57: A royal betrayal

There was something subtly degrading about being a prisoner in my own room and having four jailors watch over me. At least the company was good... on most occasions. I couldn’t, however, have any visitors which was the worst part. I desperately wanted to speak to Alice. I wanted to know about how things with Aaliyah and Alice were going. It seemed as though they were getting along the last time I saw the two of them together, but I hoped they were being cautious. Alice didn't have what I had- a vampire Prince as a husband in a previous life, and vampire royal blood in this one. If anyone caught the two together, well then, they'd face execution, by Meera's hands of course.
"Phoenix?" Demetri uttered, bringing me out of my thoughts. I raised my brows and hummed in response.
"I thought I lost you there for a second or so. Were you lost in thought?" He asked kindly.
Now I didn't mind my four admirers coming and going as they pleased to ensure that I wasn't acting violently, but this was the second day in isolation with the four of them and nothing awful had happened. In fact, I hadn't had a single episode. And so, I spent most of my time conscious with the four of them, and the more time I spent with them, the more awkward I began to feel. They were so real when they weren't trying to hide things from me- Liam, Xavier and Demetri- or yelling at me- Sebastian.
"I was lost in thought, yes," I replied, returning a smile he shot towards me.
He then got up from his seat and neared my bed before gently lowering himself onto the mattress. He reached out and took my hand in his, creating soft warmth between our fingers.
"I'm sorry you're going through all of this." He said softly, and then tugged at my hand firmly, pulling me closer towards him and against his chest.
He was warm and smelled good- of shower gel and the coffee he'd had for breakfast a moment ago. But our sweet and warm moment was soon disturbed when Sebastian opened the door and shot Demetri a scowl the second he saw his arms around me.
Demetri rolled his eyes in response and then parted from me, leaving me colder and empty.
"I'll see you tonight, Princess." He said, with a friendly wink. He then began walking to the door but froze the moment he stood across Sebastian. And that was when I felt that aching sense of Deja vu coming over me, as if I'd seen this scene before somewhere. And in an effort to prove me right, black dots began scattering across my vision, like drops of black ink on a page of colour.
"Phoenix?" Sebastian uttered out in disbelief. I hadn't realised it until I heard the first crack, then the second, and soon my entire body was against the sheets of my bed and my limbs were all contorted into unnatural positions. At first, I thought I was transforming, but I soon realised that although my bones were breaking, my fur was not forming on the surface of my skin. My vision grew even more blurry with the pools of black distorting it, but I could still make out the shapes of Demetri and Sebastian who came running to my side. I could hear the urgency in their voices as they spoke.
"What the hell is going on?" Demetri asked Sebastian.
"I-I don't know... this wasn't supposed to happen. Phoenix, can you hear me?" He asked.
I tried to respond but was cut off by warm, thick blood which began to spill into my throat, my mouth and then escaped through my lips. As soon as the blood appeared, so did an extremely painful sensation in my stomach. It was hot and sharp, as though a branding iron were being punctured through it again and again. I screeched out, but it came out as a distorted gurgle, drowned out by the blood now gushing from my mouth.
"Sebastian do something!" Demetri yelled. I could hear how confused and hopeless he sounded but paid no mind to him. All I could concentrate on was the pain in my body which escalated every single second. Sebastian had said something about pain, but I recalled him saying that it would only occur once I had received all my memories, not while I entered a new one.
Then suddenly, just as I was about to let out another screech, darkness. But the darkness was a painless darkness, and it left a sense of echoing silence. But the moment was brief, a second's worth, perhaps, and once I was out of it, I found myself in a totally different, yet eerily familiar place. I sat upon a wooden stool with a letter in my hands and my eyes cast down to it.
Curious as to its contents, I began following the words on the page as Diana read through it and was surprised to find it to be a letter from Malcolm Chase, the man Diana was originally supposed to be married to. In the letter he congratulated Diana on the news of her marriage... a month ago. The moment I read this, I froze, internally, of course. I wondered why on Earth I was in this particular memory, a month after Diana was married. Even more, I wondered what had happened on the night of her wedding, the night everything changed. But as I thought this, my eyes were drawn to something of particular interest. The mention of a baby. According to the letter, Malcolm had a child on the way and further thanked Diana for calling of their engagement to avoid the drama that would have unfolded if his parents were to find out about his child out of wedlock. Malcolm mentioned further that the baby would be named Michael Chase- Xavier's father. The last thing Malcolm wrote was a little message of well wishes for the future.
