The Twin Dragons Series: Requiem City Book 5
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C. Swallow
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In the heart of Requiem City, Hazel is a grieving widow desperate to uncover the truth behind her husband's brutal murder. Her quest for answers leads her into a dark world of vampires, curses, and ancient rivalries. As she delves deeper, she encounters Devorex, a vampire with a mysterious connection to her past. Their fates intertwine in a dangerous dance of power, passion, and vengeance. Will Hazel uncover the truth, or will the city's shadows consume her?
The Scent of Night
HAZEL
âYou fool,â I whisper to myself, in an apartment worn apart by my manic scribbles. I was officially losing my mind.
In the center of the cheapest rental in Requiem City, I had started to pray for crying out loud. I didnât even believe in the supernatural, but somehow, I had turned into some kind of self-professed witch.
The reason? A bloody one.
In the center of my sparse and empty living room is a picture of him and me. Nick. Our wedding day, in one photo, representing our perfect past.
In the picture, my blazing waist length, silver hair is a feature, while my gray eyes sparkle with joy. Iâm holding a sword in my hand, a white slick medieval-style dressânext to my husband, dressed as a knight.
My favorite picture.
Nick was found decapitated last year in our home.
I had married him for love, but Nick had been conveniently wealthy just like me. We came from affluent families, the kind where you donât get fucking murdered in your own home.
My entire life had been perfect until the age of twenty-eight. Now I was twenty-nine. Now I was estranged from my family.
I escaped the torturous memory of finding my husband deadâI ran away from my hometown in search of a resolution.
I came to Requiem CityâI donât really know why, other than it came to me in a dream as an appealing idea. That the answers I wanted may be found right here. A prominent city. Full of magic.
Maybe I could find peace.
Part of me wondered if I was looking for death too. Morbidâha, yeah. But I was on a journey of grieving that never seemed to end.
My incoherent writing on the wall is my attempt to make a spell of resurrection.
The music playing is dark and creepy, to set the ambiance.
I have a candle lit. An ash candle with the scent of âNight.â I scratched Nickâs name into the wax.
âHazel.â I whisper my name out loud, then quickly spin to the mirror I propped on the wall. Itâs as if I called myself to look at my own reflection.
I stand up, pulling my fluffy black robe around me tighter, and I shake myself out of my ridiculous trance.
I thought I could be a witch. I could solve my husbandâs murder through sheer madness apparently. I had to stop this delusion.
The police investigated the murderâbut everything led to dead ends.
I turn the music off from my phone, as someone is knocking at my door, âTurn that shit down, are you nuts? Weâre trying to sleep here!â
I feel my adrenaline spike. I want this confrontation. I want a fight, right now.
I walk to the door; I unlock it door and swing it openâseeing no one.
I stick my head out into the empty corridor, looking up and down the graffitied walls and broken doors. Whoever it was, went back into their place.
These apartments were the cheapest in Req City for a reason. The walls were paper thin. And the smell was kind of ancient.
I step back into my room, ready to shut the doorâwhen all the hairs on the nape of my neck, suddenly stand back on end.
I canât shake the sudden surge of anxiety, so I look out the corridor one more time. Steps, followed by shadows from a group of walking teens, appear from up the stairs.
I watch them as they exit to this level, and they all stop to glare at me, staring at them. They continue forward to the first door.
They were college students renting together.
I look down the other side of the corridor, and my suspicions rise again. Was I being watched? Or was I just nuts? I turn back to the college studentsâafter their door is slammed shut and loudly locked.
A creepy feeling still fuels me, I want to wait and see what will happen.
In the small silence, a bang comes from the last door as if someone has fallen against it. The next instance, the door is creaked open.
I instinctively pull back, to only peek around the side of my own door, to see a woman as pale as a ghost, dressed in fishnet stockings and barely anything else aside from a short Gothic black dress, with no midriff.
She walks out, dazed.
Her long black hair canât hide the red smear on her neck.
Before I stop staring, I observe how she walks away, stumbling like a zombie, looking ahead toward the stairs, unable to register me.
