Rabid For Her Revenge
TWENTY

It was hard for me to believe that several months had passed. It seemed like only yesterday I had hosted my first garden party in spring and now it was the middle of summer.

I tiptoed across the flat roof top, my bare feet burning on the hot surface under the mid-day sun.

Last night had been rough on me. The mercury had seared through my body with an icy pain. My toes and fingers had gone numb and then started to burn. It had been hard to move until the pain receded to its usual and constant dull burn.

I still didn’t know what caused the occasional flareups, but I definitely had good days, bad days, and very bad days. Yesterday had only been a bad day. Thankfully, very bad days occurred far and few between.

My plan was to get in a good nap underneath the sun’s rays to chase away the phantom chill that still lingered deep in my bones but from the distant sound of purposeful footsteps gradually growing closer, I had a feeling that those plans were about to be foiled.

Taking a seat of the edge of the flat roof, I let my legs dangle down and watched as the top of my consort’s head came into view.

He stopped just below me, trying to locate me by sight but upon not seeing me tilted his head to catch my scent and then slowly turned around and craned his head back.

Sarakiel lifted a hand, shielding his eyes from the sun that transformed me into a silhouette surrounded by golden beams.

He took several steps back and to the side so that he could clearly see me without needing to squint. “How did you get up there?” he asked, looking around for a ladder or some other contraption I could have made to reach my perch.

I drummed my nails across the rooftop. “I climbed.”

Sarakiel still hadn’t abandoned his search, his eyes flicking around the area. “Up what?”

I chuckled before jutting my chin across to the window that was still raised from when I had climbed out of it. “Out, not up.”

The two-story window was at the same height as the part of the roof I was standing on although it was a fair distance away.

My consort’s eyes followed the direction of my lifted chin to the window and then slowly moved across the ten-meter distance back to the edge of the flat roof I was standing on. “You leaped from that windowsill all the way over to here?” He was questioning my sanity more than my actions, knowing full well that I had done exactly as I had said.

I shrugged. “I am trying to test my limits.”

“And punish yourself with paralyzation if you gauge wrong?” He muttered dryly.

I shrugged again. “There are bushes below to save me from grave injury if that were to happen.”

The male exhaled a breath in defeat. “Are you ready to come down?”

He shuffled the well-crafted mahogany box under his arm, drawing my attention to it for the first time.

Noticing right away that it had snagged my attention he tilted it up. “This is the fourth jewelry box in three months that has been delivered and yet I can’t recall a single instance in which I have ever seen you wearing any such adornments.”

Ahh, so that’s what he had come for, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t disappointed.

Of course, I had expected him to catch it eventually, but I was hoping that he might have come for something else. I wanted him to bring me a mystery of my own to solve. It was less fun to help him sate his own curiosity.

I maneuvered myself into a crouched position, bringing my feet underneath my body before slowly standing. I walked across the very edge of the roof, placing one foot in front of the other, my arms spread out to help me keep my balance. “Maybe I just like shiny things?”

He put the box aside. “Hollow and detachable shiny things?”

I halted, turning my head to glower at him. “It’s not polite to go through a lady’s things you know.”

Gesturing at him to come closer, I got ready to jump down from the roof.

Sarakiel held out his arms, ready to catch me. “So, what are you putting in them?”

I took a step off the roof, falling directly into him. My consort caught me around my thighs, hugging me to his chest, my feet inches from the ground. His strong arms were directly under my rear, hoisting me up so that I was towering over him.

My hair fanned out in a curtain around our faces as I pouted down at him, pushing out my lips. I swiped a finger gently under his eye. “My tears, Prince. Every night I cry myself to sleep mourning the passing of another day without the pleasure of your company.”

As usual Sarakiel didn’t even bat an eye at my shameless flirting. “You can always just request my attention instead of going to such measures to gain it simply because you are embarrassed to ask for it aloud.”

I grabbed his face in my hands and whined, “but I promised to entertain you.”

My consort set me down, but his one arm remained banded around my waist. “And I distinctly remember telling you that was unnecessary.”

“Maybe,” I chirped and spun out of his loose hold, “but perhaps you will think differently when you replace out what my scheme has stirred up.”

Now empty, his hands slid into his pockets. “Does it have anything to do with the mysterious deaths occurring that has the council in chaos and is causing mass hysteria and panic among those of rank?”

I tapped a finger to my lips. “I recall that those deaths also happened to the unranked.”

“Very few in comparison.” He rebutted, subtly prodding me to spill my secrets because he knew that I knew why that was so.

Giving him a feline smile, I avoided his trap and simply agreed with him. “Well, that is true.”

He threw out more bait when his fishing turned out dry. “Just like the fact that very few females are falling prey to whatever virus is sweeping through the world.”

“Hmmm.” I continued to let him prod. I wasn’t going to tell him unless he asked me outright.

My consort knew it too because he finally just asked what he really wanted to know. “So, Daylin, is it time I knew that my consort is that virus?”

I placed a hand on my chest and reminded him honestly. “I haven’t left the mansion.”

“I know.”

There was a lot of frustration evident in those two words.

“Oh,” I purred, delighted that I was finally getting a juicy reaction out of my unmoving rock of a consort, “you are intrigued. You want to know how I did it.” I prowled around him, my fingers trailing across his shoulders, brushing against the nape of his neck.

I didn’t know what it was about him that made me want to touch him, but I always felt satisfied at our contact. Perhaps it was because he was powerful, and it felt surreal to stroke something so out of reach for most others.

