The Lost Queen Book 1 - Alden

22. Stone

Aver runs in the room with Clark. He looks back and forth between Victor and the queen. "Oh... ok." He takes 1 step and rattles off orders. "Emberlynna, get him started on"

"Done."

"Guards go to the blood supply room and bring blood. Lots of blood. Servant, cut these rags off of her and get her in a gown. Clark go find Dr. Fomek. He's the doctor for the school. Ask people until you find him. He's here somewhere. Servant, why are you not doing what I said?"

"I must not clean her with males present. Step outside, please. The women may stay."

I don't know why, but I don't want to leave. "No."

"I have sworn my allegiance to the queen and the queen only. It is the way my position was set up. I only have to follow the queen's orders. And I will not bathe her in your presence." She points at the door, "NOW OUTSIDE!"

I have more to say, but Jenny pushes me out. "She'll be fine, I'll stay. Go get cleaned up."

"I'll stay too. For both of them." Emberlynna shuts the door in my face.

I stand in the hallway with Aver.

4 guards are standing outside the room.

"f**k, are you guys everywhere?" I turn and punch the wall. I can actually hear the bones in my hand break.

Aver knocks on the wall. "Stone."

"I need to be in there."

"They will be fine. Let's go to one of these other rooms, and you can wash up."

A guard looks at him. "There is no plumbing or electricity in the castle. The former king only added those things near the ballroom area."

We stare at him in stunned silence.

Aver finally breaks the silence, "Oh..."

Clark comes running down the hallway with someone.

Aver gestures at the man. "Hello Doctor, we are going to need your assistance. The queen has been found in a rather unfortunate state. I can only assume her insides are gone. She seems to be a skeleton wrapped in leather skin. Medical supplies here are minimal. What will you need?"

"To see my patient, blood, and many different sizes of tubes."

"We are currently on hold while she is bathed."

"Nonsense," He opens the door and yells, "I am the doctor and I need to see my patient immediately."

The servant yells, "Of course sir, come in."

I yell at the door. "WHAT THE HELL? YOU ARE PISSING ME OFF WOMAN!"

Clark pulls me. "Come on man, he's the doctor. He's got to get in."

Aver grabs my shoulders and leads me away. "You and Clark go get cleaned up. You look like you've been blown up a couple of times. I will get as many tubes as I can find, and we will meet back here in 15 minutes. Then we will talk to the doctor and make a plan."

I start to argue, but he cuts me off, "We can not get in there while the doctor does the assessment. And the guard will remain outside her door."

"He's right, let's go. It's only 15 minutes, and it's not like we're leaving the building."

2 of the guards are following us and I have no idea why, but at this point I don't care.

"I need some blood."

Clark nods.

One of the guards steps in front of us. "Follow me sir."

He leads us to a room that is completely modern. It has chairs, a TV, a coffee table, lights, a sink and a few bottles of fresh blood. It also has a separate bathroom with 3 showers and 2 private toilets. "This is perfect. Where are we?"

"This was the former king's relaxing room. It was set up for use during the ball, sir."

Clark runs for the chair and opens the bottle of blood. "Well, he's not going to be using it. Can you guys get us some clothes that aren't quite so holy and burnt?" He pours us each a glass.

"No problem, sir."

I sit opposite Clark on a chair. "This has been a hell of a day."

"Yea, and I don't think we're getting the deposits back on these tuxes." Clark takes as much of the tux off as he can.

I can't help but laugh as I check mine. It's got a rip all the way down the arm. Singe marks and dirt all over it. One of the knees is all ripped out. "Man, your hair got singed on 1 side."

"WHAT" He screams and runs to the washroom. "It's not too bad, I can still make it sexy." He comes back. "Next time we have an epic battle, can we do it in regular clothes? That sucked. The tie was too tight on my throat."

"No, that was the man trying to pop your head off."

"Heh... yea... he was annoying."

"Did you see towels or soap? I need to wash this dirt off."

"Yea, there on the counter by the mirror."

I'm in the shower and I can hear the guards talking to Clark. "We brought the clothes, sir."

"Where did you get so many? And why?"

"We used super speed to go to the mall. We did not know the sizes, so we got them all. Black pants, button shirts, white t-shirts, boxer underwear, tight boxer underwear, black socks... in all sizes, sir."

Another guard says, "I also got black shiny shoes in all sizes, sir." Then I hear a lot of thuds. Shoes must have fallen.

"The mall was open this late?"

"Well, no, sir."

I can't help but laugh. I grab a towel and wrap it around my hips.

"My turn." Clark takes off for the shower.

"There is more than one of them, you know?" I dig through the clothes pile.

"Still weird."

"Thank you for getting this stuff."

"No problem, sir. We will be outside if you need anything else." I watch as they open the door to leave and there are even more guards outside the door.

I grab some clothes and step back in the bathroom. "We may have a problem."

"Do I have time to finish washing my balls?"

"You should have been done already."

"Man, not all of us have small balls. Mine are huge. They take a bit of time to wash."

I try to style my hair a bit with my fingers.

"Throw me a towel and what's this problem?"

"There are a lot of guards outside the door. I have no idea why."

"Ugh... let me get some pants on. I don't want to have the next epic battle without pants."

"Yea, that would be worse than with a tux. They haven't done anything yet, they're just standing there."

I sit on the chair and pour myself another glass of blood. "They do have the best blood."

Clark puts some shoes on. "What's up with you and the queen? Are you 2 mates?"

