Ambushed

Damien managed to work in the laundry for about half a day before the exhaustion began to wear on him. He had been determined to work through the feeling, but Ellen must have seen something in his face because she pulled him aside about an hour after the midday meal, and told him he should consider going back to his room early.

"I can work a little longer," Damien protested. He really thought he could, too. 

Ellen just said, "Maybe so, but it'll not be in my laundry," and really, how was Damien supposed to argue with that?

Still, he had enough wherewithal that he decided to visit the baths before going to bed. Grace had agreed to meet him at the laundry near sundown, anyway, so he had an hour or two before then. It would give him plenty of time to bathe and dress himself before wandering back to the laundry and meet his bodyguard of sorts. He wasn't sure exactly how Grace planned on protecting him from Crowe, or angry thralls who accused him of being Cain's favorite, but he figured the safety-in-numbers principle wasn't entirely without merit. 

Still, he knew better than to do something so foolish as remove his amulet while he bathed - Grace had given him enough warning that he dared not remove it. He did worry that it would be rather obvious, though, so he was glad to take the opportunity to bathe when most other thralls were either at work or asleep. It seemed like the ideal time to Damien. After all, he was vulnerable enough under normal circumstances, surely being in the bath was an even worse situation. Grace would probably applaud his forethought. 

So Damien settled in for a nice, leisurely bath. He peeled off his dirty clothes and folded them carefully, laying them beside one of the towels that he'd pulled down from the towel rack. He took a small, raggedy towel and used it as a washcloth, lathering up a bit of soap and scrubbing his body with the rag until he felt clean. He took a bit of soap to his hair, too, though it was a bit harsh on the sensitive skin of his scalp. He'd taken the time to poke through some of the treatments the thralls used to make themselves more appealing and had discovered a hair oil that worked well to keep his scalp from feeling dry and itchy after the soap, so he worked a bit of that in at the roots before finally making his way over to one of the few basins that were arranged along the back wall. One of the basins was larger than the others, deep enough to sit in with only his head peeking out, and long enough that he coudl stretch out his entire body in the hot water.

As an added bonus, the basin was one of the nearest to the hearth, and he left his clothes on the rack closest to the fire, so that they would be nice and warm when he got up out of the bath. He leaned his head back against the edge of the basin and closed his eyes, relaxing into the warm heat of the bath.

Unfortuantely, Damien realized too late that he had made the mistake of turning his back to one of the two entrances to the baths. One of them came from the direction of the laundry, while the other came from the direction of the kitchens. He had seated himself so that he was mostly facing the entry that led from the laundry, and did not immediately turn his head when he heard the soft pit-pat of bare feet walking into the room from the difection of the kitchens. He initailly assumed that whoever it was had simply finished early in the kitchens and was coming for a bath of their own. However, he quickly noticed that the steps didn't seem to hesitate, and there were no sounds of someone peeling off their clothes or beginning to lather the soap. Instead, he heard the steps continued to draw closer to his basin. Curiosity piqued, Damien glanced back over his shoulder and spotted a familiar face. It took him a moment to place him, before realizing that the young man was Crowe's favorite thrall. He knew he'd learned the name of him earlier, but couldn't quite bring it to mind at the moment. 

Damien turned a little bit to face the thrall, a sinking feeling in his stomach as he said, "Hello agai-"

The thrall's hands flashed out and shoved at Damien's shoulders, pushing him forwards, into the center of the basin. The motion was unexpected, and came so suddenly that Damien barely had the chance to reach out and grasp at the sides of the deep bath. His fingers scrabbled at the sides, but the wood was slick with water and he had a poor angle for gripping. He fell face-first into the water, the strong arms on his shoulders pushing him deeper beneath the surface. 

In his surprise, Damien had exhaled sharply upon entering the water, and he barely remembered not to inhale, forcing his eyes open to try and see what was happening. Between the low light and the sloshing water, he could barely make out what was in front of him, and he could feel the heavy hands on his shoulders pushing him down. For several agonizing seconds, possibly a minute, he struggled against the grip holding him under to no avail. Then, he felt a second pair of hands fumbling around his neck, and then the amulet was pulled taut against his throat. He choked out instinctively, and a few more bubbles of air`escaped his mouth, rising towards the surface. His lungs burned with the need to breathe, and he wanted to scream with desperation. His struggles grew weaker as his body cried out for fresh air, but his head and shoulders were still forcefully held under even as the cord around his throat pulled tight, like a noose. In a last frantic motion he twisted, trying to pull away from the strong hands, but he was still weak and tired, and his mate-sickness made it difficult to find strength even in the best of times. Even at a time like this, when he felt certain he was about to die, he couldn't find the power to defend himself. Darkness was creeping in at the edges of his blurred vision, and he knew that he was on the brink of losing consciousness.

Then, the cord the amulet was attached to snapped, and was pulled away from his neck, leaving a harsh cord-burn against his throat as it was pulled away from him and out of the water. The hands on his shoulders released a moment later, and Damien was able to weakly claw his way back to the surface of the bath, coughing as he lunged for the side of the basin. Dangling his arms over the edge of the bath, Damien had no energy to do anything but breathe harshly for a few seconds, until his vision cleared and his chest stopped hurting. Slowly, other sensations returned to him, and he clapped a hand to the side of his neck, feeling the throb under his palm where the cord had cut into his skin. It didn't seem like any blood had been drawn, though, which was a sincere comfort despite the mess he'd found himself in. 

Slowly, the conversation taking place a few paces away filtered into his consciousness as he continued to breathe raggedly.

