Bloodless Desire

Untitled Episode

Chapter 17: The Intruder's Lie

The violent downpour continued to thrash against the ancient stones of Katariz, but inside the grand dining hall, the atmosphere had turned completely frozen. Urelia remained buried against Alejandro’s broad chest, her soaked velvet cloak transferring its icy dampness to his dark vest. Her loud, bitter weeping filled the cavernous room, a sharp contrast to the thunder rolling across the limestone cliffs outside.

Analaya stood completely rooted on the arm of the heavy leather chair, her green eyes wide and fixed onto the display of sudden, desperate intimacy. A suffocating, icy knot of pure jealousy and horror twisted violently in her chest, suffocating the lingering heat of the near miss she had shared with her king only moments before.

"He ruined me, Alejandro," Urelia sobbed out, her fancy British accent cracked and trembling with thick moisture. She pulled back just enough to look up into his marble features, her yellow eyes pooled with tears as dark mascara bled down her pale cheeks. "My husband... he cheated on me. He cast me out into the wilderness and took everything. I am entirely homeless. I have nowhere else to go. Please... I beg of you, let me stay here in our old sanctuary."

Analaya’s hands curled into tight fists against the dark velvet of her gothic dress. Even in her state of shock, her sharp intuition screamed that something was entirely wrong. It was a complete lie. Urelia was not the victim; she was the one who had spent centuries weaving treachery and cheating on the King, yet here she was, playing the fragile prey animal to invade his fortress.

Alejandro stayed perfectly still, his tall frame unyielding as his glowing crimson eyes searched Urelia’s unraveled face. He did not reciprocate the embrace, his large pale hands remaining flat against his sides, but he did not shove her into the rain either. He contemplated her words for a long, torturous minute, his short straight jet black bob casting a heavy shadow over his sharp angles as he weighed the legacy of his house against the broken history of his past.

"You may stay in the west wing, Urelia," Alejandro murmured smoothly, his deep velvet voice rich with that warm Caribbean cadence. "But you will stay entirely out of my sight."

Analaya felt a sharp, violent rage flare deep behind her ribs. He was letting her stay. The jealousy inside her turned so hot it scorched her throat, a volatile mix of possessive anger and absolute betrayal. She couldn't stand to look at them for another second. Refusing to let out a single whimper or show weakness in front of the female vampire, Analaya pulled her shoulders back proudly. She turned around abruptly, her layered lace skirts rustling aggressively against the floorboards as she marched out of the dining hall, fleeing through the dark corridors straight back to the isolation of the east wing.

Over the next few days, the fragile sanctuary of the castle turned into a psychological battlefield. True to Alejandro’s command, Urelia was banished to the distant west wing, but she refused to respect the boundaries of his court. Every time Analaya tried to navigate the grand libraries or the small brick kitchen, the tall, straight haired vampire would materialize from the shadows, wearing her liquid black silk and her stark blood red lipstick like a weapon.

Urelia was extra touchy. Whenever Alejandro paced the main gallery to examine his father's old records, she would glide to his side, sliding her long pale fingers over his broad shoulders or brushing her damp cloak against his dark coat. Alejandro remained completely rigid under the touch, his crimson eyes flashing with lethal warnings as he refused to give into her touchy mannerisms, but his lack of reciprocation wasn't enough to soothe the burning possessiveness in Analaya’s chest.

Consumed by an intense, unyielding jealousy she could no longer handle, Analaya began to ignore him completely. She stopped coming to the kitchen for his blueberry cakes; she locked her heavy mahogany door during the late hours, refusing to let his deep velvet purr guide her through his philosophical texts. Alejandro let her have her space, his ancient mind understanding the raw trauma and friction his ex wife had brought into their world, but his silent patience only made the distance between them stretch wider.

Urelia saw the fracture and moved with a malicious precision. Each day, she would do something small, something subtle to break them apart more and more. She would leave old jewelry from their past marriage on the dining table, or drop comments about Alejandro's private immortal habits in her fancy British lilt within Analaya’s earshot, making sure the human girl felt like nothing more than a temporary, fragile pet in a house built on centuries of royal legacy. It was a calculated plan to starve out the human girl's vitality, and with every rising sun, the toxic pressure inside the fortress grew closer to a total explosion.