyer, dusting and sweeping the debris that had been dragged in from the forest beyond the bolted heavy doors of the castle's entrance, and eventually set her to scrubbing the filthy floor until the marble glittered and gleamed in the light of the torches crackling in their iron sconces.

Someone grunted in disgust as they entered the foyer, a man in heavy black robes like the ones Lerexus wore. He tossed his head of short golden curls and sneered at the lit sconces. "Dear gods, are we trying to harness the very power of the sun to illuminate our entryway? What is the meaning of all this garish light?"

"The master's orders," Doris replied uncharacteristically humble. Instead of the giddy vampires drunk on her newfound power, she sounded more like her old self, the awkward, hunched woman in cardigans that never quite knew what to do with her hands. "He's brought a guest to clean the house."

The strange man, obviously a vampire himself, groaned in displeasure but nodded. "Very well, fledgling, but see to it that it puts every little thing back as it was when it cleans my quarters, and extinguish these dreadful torches as soon as it's finished in here. Too damn bright," he muttered to himself as he crossed through to the sitting room, leaving a trail of mud-caked prints behind on the once spotless floor.

Lucy sighed heavily and took her anger out on the muddy prints as she got back down on all fours with her bucket and brush.

"Are you attempting to scrub the dirt to death, girl?" Lerexus' honeyed voice mocked from the grand staircase. He descended slowly, his keen pink eyes focused on her as his robes trailed behind him like a tail of mist and smoke. "Death by scrub brush?"

"Answer the master when he speaks to you," Doris hissed with a swift kick to Lucy's ribs.

Lucy gasped in pain but knew the strike could've been a lot harder if the vampires had meant it. The kick was a warning and reminded Lucy just how feeble she was in comparison to their inhuman strength. "Yes," she answered sharply, "seeing as I can't scrub the stupid out of the asshole that carelessly tracked it through."

For the first time, she watched in fascination and horror as his usual uninterested grimace turned up into something like a smile. His plump lips pulled back and she saw his razor-sharp fangs. "I do like a lively one."

His smile was terrible, but she found she couldn't look away, glued to the chilling sight of such a horrific grin placed into a face beautiful enough to have been one of the historic marble reliefs on display at a museum. The albino vampire reached the marble floor, his footsteps as muted as Doris'.

"Leave us," he ordered sharply.

She watched as Doris nodded respectfully and made for the sitting room, along with a shadowed figure that suddenly moved out of the dark recesses of the front gate's antechamber and into the light. Sitting back on her knees now, she stared up in surprise as another vampire revealed himself, nodded to Lerexus, and then too left the foyer.

Her captor watched this discovery pass across her face and commented, "Did you think I'd be foolish enough to leave the front door unguarded?" He halted his approach directly in front of her, forcing her to crane her neck back to meet his gaze. "Were you thinking of making a run for it, girl?"

She refused to answer, instead intensifying the cold glare she fixed brazenly on him.

"Nothing but an impassible portcullis awaits you beyond those doors, and beyond that, a long stretch of bridge with nowhere to hide overlooking a very steep drop into the lake. And beyond that, you may be wondering, is nothing but dense forest for miles and miles around us. If we don't catch you by that point, the wolves will, or that hungry belly that requires constant sustenance; so frail you are, girl."

"You're one to talk," she snapped. "How many lives are needed to sustain you for an evening?"

Lerexus' judgment did not come down swift and unseen the way Doris moved. Slowly, with great care, he knelt down in front of her, wrapping his long fingers about her neck in an ironlike grip that did not budge so much as an inch beneath her struggling, then lifted her up off the shining marble floor to dangle helplessly at his eye level. She clawed desperately at his fist and arm as he held her fast, coughing as she felt him squeezing her windpipe.

"No smart retort?" he mocked calmly. "No witty remark to blurt out?" She gurgled angrily and tried to kick him, but he held her out too far.

"Speak up then, girl. I can't hear you." He turned his head as if to lean his ear in to listen better. "No? Not a word? I assumed as much. You cattle are all the same, all bluster and big talk until you are face to face with your fragility, your weakness of mortality. I smell the fear on you even now, but is it for death or a more personal gift meant for me?"

Lucy began to see stars, her pulse thundering in her head and her lungs burning for air as her wide blue eyes began to blur and lose focus. Telling herself all the while, don't give him the satisfaction of your fear. He can take away everything else, but not how you choose to face death.

Lucy ceased her struggling, silently resigning herself to dying in his merciless grip, but refusing to give him a satisfying death. She refocused her icy blue stare to his and met his gaze coolly.

Lerexus cocked his head curiously as he examined her serene features, then dared to squeeze just a bit tighter. "A lively one indeed," he mused to himself.

Her desperate gasp for air echoed through the foyer as his grip at last loosened and set her back down on quivering legs.

"Stand up straight," he commanded coldly. "Chin down. Eyes down. This is the appropriate stance you will maintain in my presence, unless otherwise instructed. Is that clear?" He waited for a response, but when none came, he grabbed her by the jaw and asked once more, "Speak when you are spoken to. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she hissed reluctantly.

"Yes what?"

No. Absolutely not.

"I'm waiting, girl. You will show me the respect I am due or spend a night in that drafty, dark cell you woke in." He paused, then asked once more with greater enunciation, "Yes what?" Never. I'd rather die.

"Say it," he cooed in her ear. "Sir. Master. Lord. I'll even let you decide. I am not unreasonable or without generosity."

You can't die. John. Stay alive for John. He's coming. Into a trap. He can't come here. You need to escape.

