She was dead...

I reached out to touch her shoulder, but stopped and looked up when the bedroom door unexpectedly opened. Like a surreal nightmare, Henrietta strolled in carrying basket filled with magazines, cookies, and clean clothes. She was bright eyed and smiling, and completely unaware of the horror scene which she'd just walked into. She turned on her heel, calling my name, and then locked eyes on me.

I was sitting there on the floor, covered in blood, hovering over the dead corpse of my nurse.

She dropped the basket, and jumped backwards covering her hand over her mouth.

She dropped the basket of things and jumped backwards in fright, suppressing a tiny scream. Outside there was low mummers of concerned whispering followed by a gentle knock on the door, followed by the voice of a guard asking "Does Your Majesty reacquire assistance?"

"No," Henrietta practically screamed running towards the bedroom door and holding it shut, "I reacquire all of you to stand guard at the bottom of the corridor and ensure that I'm given some privacy with the princess," she explained.

"Very well Your Majesty," the guard said. Henrietta stayed glued to the spot with both hands firmly resting against the door while she listened to the guards walk away. While I, on the other hand, sat next to the dead body in state of confusion and shock.

When the guards were far enough away, she moved from the door and walked over to me, "What happened," she asked.

"She was trying to poison me - I had to protect myself, and the baby," I replied weakly.

She looked at the body and focused in on the horrific wound on the nurse's throat. Pointing at the neck she asked, "Did you do that?"

I nodded my head slowly and mouthed the words 'yes'.

"Okay, Mia, listen to me. I believe you, I swear, but right now we need to work out a way of getting rid of the dead body," Henrietta said staring down at the body.

I didn't move. Instead I stared back her in dazed astonishment, unable to believe that she was so willing and nonchalant about helping me dispose of the body. She rolled up the sleeves of her pastel pink designer dress and kicked off her expensive heels, then leaned down and grabbed the nurse by her ankles, then looking up at me she said, "Come on, you take her arms and we'll pull her into the bathroom."

I blinked and said aloud the first thing that floated into my head, "Wait ... you've done this before?"

My question caught Henrietta off guard and she scowled at me, "Of course I haven't. But I know this fortress better than you, and I also know there are plenty of ways to sneak things in and out undetected - it's just the things I usually sneak in and out aren't dead bodies," she added irritably.

"Okay," I winced, struggling up on to my feet and taking hold of the nurse's wrists.

Henrietta counted to three and we both hoisted the body off the floor. The body sagged in the middle, and the empty room filled with sound of blood dripping from the body and spattering against the hard floor. My stomach lurched and I made a dry retching sound as we took our first step forward. My bare feet stepped into the pool of cold sticky blood on the floor, and I felt the crimson goo sink between my toes.

Unable to contain my disgust I cursed, "This is so fucking gross."

Henrietta shot me a sympathic glance and said, "Try not to think about it. You can clean up once we get her into the bath."

So I tried not to think about it, and instead concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. But even that was difficult as the blood on the bottom of my feet made the floor feel sticky to walk on. I cringed with every step I took forward, and was quickly relieved when carried the body over the bathroom threshold.

"Drop the body here and I'll drag her into the tub, while you strip the linen from the bed - we need something to soak up all that blood," Henrietta instructed.

I followed her instructions, lowering the body to the floor and walking back across the room to the bed. I stripped the sheet off and threw it over the large puddle of blood on the floor, then headed back to the bathroom. Henrietta had wrestled the body into the tub and was now filling the wash basin with water. She glanced over to me and said, "We need to get you clean enough to move to your new quarters."

"What?" I asked.

"You're being move, Mia. That's why I came down here. Luc sent Nico to ask me to move you ... I just never imagined I'd end up walking into all this," she said.

"I'm sorry," I said numbly.

"Never mind about that, come here and sit down by me," she beckoned softly, "we need to get you clean enough to walk to your new quarters."

I murmured a silent 'okay' and tiptoed across the bathroom floor, avoiding the blood and broken mirror. My whole brain had gone into over load and I was struggling to think straight. I sat down on the bathroom counter top and gazed down at the floor. Henrietta shuffled around me and picked up a fluffy cotton flannel and dipped it into a bowel of soapy warm water, then wringing it out she began to gently dab at the dried blood splatters on my face. "There is a self contained apartment concealed within this fortress for members of the royal family. It's been forgotten and abandoned for centuries, it was designed to be used by the royal family in the event of an attack upon the city, but it soon became redundant when Felix, the old King, established his new world order. We never had any real political enemies after that, except for a few nut jobs."

"Do you think, that's what she was," I said nodding towards the body in the bathtub.

"Perhaps," Henrietta shrugged, "it's difficult to tell really, now that's she dead."

"Wait, she did say something, before she died. She said that I wasn't the only person this had happened too. She said that there were others - what do you think she meant? I mean, have there been others like me, other girls?" I asked.

Henrietta shook her head, "No, there can only be one and she can never be replaced ... Lord knows, Louis has never reframed from reminding me of this, every single day of our wretched marriage. But, I wouldn't take much notice about what she'd had to say while she was dying. It was probably just the delirious ramblings of a mad woman."

"I don't know, she didn't seem crazy when she said it," I mused.

Henrietta shrugged, "I think your over thinking things, this city and this court is full of crazies. And there are even more crazies outside in the big wide world, and not all of them are vampires and humans. For all we know this woman might have been a werewolf sympathiser, or an anti-monarchist, or a plain old psychopath without any political motive," she dropped the flannel back into the bowl and grabbed a towel off the rail and patted my face dry, "There," she said smiling, "No one will ever find out what happened here tonight."

I looked uneasily across the room to the body laid in the tub and said, "Well, whoever she is, someone is going to find out about this. I mean, someone is going to notice she's missing, and just look at all the blood out there. The room looks like a scene from a hammer horror movie. I mean, even if we got rid of the body it's still going to look like someone was murdered in this room."

Henrietta shook her head and said, "No one is going to comeback into this room once we've left. There are only a handful of people who even know you're down here, so the only reason anybody would come into this room would be to check on you. But now that your leaving, there'd be no reason for anyone to come down here. Once we leave, I'll have the guards lock up this room and order them not to allow anyone to go inside it."

"But what if someone goes inside?" I asked.

"I don't know, but this is a risk we'll have to take," she said grimly.

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Author's Note

Just a reminder that through out December this book will be updated every Monday and Friday!

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Vicky xxx