"I don't think so. I don't feel anything. I didn't follow a scent or fall in love with her. Never felt a tug in my chest. It's nothing like I imagined the mate pull would be. What do you think?"

He pours another glass. "You are protective of her, and you refuse to leave her side. I've never seen you like that around anyone. But it could be the adrenaline. Everything that happened was crazy, and you were trying to get her out of there. So, yea... I don't know either. I guess we'll figure it out when she gets better. Are we staying here or going back to school though?"

"I'd like to stay and make sure the psycho-king doesn't come back and try to hide her again. But I doubt the guards would like that. They will probably kick us out first chance they get. That's probably why they are outside. But I am definitely not leaving without Victor. So, I guess we're here till tomorrow morning. What time is it anyway? My phone's not in my pocket." I get up and go through my tux.

"1am. Let's get back up there and make a plan."

"I found my phone and yea it's about that time. Let's take that case of blood."

A guard steps in, "Pardon me sir, it's been 15 minutes."

"Thanks, can you guys carry this case of blood? Our friends upstairs will need it."

"And these 3 bottles. We have a lot of friends up there."

"Of course, sir. Anything else?"

"I don't think so."

"We will follow you."

We get to the room and 4 guards are outside the room with Aver. He's holding so many tubes of every size.

"Heard anything yet?"

"Not yet, but they should be about done."

A few seconds later, Emberlynna opens the door. "She's cleaned up now, and the doctor did his assessment. You can come in."

The 3 of us try to go through the door at the same time and get stuck for a second. "I've got the medical supplies!"

We manage to get in, and I feel so much better seeing her.

"Mr. Aver, the information you gave me earlier was spot on. Her insides are gone. So, we are going to have to put a tube in her mouth and drip blood in. Slowly she will rebuild her mouth and then her throat and then her stomach. And then, so on and so forth. She will essentially rebuild her body 1 piece at a time. It will be a very long process. It could take anywhere from a few weeks to a month or 2. I have never seen this done, so that is my best time estimate. All of you, step over here, and I will show you how to place the tube. I will stay for a few days and then come back every few days and make modifications as needed."

"We will stay for a couple of months. We can do this medical treatment and help with the protection of the queen." Jenny says.

"Yea, of course." I nod.

We stand around the queen's bed watching the doctor. He pulls her jaw apart slowly and places the end of the tube in her mouth. "For the first days, keep the end of the tube placed in her oral cavity. The blood will drip in and... What is that? Someone give me their phone. I need a flash light. And will someone please get some actual light in here?"

Jenny hands over her phone with the flashlight on. The rest of us look at each other. How are we supposed to make electric?

Clark puts his finger in the air. "We can run extension cords. We're above the ballroom, by 2 floors. We can run cords here."

"That'll work for now." Aver yells to the guards, "Go get the longest extensions cords you can find. A lot of them."

"There I've got it." The doctor pulls a chunk of something out of her mouth. "It appears to be metal with grooves of some kind on it. By the placement, I assume it was down her throat a bit." He examines the chunk a bit more. "Tell me more about this room you found her in."

"It was dirty. Dirt floor. She had metal cuffs around her wrists, and she was chained to the wall. There were scratches and one of her fingernails was stuck in the wall." I run my hand over her fingers. They are so cold, gray, and beat up. I take a deep breath.

Clark nods. "Oh the bear. I found that really odd."

"It wasn't a bear, it was a stuffed doll of some kind." Jenny crosses her arms.

"That's how they caught her." Mr. Aver seems to be talking to himself.

"What do you mean?"

Emberlynna smiles, "It's teleportation. Only the strongest of vampires can ever do it. They can link part of their soul to an object. Any object they choose. Then they put that object somewhere safe... and whenever they are needed in that location, they can essentially teleport to their object."

Jenny wipes a tear away. "The doll must have been her way of visiting her parents."

"Jenny, tell me about the magic surrounding the room please."

"I can't. It was a solid wall of magic. Everything I tried, did nothing. When I tried to touch the wall, it zapped me."

Dr. Fomek looks up from the metal piece. "It was a clean room."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the Fane wasn't working alone."

A chill shoots through my entire body.

Emberlynna sits by the queen, and rubs her hair. "Only a very powerful magician can form a clean room. There is no magic in a clean room. We can't use our vampire powers either."

"No one can use any magic-based powers," Aver adds.

Dr. Fomek looks back at the metal piece. "The timing had to have been perfect.... She teleports in, the clean room is placed, and she is overpowered physically... That would explain the broken bones and lacerations."

"What?" Now I'm pissed.

"She was beaten badly before she was left alone. I noticed several broken bones, a crack in her skull, and these." He points to an area on her forearm. "I thought originally her skin was cracking apart due to the length of time she was in there. But now I believe she was also cut deeply in several places. Perhaps by a sword or swords? And this bolt was screwed in the back of her mouth. It would prevent her from ingesting anything."

Mr. Aver sighs, "And after all that, she was chained to the wall. Her body couldn't heal itself, and she couldn't move."

Emberlynna is still rubbing the queen's hair and a tear falls down her cheek. "And it was set up by her very own brother."

I can feel my whole body shaking, and I know there are tears in my eyes again. All I can think is, I'm going to kill him.

"But how did Fane end up as king? His parents should still have been able to stop him, right?" Clark looks around the room.

"All we can do is speculate that," The doc looks back at the queen. "Perhaps in time she will tell us."