Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 2 Read online

  BLOOD, MILK & CHOCOLATE

  Part 2

  THE GRIMM DIARIES BOOK 4

  BY CAMERON JACE

  WWW.CAMERONJACE.COM

  First Original Edition, December 2013

  Copyright ©2015 Cameron Jace

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Other Books by Cameron Jace

  The Grimm Diaries Prequels Series

  The Grimm Diaries Prequels 1-6 (Free)

  The Grimm Diaries Prequels 7-10

  The Grimm Diaries Prequels 11-14

  The Grimm Diaries Prequels 15-18

  The Grimm Diaries Main Series

  Snow White Sorrow (Book 1)

  Cinderella Dressed in Ashes (Book 2)

  Blood, Milk & Chocolate Part 1 (Book 3)

  I Am Alive Series

  I Am Alive (Book 1)

  Pentimento Series

  Pentimento (Book 1)

  Historical facts about the Brothers Grimm, vampires, and folklores are true. The interpretations and fantasy elements aren’t. They are products of the author’s imagination.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue Part One

  Prologue Part Two

  Part One: The Moon’s Path

  Part Two: The Tower of Tales

  Part Three: The Kingdom of Sorrow

  Part Four: The Chosen One

  Part Five: The Coffin of Sorrow

  Epilogue Part One

  Epilogue Part Two

  Prologue Part One

  Candy House

  Fable opened her eyes. She wondered if she would wake up in the Kingdom of Sorrow as planned. Unfortunately, she ended up in the cellar in Candy House. Her attempt to reprise the Dreamhunter’s role proved to be futile.

  She had accomplished nothing.

  Fable stood up, unable to deal with her disappointment. The need to go back and learn about her past was overwhelming. Also, what about Shew and Loki’s unbelievably shocking story? She was dying to know more about them. Was it really true love or just an exchange of hearts?

  Sitting down on a nearby chair, she let out a long sigh. There was too much that needed to be done, or the Lost Seven’s lives may be in danger.

  What was she going to do?

  The answer came much sooner than her expectations.

  A sudden light was beginning to fill the room, radiating outward from the Dream Temple she had used to try and enter the Dreamworld earlier.

  Fable watched the light with an open mouth, adjusting her glasses to make sure she was seeing this all correctly. What had she done?

  The light was slowly widening in radius and spreading toward the ceiling.

  Very slowly.

  She thought she could see through it – just a few bits and pieces of images coming through.

  Although her attempt to go back had failed, she seemed to have opened a gate of light to the Dreamworld. All the fears she had ever known began to consume her. This wasn’t good. What had she done?

  Prologue Part Two

  The Schloss

  Lucy and Axel were still in awe. All the things they had read about the Queen of Sorrow didn’t match their earlier perception of her. It puzzled them even more with every page they read further into her diary.

  If the Queen had been such a good person in the past, what had made her turn into such a vicious mother? How did it happen?

  Axel suggested they stop reading at some point. He argued that maybe they shouldn’t have started reading the diary in the first place. Some secrets were meant to stay buried forever.

  But Lucy didn’t care. She was in danger already, having broken her promise to the Queen of Sorrow by reading the diary. The evil queen had prohibited her from doing so, warning her about the consequences.

  And the fact[CB1] that the diary was written in a Book of Sand, meant that only Lucy and Axel were going to know of its contents for the next one hundred years.

  There was no other option but to finish the diary and deal with consequences later.

  After all, someone had to expose the truth. Someone had to finish reading the most epic and untold story of all a time.

  Someone had to learn if Carmilla and Angel ever found the Tower of Tales in the Seven Seas and met Lady Shallot.

  Someone had to learn who the Queen of Sorrow really was.

  Lucy began reading again…

  Part One: The Moon’s Path

  Chapter 1

  The Queen’s Diary

  Life on the Seven Seas didn’t promise a happily ever after for Angel and I. Sailing in our small boat, I didn’t know which was worse – the nights or the days.

  The days were gloomy. Looms of mist surrounded our boat, and we could hardly see the horizon. Angel liked to call it the sea’s edge, as if there was an imaginary waterfall at the end of the sea where all ships fell off into oblivion. The apple trader I fell in love with surely had a dark imagination.

  The nights on the Seven Seas were the embodiment of scary. The fear of the unknown, because we still couldn’t see ahead of us. The hope of finding the Tower of Tales and meeting Lady Shallot to help us escape Night Von Sorrow were diminishing tide by tide. The Seven Seas were a slow death. Day after day, I began to realize we may have fooled ourselves, thinking we could really escape and find a place we could call our home.

  And there was more.

  By day, we sometimes saw other ships looming beyond the mist, which draped like curtains before our eyes. The mist blurred our destinations to our vision. And the things we thought we glimpsed beyond it may have been illusions instead of reality.

  “Do you see them, Angel?” I asked.

  “See what?”

  “The ships looming behind the mist. The silhouettes of sailors. Their red eyes.”

  “I see nothing, Carmilla. You’re imaging things. The sea does that sometimes.”

