Read Online Crimson's Captivation by LLC Melange Books - Free Book Online

headed, what is that you want to know?”
    “Who is Kieran?” Viktor asked. He refused her
offer to sit; instead, he paced the room, working off the
adrenaline in his system.
    Sophia exhaled a long sigh stood and ran her
hand across the mantle of the fireplace as she spoke. “This is a
sallow world we live in, Viktor. Murmurs, rumors, even fairy tales
color what little white we have in our daily lives. Do you know
what color we live in?”
    “I live in black, my lady,” Viktor said
loudly, still pacing.
    “Poor Viktor. You are far too young to know
black. No, Viktor, shades of gray. It is all shades of gray. You
want to know of Kieran?”
    “Yes.”
    Sophia made her way to the nearest window.
Outside the wind rose and fell in scrapes against the castle walls,
it seemed to crawl across the grounds and rap the windowpanes
looking for a way in. Sophia had a surreal feeling the breeze had
given way to a living organism and it, whatever it was, appeared to
eavesdrop on the conversation.
    “Very well, the rumor first. Kieran is a dark
prince, distant son of Prince of Wales. Sometime during the
fourteenth century, he married his cousin, Joan. The marriage was
short lived because a tracker named Gaten kidnapped Joan and
introduced her to the trade. Did you know that much?”
    “No, my lady.”
    “Then your irritation towards me was
unfounded but I think I understand the raw emotion. You think I’m
somehow complicit in Crimson’s disappearance?” She looked at his
reflection in the windowpane.
    “I’m not sure what I thought, it’s just … The
creature said you knew and I felt betrayed.”
    “Betrayed? Peculiar choice of words but at
any rate, yes, I know some things. Again, that vast gray expanse
between rumor and truth. Have a seat before you thunder across
Europe and run into the same trap Kieran did.”
    Viktor stopped pacing and glared harshly at
her. “You are not implying there is similarity between that monster
and I? If so, then I am ashamed my tongue ever spoke your name with
honor.”
    Sophia could only smile while shaking her
head, and then she let out a subdued laugh as she gazed out of the
window. She looked deep across the grounds while she imagined what
Crimson was going through. Darkness fell through the saplings and
made ghostly shapes on the manicured lawn, then the scratching
sound of the wind. The shadows moved, crawled, and groaned. She
tried to explain her compassion while being truthful.
    “Lost love is such an erratic emotion,
Viktor. It leaves some limp on the floor balled up in despair. Yet
others thrash about resolute in a mission to save it. Some try
both, most times they’re all in vain. I have a feeling I know which
you are and that is where you and Kieran are the same.”
    She paused, watched the sky deepen to a murky
black before closing the curtain. “Twilight always seems to come
swiftly on days like this, when shadows ballet around the May-pole
and truth is told. You see, you and Kieran dance with the same
ribbon.”
    “I don’t see how you find any
similarity.”
    “It’s not important that you see it’s
important that you listen. Kieran, much like you will, set out to
find Joan but what he found was a dark world of captivity. Rumors
suggest he was so heartbroken to find his Joan had been turned,
that he made a deal with Gaten so she could be set free. For
hundreds of years now he’s been settling his contract, one royal
captive at a time. The same is most likely to happen to you if you
aren’t prepared, if you rush headlong in a failed mission to save
your Crimson.”
    Viktor stopped pacing. “If this is true, if
his Joan is free why doesn’t this Kieran just leave? Why continue
this assault on liberty?”
    “Gaten has a lifetime of lifetimes to hunt
him down. If he didn’t find him, he would certainly find her. I
guess it’s romantic but it’s also a breathing death, wouldn’t you
agree? He’s lifeless if he stays. His love is dead if he
leaves.”
    “Are you