"What do you mean, it's just a rock?" someone shouted from the open space between the rinse racks and the basins.

"Must be a magic rock," came a second voice, closer to where Damien's clothes had been folded neatly. They were now scattered across the ground, like someone had rifled through them in search of something. 

The voice sounded familiar, though Damien couldn't place it until he lifted his eyes, still panting for breath, and saw long, chestnut hair spilling down the back of a well-dressed thrall, holding the anti-vampire amulet high overhead. With his height advantage, he was easily avoiding the grasping hands of Crowe's thrall, whose shirt and most of his trousers seemed soaked through. 

"Give it here," demanded Crowe's thrall. "Crowe will want proof of Cain's interference."

"As if I could relinquish such a thing to the likes of you," snarled back Johann, because who else would hate Damien enough to go along with something like this? "I will keep it safe and deliver it promptly to Mister Einhardt upon his return."

Damien had mostly caught his breath at this point, and though he despaired to think of losing his lone protection from the likes of the vampires in this place, he didn't like his chances of taking the amulet back from one of these two, let alone both. Instead, he dragged himself out of the bath, hating the way the weakness in his limbs left him staggering, and grabbed his towel from the floor. As he wrapped it around his waist, the two thralls halted their disagreement to turn and face him. 

"You!" Crowe's thrall snarled. "What does that rock do?"

"When did Mister Einhardt give it to you?" Johann added.

"Nothing, and he didn't," Damien spat, picking up his tunic, now somewhat soggy from being thrown on the floor, and tugging it over his head. He pulled the towel off now that his modesty was preserved by the long shirt, and spat, "Are you happy now?" He felt rage bubbling in him, stronger than it had been in a long time. He still didn't have the strength to fight off two healthy young humans, but he could feel in his heart the yearning need to take back what was his. How dare they?! Damien wasn't one to usually bow to the instincts of his inner wolf, but he knew the full moon was coming soon, and he was already on edge enough without being attacked and robbed in the bath, of all places! It was instinctive to want to protect what belonged to oneself, even for humans. Was it really a surprise that his wolf side was equally possessive of a gift, especially one as useful as the anti-vampire amulet?

Despite his weakness, the two human thralls seemed to recognize that Damien's rage was not to be trifled with, even if they had managed to get the jump on him. The momentary confusion his rage created was enough for the smaller thrall to leap up, snatching the stone from Johann's hand, which Johann responded to by promptly tackling the other thrall, taking the two of them to the floor with a heavy slap of bodies on wet stone.

Damien briefly considered wading into the wrestling match himself, but quickly realized he would be outmatched in terms of stamina, if nothing else. So, moving cautiously, he pulled on his trousers and carefully left the baths, hurrying down the hall. He needed to get to his room. Cain hadn't been able to enter it, because he hadn't been invited in. If Damien could just get to his room, he could hide himself there and wait until Grace found him. Together, they would certainly be able to think of a plan, to think of something to do to fix this mess he'd found himself in.

Hurrying, Damien rounded the corner between the baths and the residential thrall corridor, only to crash into another person who was rounding the corner in the opposite direction. He stumbled backwards and stammered an apology as the other person snarled.

"Watch where you're going-" the speaker broke off abruptly, before chuckling in a low voice. "Oh, hello there… morsel."

Damien's blood ran cold. Why was Crowe here? It wasn't even sunset, yet! He hadn't expected the vampire to be prowling somewhere as sunlight-strewn as the area near the laundry. And yet, here he was. Before he had the chance to run, Crowe was on him. A crushing grip closed around the underside of his jaw, almost cutting off his air, and Damien felt himself being half-lifted by the vampire. He scrambled to his feet to avoid the pain of his entire body being hefted by the hand wrapped at his throat, barely remembering to keep his eyes cast low as he did. 

"Have you been avoiding me?" Crowe rumbled, sounding amused, with an edge of ire to his tone. "No matter. Whatever little trick you had protecting you is gone now, clearly." 

Damien swallowed hard, feeling the vampire's grip tighten on either side of his face, lifting until he had to close his eyes to avoid looking at the man before him. 

"Stop it," Crowe snarled, now sounding angry. "Open your eyes."

Damien didn't want to. But he knew that resisting would just end up being worse, in the long run. He'd known, deep down, that wanting to avoid this eventuality had been a futile hope. Now he could only trust in his own willpower to protect him from the malevolent force of vampiric enthrallment. Slowly, painstakingly, he eased his eyes open, staring deep into the blood-red eyes of the cruel vampire who held his face in a vise grip. 

"Better," Crowe declared. "Now listen to me, morsel," he began, before leaning forward, teeth scraping down the side of Damien's throat, his fangs so close to piercing flesh that Damien felt his pulse throbbing against the rasp of the vampire's teeth. "You will come with me," Crowe said, his voice low and harsh, like a whispered threat. "You will do as I say. And you will not hide from me again."

Damien swallowed hard, afraid to move. If eye contact was bad, a bite would certainly be worse. He tried to remain calm, but his heart was pounding in his chest and he could tell from the way Crowe chuckled then that he could smell the fear, or at least hear the way Damien's body was physically reacting to his nearness. 

Then, moving swiftly, Crowe buried a hand in Damien's hair, and began walking back down the hallway, dragging Damien along behind him. With no choice but to submit, Damien stumbled blindly behind the vampire, hoping against vain hope that someone, anyone, would step in. 

But Cain had been sent away from the castle, and for the first time, Damien thought he truly understood why Grace had been so disturbed by his sudden absence.