My consort roughly seized my jaw but even at the harsh touch I did not feel the disgusting crawling of my skin when others touched me. His eyes were a brilliant electric blue betraying his excitement. “So, you do admit you are the cause of all of this mayhem.”

Turning my jaw, I caught his thumb in my mouth and gave it a punishing bite. “I told you we needed a reason for the council to gather everyone. It’s time to proceed, Prince. You have your allies and now it’s time to replace out who will be our enemies and who will remain neutral.”

His thumb pressed down on my naughty lip. “How are you doing it, Daylin?”

I caught his warm hand between both of mine and gently pulled it down. “How do you think I am doing it?”

Sarakiel turned to face the gardens, gazing over them as if he could see the images of one of the parties I had hosted. “At first, I thought you had poisoned them here during the garden parties, but they all died at varying times.” He turned his attention on me as I crept up behind him and placed my chin on his shoulder, needing to rise up on my tiptoes to do so.

He looked back at the gardens when I made no further movement. “If it was poison inflicted during the party, they would all have died at around the same time, but they didn’t. Some were weeks apart never mind days.” His last words were growled out gutturally, once again proving that the matter was puzzling him. “Then others started dying. Wights that have never stepped foot in my mansion and could never have had any contact with you.”

His hand came up to rest on the top of my head and his bright eyes slid down to bore into my glittering ones.

He quietly admitted, “Honestly, I can’t figure it out and neither can the council which is why they are in an uproar I suppose.”

I exhaled a long breath out through my nose. “Every virus has its variants, Sarakiel,” I mumbled. “I was Myrin’s virus, but I am not the same one killing the others.”

And finally, Sarakiel saw with clarity what was going on as he whispered to himself in awe, “you are getting the females to kill their consorts.”

Shifting my weight back down onto my heels, I pulled away from the male and waved my hand dismissively, not replaceing it nearly as interesting as he did. “Consorts, brothers, themselves,” I corrected him. “It’s not me who picks, it’s all up to them.”

“Why?” He swiveled around, following me as I descended into the gardens.

“Why not?”

“How can you trust them not to sell you out?” He asked the obvious question.

“Why would they? I’m giving them what they want, and no one would ever suspect them. They do it carefully during times their victim encounters numerous people so that it can’t be tracked back to them. Even if they did get caught, trying to replace the original supplier would be quite the chore. It’s a very long line, Sarakiel. I gave a supply to a friend who supplied it to her friends who supplied it to their friends and so on. Not to mention there isn’t even any way to gather clear evidence. No one knows what they are being poison with, they don’t know how long it takes to kill, they don’t know what the signs and symptoms are, they don’t even know what they are looking for. How could they replace any evidence to trace back to the females and therefore me?”

“What should they be looking for?” My consort prodded me, desperate to understand fully about the dangerous weapon I had unleashed. Any piece of knowledge he had on the subject would give him a one-up on everyone else.

Folding my legs, I took a seat on the grass and picked a blade of grass before slowly peeling off thin strands one at a time. “Little princes playing in the spring, they danced around till one fell in. Down with a splash he bumped his head and didn’t move as the spring turned red. The other princes never halted their play and were all found dead in the very same way. Round and round the spring we go trying to replace the evil foe. Ten steps to the left ten steps to the right now it’s your turn to fight.”

Sarakiel seized my wrist, pulling it high over my head. “You…how do you know that nursery rhyme?”

I tilted my head all the way back, seeing him upside down. “I’m the one who spread it of course. Just as females are ignored so are children. Both pieces of the puzzle lie with them.”

“What did you take from Myrin, Daylin? There have been many attempts to manufacture poisons that are lethal to us, but all have failed. At worst they only make us sick or immobile for a few days.” There was urgency in his tone.

My weapon could easily be turned on him. Even though I had no plans to do so, Sarakiel couldn’t be absolutely sure. I was the acclaimed feral after all. I had slaughtered his strongest rival. It wasn’t impossible that I’d do the same to him. So, the more he knew about the mercury the better.

“I didn’t take anything from Myrin, he gave it to me. He injected me with many variations that would cause me pain in all sorts of ways. He was able to perfect it thanks to me. He learned how to manipulate it so that it wouldn’t kill if he didn’t want it to.”

“What is it Daylin?” he pressed, irritated with my roundabout way of speaking.

“It’s the mercury, Sarakiel,” I snapped, annoyed I had to spell out every little thing for him. For some reason it irked me that Myrin had understood it before Sarakiel, that he had managed to create a weapon that Sarakiel hadn’t. It felt like Myrin was winning over him and me somehow. “Myrin had already perfected it long before he started using it on me. He wasn’t experimenting in an effort to discover how to make it deadly, he already knew and wanted to see what else he could do with it. He was having fun with his sick little variations to see how he could torture me with it.”

There was a heavy silence between us, the weight of my words needing time to settle. I had been brutally wrecked by Myrin and his values, but the other females had been slowly tortured by our society, needing to become less and less of a person, killing themselves in a sense, in order to save their necks.

Finally, my consort murmured, “The council isn’t going to let this go on for much longer.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m banking on it.” I lifted my eyes skyward and let them fall shut, basking in the rays of the sun for the last time before the coming storm’s start. “I’m ready Sarakiel, but are you?”

I wondered if he truly understood that the crown he wanted would feel no different from a set of shackles. And even if he did understand it, would he really accept it when the time came? Would he be willing to fight and risk his life only to collar himself to that responsibility?

Was he ready to bathe in blood?

Because I was ready to drown in it.