Lucy swallowed hard after giving herself a pep talk, wincing slightly as her crushed throat strained. With her fists balled at her sides and her eyes fixated on the near imperceptible crease between the marble slabs beneath her, she whispered, "Yes, Master."

His lips twitched away a smile, instead settling into a smug grimace. "There's that obedience at last." He curled a stray lock of her hair around his finger. "Wright's games are over, girl. It's time you were broken in properly." She felt her jaw tighten to the point of her teeth grinding and felt indignation begin to boil her blood.

"Take your bucket and go finish cleaning my halls. I want them sparkling for our special guest. Johnny-boy has always been a clean and organized creature. I'd hate to offend his delicate sensibilities," he chuckled sardonically. He paused, then looked around with a discontented sigh. "In the old days, my brood was massive and my halls illustrious, nothing like the crumbling keep I replace now. We wanted for nothing, lived with the proper godly respect we are due. Now I replace nothing but ruin and dust about me." He turned back the way he had come. "Soon, those days will be reclaimed," he reassured himself. "Make it sparkle," he commanded.

As he made for the staircase, Lucy felt her rage take control of her and the words slipped from her lips before she could catch them. "Clean it your-fucking-self," she spat venomously. She felt her arm painfully twisted behind her back before she realized Lerexus was no longer standing at the staircase, but behind her. His long white nails dug into her wrist as he forced her to bend forward. She could feel her shoulder straining in its socket from the force with which he held her. "And we were having such a lovely time," he sighed in mock dismay. "Now you've gone and hurt my feelings. Apologize."

"Fuck you."

"Are you offering? Because it can easily be arranged to have you brought to my crypt tonight," his low, silken voice whispered in her ear. "I know there's something of an age difference, but then, I hear that doesn't bother you." She cringed at the thought of his long nails on her skin. "I'd rather die than touch a single inch of you!" she groaned in pain as she hunched further forward in a vain attempt to escape the strain threatening to rip her arm from its joint. He forced her upright and pulled her back against the soft velvet of his robes draped over his long, lithe body hidden beneath them, cold and unyielding. "You're terrible at apologies. Perhaps a night in my icy dungeon will shock some manners back into you."

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"You may as well just kill me and be done with your revenge, because I swear to you that you will never be my master. I will never obey you. I will not help you ensnare John. I will struggle and fight you with every breath I take!" Lerexus spun her around to face him, twisting her wrist to its limits to hold her in place. He leaned in close to her cheek. His eyes danced between pink and violet in the light of the torches, then closed reflectively as he inhaled deeply. "Your time will come, girl. Already your journey to the grave has begun. All it would take is one more deep drink to set you precariously on the fence between life and certain death." His eyes fluttered back open and bored into hers. "Tempt me. Come on then, tell me more of what a rebel you really are. Insult me further. Really cut me with that sharp tongue of yours and give me a reason to hasten your demise. I'm so very thirsty."

Lucy recoiled with a shudder, straining so roughly in his grip that she heard her arm pop loudly. "Don't," she whispered fearfully despite herself.

"I thought I may as well just kill you?" he mocked. "Isn't that what you want? Maybe Johnathan should be welcomed by nothing but a corpse of the little plaything he cherished so dearly. Perhaps all I need is for him to think you're here." "No," she whispered, twisting and dancing beneath his grip. "Please."

"There are those manners," he snorted. "I knew all it would take is a little discomfort to motivate you." He released her and watched her shrink back as she cradled her sore arm. "Now apologize for snubbing my generosity and we'll get on with our night."

"I-I'm sorry," she stuttered halfheartedly.

"And who am I? 'I'm sorry, what'?" he asked once more. "Well, spit it out, girl!"

"N-no. Please. I can't. Anything else."

No one but John. Never.

"Say master. Your friend Doris does. Call me master again and I won't send you to the dungeon with an empty belly."

"No! You are not my master!"

Lerexus took a couple steps towards her and leaned in as if to share a secret. "Come on now, he'll never know. Just between us, say it. Say it, and I'll move you into the master suite upstairs. A big, comfy bed all for yourself, a massive hearth with a roaring fire that keeps even the farthest corners of the chamber warmed, a private bath, your own little palace to await your fate in. Why spend your remaining nights shivering in the undercroft, Lucy?"

She had thus far never heard him say her name, or even acknowledge she had one, until now. It was as if she had only become a person to him when it suited his machinations. "Fuck your master suite," she spat brazenly. "You and your 'big comfy' bed, your roaring hearth, and your private bath can all go straight to hell."

"Defiant chit," he hissed. "So be it, but know it is you and you alone that is inflicting this agony on yourself, not I. You remember as you're shivering down there that I generously offered my best to you in exchange for only a modicum of respect." He snapped his fingers and Doris appeared in a blur behind him. "Take her to the dungeons. No dinner."

Doris nodded with a, "Yes, Master," then grabbed Lucy by the arm and dragged her back down into the depths of the castle where she had first awoken.

Lucy stumbled into the cell, tripping on an uneven flagstone, then jumped as the ancient iron bars slammed shut.

"Stupid girl," Doris hissed before leaving her alone in the cold dark of her prison.

She carefully felt her way to the pallet in the corner with only the modest light of a stray moonbeam spilling in through the barred window to guide her. When her toes touched straw, she reached down and found the pathetic excuse for a bed and curled up on it. The blanket she had woken up with her first night in the castle was no longer there. She had nothing but the skirt of the plain dress to tuck her legs under while she collapsed in on herself and sobbed quietly into her knees.