“They are delicious,” I reply with a sad smile. Hector seems to know not to ask anymore; he must understand the horrors of this place. “How did you end up here, Hector? Were you born a vamp or bitten?”
“My story is long and sad, and you are too young and beautiful to hear it right now. But understand I choose to stay here, to serve the young prince as I did his father, the king, once upon a time,” he tells me, placing the tea towel on his shoulder and leaning down. “Fathers do teach their sons everything they know, even if it is not who they really are.”
“Are you trying to suggest I should give the murdering bastard of a prince a chance to be my friend?”
He sighs. “Hope is easy to kill, much like humans. Perhaps you should not stomp on it so hard, oui?”
“Morning,” Cross interrupts, walking into the room. “Just the girl I wanted to see.”
“Me?” I question, turning on my stool. Cross has overalls on today, making him look like a weird ginger cowboy from a guy calendar like the fireman ones my mum always buys every year “for a good cause.”
He nods his head to the door. “You need a job, and it’s about time the walk around greenhouse was looked after by someone.”
“I’m not good at gardening,” I admit.
“Everyone starts somewhere. I was never good at most of the things I do here to begin with,” he tells me as I climb off my seat and walk to him. “We adapt.”
“Is that what you have done to stay here?” I question, rushing to walk at his side as he leaves the room. The corridor is empty as we head down it, but I hear people talking and moving around behind the many doors. “Adapt to the prince and his murderous ways?”
“Are you ever going to stop asking so many questions?” he asks, looking down at me for a second.
“Nope, so you might as well tell me the answers now,” I smoothly suggest. He laughs low as we get to the stairs and go down them.
“Yes, I have adapted to my new environment with the prince,” he replies with a grim look ahead. “When the king died only twenty years ago, both the princes near enough destroyed the island looking for the lost orb to make themselves king. When neither could find it, it became clear that they would be stuck. So they divided the island after a big falling out. One half belongs to Prince Maddox and the other Prince Reign. They don’t work together, they barely talk for years usually. Everyone finds the situation with you very strange.”
He pauses as we head through a door on the right by the staircase and into a cold corridor. Light flickers in from the small windows and outlines a door at the end of the corridor. “The stealers got me when I was fifteen and brought me here, where I fought and ran away on the beach. I ran straight into a very drunk Prince Maddox, and he decided to keep me for whatever reason.”
“And then he never tried to kill you?” I question. “Does he feed on you?”
“No, I came here, and it was empty. Just me and the prince. Slowly he has let me take on a cook that worked for his father, Hector. Then a bellboy, and finally some other people to clean. Unfortunately, the only ones he doesn’t kill are Hector and me,” he tells me, both of us stopping in front of the door. He pulls out a set of keys, their metal clanging noise filling the silence. “I never knew Maddox’s father, but I have heard he was a cruel and unforgiving man, and that Maddox was the son he never wanted. Maddox is angry and bitter about the cards he has been given, but it doesn’t mean he is altogether evil. A part of me wants to hope he will change, and no, he doesn’t bite me. Plenty of human women come here willingly, begging to be bitten by the prince. He never needs to look for food.”
“And the other parts of you?” I question as he slides a key into the lock and turns it, dust sliding off the door. No one has gone in here in a long time.
Cross looks down at me. “The other parts of me want to escape, like all of us want to who have known the world outside of this island, but this is the right place for me now.”
I hope he sees the understanding in my eyes, even if I don’t know how to word it exactly. Cross opens the door, pushing it hard as it scrapes across the floor, and some ivy, I think, snaps from it being open. The room is hard to see, even though it’s bright from the wall of glass stretching all the way to the ceiling in a curved effect. It’s a massive dome shaped walk-through greenhouse with a high glass ceiling, and every other window is stained red glass, plastering the room with a mixture of light colours from yellows to oranges. The inside isn’t as nice though, not anymore. Overgrown plants and ivy litter the floor and crawl up every bit of brick and glass it can find, smothering what looks like statues and a waterfall in the middle.
“Hector said this place used to be the queen’s private garden,” Cross explains to me. “And it has fallen into disrepair over the years. What do you think?”
“You want me out of the way down here, don’t you?” I question, slightly stepping away from him.
“You make the prince madder than he already is,” he replies, tightly crossing his arms. “And many of the others are jealous of his connection to you. This place is safe, and you are better off in here, as not many know it exists. Maddox doesn’t like to come here.”
I watch him carefully. There is something he isn’t saying, but how exactly do I figure it out?
I clear my throat. “I will need tools to cut all this to start with, and gardening gloves. Later on, I will need soil and fresh plants.”
He smiles and steps back before walking to the door. He pushes it shut, revealing another door at its side, and he tugs it open. “Hector said everything you need is in here, and he cleaned it all for you. I will bring you lunch if you wish. There is also a toilet just down the corridor.”
Cross opens the other door slightly and slides out, leaving me in the ruined and ancient greenhouse alone.
I wrap my arms around myself as I walk to the cupboard, finding there are shelves of equipment in here, all covered in cobwebs except for a bunch of tools on the floor. Those must be the ones Hector cleaned. Gardening gloves on, I grab the cutters and get to work.
My dad said tired minds can’t worry or stress. So time to wear me the hell out.
Chapter Sixteen
“I heard this has been your hiding place.”
Prince Maddox’s voice makes me jump and nearly drop the cutters in my hand. I spin around, dropping the ivy I had just pulled off, to find Maddox near the fountain. He runs his finger across the red stone fountain at the top, where the water is meant to pour down, but I have no idea how to turn it on. For ten days, I have successfully dodged the prince and his every attempt to flatter me. I threw the hundreds of red roses he left in my room out of the window. I didn’t eat the several iced lemon cakes he had made for me, but it was creepy that he knew it was my favourite.
Overall, I’m not being romanced by the evil prince.
“It’s looking better, I think,” I carefully reply. Everything I say around Maddox has to be careful, I don’t trust him not to flip a switch. He stares at the fountain for a moment longer, and I wonder if he is remembering something. This was his mother’s garden once, and she might have brought him here, but I don’t know when she died. Or how old he was. I get the sneaking suspicion he was young.