Once Diana had finished reading the letter she chuckled softly and then placed the letter down on the dresser in front of her before gazing up at the mirror. The moment my eyes met with our reflection; I was left mortified. Diana's skin was paler than I'd ever seen it before and dark, heavy bags hung under her golden eyes. It looked as though the poor woman hadn't gotten any sleep for the past month.
"Oh dear, Diana, you really are letting yourself go." I whispered under my breath and then touched my hands to the bags under my eyes. Seeing myself so horribly neglected had my heart aching. I wondered who on Earth had done this to me, or if I'd done this to myself, and if so, why?
Suddenly I heard the sound of the door behind me opening, revealing, much to my surprise, Demetri.
"Demetri!" I exclaimed before walking up to him and embracing him tightly. The embrace carried an unspoken implication that the both of us hadn't seen each other in a long while.
"You look awful, Princess." He whispered against the top of my head.
"Sebastian looks worse." I said and then pulled away from him. "Why are you here... more importantly, who let you in?"
Demetri chuckled and held up his hands which were covered in scratches which were now healing slowly. "It was a matter of digging."
"...You dug underneath the palace to get here?" I asked. Even I was shocked, but then again, this was Demetri. His devotion knew no bounds.
Demetri chuckled and then suddenly fell serious. "There is something I need to show you. It's actually the reason I came here today."
"What is it?" I asked, startled by his sudden change of tone.
"I'll speak as we walk," he said. I expected him to take my hand, but he didn't, instead, he lifted his hand and raised it to his chest before extending the other one outward as a motion for me to exit the door first. I did so, and then began following him after he'd exited.
"So," he began as we walked, "I've been hearing rumours of a secret meeting with someone in the palace during the last week. The person responsible for lighting the spark and fanning the flames of the growing hostility against the hybrids. The meeting was said to be here and, I didn't believe at first, but when I arrived, I began snooping around. You won't believe what I saw taking place in the archives!"
And then we exited through the back door, making sure not to get caught by the various servants walking around at this time of day. Luckily for us, there were not many.
The archives were in the exact same place as in the present. In the woods, amongst the foliage. Only now, the archives were not hidden amidst a rocky structure and consumed by vines. It stood as an almost isolated stone structure right in the middle of nowhere with torches lighting up the entrance and a good set of stone steps leading up to the door.
Demetri stopped suddenly, looked up at me and then lifted a finger to his lips. I nodded in agreement and followed him as we began to near the door. Demetri placed his hands against the stone door and then tilted his head to the brick I knew would open the door. I pushed against it and immediately Demetri began to slow the movement of the door down, ensuring that only a small space was available for us to get through- it was the only way not to get caught. I got down on my stomach and began crawling under the door. Once I was on the other side, I placed my hands on the door and waited for Demetri to slip through before we both began closing it manually.
The moment I turned around I was left speechless, or rather, Diana was left speechless. Between the shelves we could see that in the centre of the archives sat a round table- one which I hadn't seen in the archives in the present- and around it sat a large number of vampires and werewolves alike. But that was not what shocked Diana and me. It was rather who sat at the head of the table, that shocked us. Dressed in her finest, was Sebastian's mother, smiling maliciously and red in the face with passion as she spoke.
Drawn to this intriguing little turn of events, I began to near the table, but made sure to hide in the shadows of the large shelves. Demetri soon joined me.
"...can you imagine it! Hybrids are spawning up everywhere, infecting our pristine population with their impure blood! And not just that, but have you seen how destructive and reckless they are? My Sebastian's wife is a prime example of it! Remember her wedding day! That bitch was so furious that I exposed her relationship with that wolf that she actually dared to lay a hand on me. She couldn't control her temper could she!"