  I turned back to him. He was standing at the farther side of the boat, trying to catch some fish. He had been like that since I’d sold my soul to Fate. Nothing mattered to him but food.

  Angel spent half of our days catching an incredible amount of fish. To me, the fish saved me from starving. But to Angel, the fish he caught meant nothing but blood.

  I had seen him rip into a large fish with his teeth and suck out its red guts with insatiable hunger. He had to drink fast, before its blood clotted. One after the other. Some days, when he couldn’t catch the fish, he jumped into the water, disappearing for hours and then reappearing with a big fish between his teeth.

  “You breathe under water?” I remember asking.

  “I guess so.” He didn’t even care that he had begun acquiring incredible vampire powers. “I can only do it when I am really hungry.”

  We’d sit next to each other. I ate the outside, he drank the inside. The rest of the day he’d sleep, tired of hunting for blood. This wasn’t the love story I had imagined when I first met him.

  But I wasn’t surprised. I, Carmilla Karnstein, was bound for sorrow by Captain Hook, Fate of the Seven Seas. And Angel was risking his full transformation into a vampire like his father.

  One night, I realized we were two survivors who were able to love each other, but couldn’t. Survival took most of our time and the bond between us thinned with every passing wave that rocked our boat, stealing it of life on the Seven Seas.

  That night was the first time I thought about having a child. Angel and I needed something we both cared about to keep our bond from fraying. And it was a strange thought, because somehow I knew, deep inside my soul, that I would not only have one child, but two.

  Something told me I would have two
girls. Twins.

  Chapter 2

  The Queen’s Diary

  But then the thought withered away. How could we have a child without a home?

  Some days, when Angel failed to catch any fish, I squeezed myself into the farthest corner of the scant boat, afraid he wouldn’t be able to resist my blood. I convinced myself it was ironic how my blood was the equivalent of that of a fish in the sea. Ironic, not pathetic.

  What really puzzled me was that I never really wanted to be away from him. Even when he could kill me, I wanted to stay closer. I preferred to sleep in his arms. I didn’t mind the possibly of dying by his kiss… of death. After all, I had sold my soul to Fate for him.

  So I went to him each night, to sleep in his arms.

  Some nights, when he was well fed, I felt beautiful in his arms. His embraces completed my features. His breath calmed my fears. I knew he was the man for me. The love of my life. But then came those sound of sirens singing. The mermaids of the Seven Seas were calling for him.

  Angel would close his eyes, and so would I. With my head on his chest, I could hear his fear through his racing heart. There was nothing we could do until the mermaids gave up and swam away.

  Then I saw those ships behind the mist again.

  “I’m not imagining things, Angel,” I insisted. “I’m sure I see ships sailing behind the mist. The question is, why are they not contacting us?”

  “I don’t see any ships.”

  “Do you think they don’t see us?” I dismissed his stubbornness. Maybe he was afraid to admit their existence. “Are they scared of us?”

  “Why would anyone be scared of us?” Angel’s mood was darkening. “We’re two lost souls in an endless sea. We’ll never make it out of here.”

  “Don’t say that. We’ll find the Tower of Tales.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “The Moongirl told me so.”

  Angel dwelled in silence in the corner of the boat. I knew he didn’t believe she existed.

  “Don’t do this to me Angel.”

  “Do what?”

  “Give up on us.”

  “I’m not giving up, Carmilla. I promise you, I would die for you, but I’m trying to see the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “We’re too small for this sea. It will swallow us alive. Captain Ahab was right about the Seven Seas.”

  “I sold my soul for us to stay together. Don’t make me regret it.”

  “You don’t get it, Carmilla,” Angel said. “You sold your soul for sorrow. Our future is doomed.”

  That’s when I heard the sirens calling for him again, in the distance. Angel cupped his ears and moved to the edge of the boat again, ashamed because of his weakness to their melodies. This was when I realized that the road was still long. Staying in the boat and hoping to be fortunate enough to come across the Tower of Tales wasn’t the right thing to do.

  Sorrow was coming, and I needed to prepare for it. I needed a plan.

  Chapter 3

  The Queen’s Diary

  I got on my knees each night and began to pray. I raised my hands toward the gloomy skies and called for the Moon. Didn’t the Moongirl say she’d help me? Why wasn’t she answering me?

  The boat rocked on the angry tides and the wind breathed in colder and colder waves of air every night. Angel had been sinking into a depression of silence more and more. Sometimes I needed to lay my head on his chest to make sure he was still breathing, but then I would return to my prayers again, trying to choose my words as wisely as possible. Maybe the Gods demanded that we speak in a series of calculated sentences to answer our prayers. Maybe they just didn’t listen. And maybe Angel and I were already dying, not knowing it.

  In my darkest hour I wondered if this was the sorrow I had sold myself for. If so, it was beyond my tolerance. I had thought my sorrow would be a beast I would have to confront or dire circumstances I would have to cross. But to live abandoned in the middle of the sea wasn’t something I was prepared for. No wonder Angel was losing hope.