When I look to the apartment she just exited from, I see an imposing shadow looming just within, but the man I cannot see.
By now Iâve casually pulled back into my apartment and shut the door.
I look over my shoulder to the mess Iâve made, and I exhale a shaky breath, as I lay my forehead on the door, and I count my breaths.
I wasnât a fool. I wasnât crazy. I was just angry.
I was so fucking angry.
I wanted my husband back. I wanted my life back. I wanted my happiness to return.
But it never would. And I could never erase the memory of finding him headlessâand his head was never found.
I would never heal!
I scream bloody murder into my door.
Then I stop.
I felt dead inside. Nothing would make me feel alive again.
DEVOREX
I hear a chilling scream coming from her door after she shut it on me.
When I walk down toward it, I tilt my head, listening for any other sound.
I hear deranged whispering and I try not to smile.
I knock on the door, but no one answers. I wait until the whispers stop, then I turn around and head back to my apartment.
Another day, another body.
Inside my temporary rental is a pool of blood on the linoleum of the kitchen. I fucked that whore, drank her blood, paid her, and off she went. It was just another dark day of surviving on blood.
I was a vampire. WellâŠa Dragon. Once upon a time.
I had learned to be a calm and isolated predator over the last millennium of eternal waiting.
Did I have emotions? None I cared to feel.
Where is he, where is he, who did it, why arenât you with me anymore.
A whisper of many distraught thoughts filters through my head. This one sounds like her. I had never forgotten her.
After eternityâŠshe wasnât mine anymore.
Well.
Not yet anyway.
I light a cigar, and I take a puff as my nostrils flare. Sheâs moving. Soon sheâd be moving out of that hole of a place.
Itâs exactly what I wantedâher moving.
Requiem Cityâs Skeleton Quarter was too bland after the Dragons left to roam outside the broken borders. They were no longer trapped.
On their journey, the city full of supernatural activity was now dead to prior chaos. I watched it all unfurl six months ago. The unraveling of Freesiaâs Curse. In its placeârest and boring peace.
The breaking of that Curse was something I watched closelyâalbeit with detachment. That bitchâs curse never killed me.
Just everyone I fucking loved back in that time.
With my heightened senses once the fresh blood finally hit my brain, I feel her sleeping. She is passing out from exhaustion.
âButterfly,â I smile, as I taste the smoke of my cigar.
Hazel could feel me.
She could feel my crazy heart bleeding and screamingâquietly. It was driving her mad. It was my close proximity to her that was doing it. I was letting it happen slowly.
I stand up and walk into the bathroom, where the broken mirror shows my red eyes, black hair, square jaw, blood-red lips from my recent devouring, and wide shoulders, with a butterfly tattoo.
I trained a lot to win every fight. A subpar way to feel in control. The markings on me were not for pleasure. I tattooed the butterfly because she was the clock to this reunion.
No one really knew the story but me.
Back then. Long, long ago, Freesia had a twin sister. Her name was Hazel. They were Blood Raven and Sword Dancer, mated two, four Dragons. Ultra-rare quadruplets.
I had three brothers: Hercula, Versa, and Korserath. Theyâre all dead.
My name was Devorex, but you can call me Rex.
Rex was the name of a King. So I was called the King of Blood in the Dark Ring. Fighting was my release.
I fantasize how Iâm going to kiss the mouth of my reborn Queen and steal her heart.
Unfortunately, my nature was not gentle.
Her mind wouldnât escape punishment. Being mated to a monster like me would make her bleed, so my aim was simply to keep her alive.
I look at the grimy sink, my stark veins pumping blood through my clenched hands.
When I look at my reflection, I show all my teeth. Wide, wicked fangs.
No, I wouldnât kill her. I just wanted to love her.
My resulting tears that fall down my cheeks are black with that lie in my soul.
My crimson eyes, which are two twin flames of death and hell, are insincere when I try to convince myself I can be warm for her.
I couldnât pretend to feel love. But I do know I already pitied her. Poor butterfly.
I was ruinedânothing could save my soul.