And when she said that I began to remember something, something I hadn't experienced as Phoenix in Diana's body, but a memory buried deep within my head. The night of the wedding, Sebastian's mother had run off to tell Sebastian that Demetri and I were engaging in promiscuous activities on the balcony. The problem wasn't the fact that she lied to Sebastian, but the fact that she lied to him in front of all the wedding guests. To make things worse, she began to attack my character, and what drew the last straw for me, was her utterly disgusting words regarding my omega mother. That was when I snapped and hit her. Looking back at it as Phoenix, the retched woman deserved it.
"...we have a problem on our hands here. An infestation of the mixed breed freaks, and if we're not careful, they will begin to overpower us, the way Diana has begun to overpower the vampire kingdom. The werewolves could be sitting with the exact same problem in a few years’ time. An overthrow of both the species by these utterly disgraceful freaks of nature. My suggestion is that we attack now. Their population may be smaller than ours, but they are powerful enough to take an entire kingdom down with just fifty of them. I've seen it. I've seen the strength of Diana. I fear for my life each day. I fear that one day she will kill me... that she will kill *us*."
I couldn't believe my ears. In fact, I couldn't believe that these enthusiastic vampires and werewolves were actually buying into her speech. They looked absolutely brainwashed by her lies. I had never had any intention of killing anyone. Even as Phoenix, the idea of taking a life had me sick to my stomach. This woman was running on pure hatred and nothing more. The worst part was that I'd now come to realise it was her all along. Sebastian's mother had been responsible for the entire hybrid war... all because she didn't like me. Then again, wars were fought for much stupider reasons.
"So," She said, now standing up and holding her fist to her chest, "will you help me in irradicating the hybrids? In showing your fellow werewolves and vampires the truth about these terrifying creatures?"
And suddenly the entire room erupted in a series of loud exclamations of agreement, only mortifying me more.
"M-mother..." Diana uttered. Personally, I would not have been referring to my psychotic mother-in-law as "mother" after what she'd just said. Then again, Sebastian's mother was now dead, and I wasn't married to him...or was I? I didn't really understand the rules of resurrection. Perhaps Lucretia could enlighten me once I returned to my state of consciousness.
Eventually the crowd of people began to stand up from their seats in an effort to disperse. So, Demetri grabbed me and pulled me close to him against his chest, behind one of the shelves. I could feel the heat and sparks against our bodies, but Diana, as a devoted wife, chose to blatantly ignore them.
Once everyone had left, I let out a breath I hadn't even realised I'd been holding.
"I can't believe it. I knew she hated me, but not this much. She's already begun to drive a rift between Sebastian and I by constantly giving him the idea that you and I are after the vampire crown and that I'm the embodiment of evil. But an all-out-war. That's ludicrous. I have to warn Sebastian. Perhaps he can talk to her, because if I do... well we know what happened the last time she and I had a heated conversation. She is just itching to play the victim again." I said. But I had doubt in my heart that Sebastian would listen, especially after what he had told me.
Demetri, however nodded enthusiastically. "I have no doubt in my mind that he will listen to you... but I better take my leave soon. I don't want him to get the wrong idea." Demetri said.
I gave a curt nod and then followed him to the door, exited and began walking towards the palace with him.
"By the way... things between you and Sebastian... you said there is a rift beginning to form between the two of you? It couldn't have been because of the last time? Could it?"
Diana began fiddling with her fingers, and immediately I knew that the answer was yes. Whatever happened "last time", as Demetri had said, must have been the cause of the rift between Sebastian and me. But despite her knowing this, she instead answered, "No. It has nothing to do with that... he understood that it was a mistake."
"It was, yes. But I can't deny that I willingly gave into my impulse to kiss you. I'm glad you pulled away and that you didn't respond though. It just proves how much you love him, and the more I realise this, the less I'll give into the hope that you will love me."
Diana paused and Demetri did too, the moment he realised she'd stopped moving.
"I do love you Demetri. But as a-"
"-I knew it!" A voice seethed from behind me. A shiver rippled along my spine at the bone-chilling familiarity of it. I knew the voice all too well, and the tone even better.
"Sebastian..."
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Hello everyone! As I said in the comments, chapter 34 is fixed!🎉
This chapter was intense and a large part of me enjoyed writing it more than I should have (especially the little cliffhanger). And also don't forget to check out my spin-off to TAV, "Seducing Lucien".
Stay safe! Stay healthy! Sending my love!💕