  “Are we going to die, Angel?”

  He didn’t even bother to answer me. This, or he had sunk into a deep sleep.

  “We’re not supposed to die,” I told myself, staring at the sack full of seven items. “The Moongirl told me I needed to bring these items to Lady Shallot. Cerené of Murano Island told me the same. Captain Ahab spared my life. It can’t be that all of them were wrong about us. We’re destined to change the world. This can’t be the end.”

  “My father used to tell me about this man,” Angel finally spoke, although in a thin and lifeless voice. “A man who’d been lost at sea for seven years, seven days, and seven nights.”

  I leaned back toward him, loving his stories like I always did. “What about this man?”

  “He was on a boat like this, among seven other men, all of them in a better health,” Angel said. “Still, he watched them die, one by one. They died of panic, my father told me.”

  “So this man was the calmest of them? Was this what caused him to survive?”

  “No, he was as panicked as them, but he had a secret.”

  “What secret, Angel?”

  Angel suddenly straightened up, looking over my shoulder.

  “What is it?” I turned and stared into the darkness.

  “A ship.”

  “So you do see it?”

  “I do, Carmilla.”

  “It’s looming behind the mist, right?”

  “It is,” Angel stood up. “I recognize that ship.”

  “You do?” I stood next to him, paying attention to the unstable waves rocking the boat.

  “The Demeter. It belongs to my father, Night Von Sorrow.”

  I cupped my hand to my mouth, afraid to utter a word.

  “He found us,” Angel said. “And I thought we’d die abandoned in the sea.”

  “How did he find us?”

  “I told you Night Von Sorrow is a hunter. Always has been. He promised to hunt us down.”

  “Is he going to kill us?”

  “I’m not sure of his plans, but he doesn’t want us to be together.”

  “So why hasn’t he attacked us in all this time?”

  “I think he can’t see us through the mist, Carmilla,” Angel waved a hand through the mist. It gently wrapped itself around his hand like a friendly ghost. “I think the mist isn’t here to block the view.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I think it’s here to protect us,” Angel faced me. Both of us were thankful, but puzzled. Maybe the Gods had heard my prayers. Maybe the Gods listened after all, but only answered in subtle ways. “This means there is hope, Carmilla.” He hugged me and I let myself fall into his arms, smiling at the moon above.

  “Listen,” Angel said. “I will swim over.”

  “To the ship? No, Angel! Don’t do it.”

  “I have to. Maybe the ship holds the answers to how to get to the Tower of Tales. Who knows? Maybe I can kill everyone on board and use it. This kind of ship will get us wherever we need to sail.”

  “But if you go, you might die.”

  Angel held me closer by the arms. “Remember that story about the man lost in the sea with seven other men?”

  “I do. What about it?”

  “I never told you why he survived.”

  “Why, Angel? Why?”

  “Because he was the only one who didn’t give a damn if he didn’t.”

  Chapter 4

  The Queen’s Diary

  I couldn’t leave Angel alone and wouldn’t let him leave me behind, so I swam with him on his back to the Demeter, braving the water that I so feared for so long, keeping my eyes closed to not tempt myself to break the curse that had plagued me all my life.

  On the way, Angel told me the Demeter had been designed to transport royal vampires, descendants of the Piper, from Transylvania to other lands. The ship was under a spell to protect the Sorrows. It provided special coffins that vampires could sleep in for day
s, without interruption, all through the journey.

  “And how do they survive in the coffin that long?” I asked, holding tightly to his back while he paddled across the waves.

  “The coffins are filled with a substance that preserves vampire bodies for about thirty days.”

  “Substance?” I said. “Soil, you mean?” I’d heard rumors about vampire’s souls needing a certain soil to survive.

  “That’s only the rumor,” Angel had reached the side of the Demeter. “The truth is different.”

  “What do you mean?” I wiped the water off my face and hung onto his shoulders tighter as he clung to the ship’s side.

  “Vampires who sleep in a coffin for too long are preserved in a mixture of blood, milk, and chocolate,” he explained. “This only preserves their souls.”

  “I though vampires had no souls,” I said.

  “I have a soul, Carmilla,” he sounded offended.

  “You’re a half-vampire.”

  “Even those who are fully transformed have some form of a soul. Some call it the Chanta,” he said. “Those coffins protect that special soul.”

  “Is that why your father wanted to sink me into it?” I asked. “But I am not a vampire.”

  “Let’s not talk about this now, Carmilla,” Angel said. I couldn’t decipher the secrets behind his beautiful eyes due to clinging on his back with my own eyes closed. I could only go by what I could hear in his voice. “All you need to know is that humans die if submerged in the special mixture inside the coffins.”

  “No, Angel, I want to know. Why did Night Von Sorrow want to submerge me in blood, milk, and chocolate unless….” Suddenly, I cupped a hand on my mouth. A trail of the words he’d just said ran through the back of my mind. Humans die if submerged in that mixture. “Are you saying Night Von Sorrow wanted to kill me?”