Ileus: The Dark Prince

"That's bullshit!" Ileus growled. 

Lilette giggled. She picked up cheese bread and chewed it.

Anastasia asked, "Lilette, do your parents know that you are here?" She was feeling disgusted at her behavior. 

Lilette chuckled. She ignored her question and said, "It was easy to recognize you. Ileus would not sit so cozily with any other woman except you." 

"But how did you come here as a dancer? It's not that you knew that we were coming here!" There was something so wrong about the whole situation. "Or have you killed the original dancer and taken her place for today? And did you follow us or do you have people following us?" 

Lilette laughed as she leaned forward and clutched the edge of the table. "Questions, questions, questions!" she shook her head. When she stopped laughing, she said, "I have come here to warn you." 

Anastasia noticed the serpentine fog slithering up her legs like a lover and hugging them as it heaved. "Warn me? For what?" 

"If you don't leave Ileus soon, you will get killed," she said softly, wickedly. 

"What the fuck!" Ileus' chest rumbled with a growl so ominous that it was a warning of danger. His aura darkened. 

Darla and Aidan had rushed them, bearing a puzzled expression on their face. Ileus allowed them to enter the barrier. He said, "Get her and imprison her with Maple. I would like to sweep her cell!" 

Darla strode to Lilette but suddenly the fog around her burst into four white snakes and bared their fangs with a hiss. Darla stumbled back, stunned.

"Don't do that again," Lilette cautioned her. "These are going to bite you so bad that you won't ever come out of a coma." Then she turned to Anastasia and said, "If you want to stay safe, you better leave Draoidh and hide for the rest of your life." 

Fury pumped her blood as she got up from her place and crossed the distance between them. She pulled her dagger from beneath her tunic and flipped it, taking it by its hilt. 

Lilette suddenly turned and dragged Darla to her side as if she was weightless. The snakes slithered on Darla's neck and hands as her gaze traveled to Anastasia. "Don't even think of that Anastasia," she growled. "Or this one goes down first!" 

Aidan's hands clenched into tight fists. "Let her go," he snarled. 

"Or what, lover boy?" Lilette said. 

Once again surprised at her inhuman strength with which she could so easily drag a vokudlak, Anastasia asked, "Lilette, you are making a big mistake. Who has poisoned your brain? Tell me. Are you under any threat? I will make sure that you are returned safely to your parents. Stay in Óraid and don't come out." 

"Stay in Óraid?" Lilette laughed like a maniac. "I wanted to get out of that sick place where we do not have the luxuries that we get to see in the Lore, and you want me to go back? Do I look like a fool to you?" 

Anastasia raised an eyebrow and replied, "Is that a question? Because you are being very foolish. Go back to your parents." Her mind wandered as to who was backing her in Draoidh because a threat like that meant she was being backed by someone heavily. Was it Murtagh?

"Fuck off!" Lilette snarled. The snakes around Darla now looked at her face as if wanting to bite her. 

"Remove those snakes from Darla," came a low growl from Aidan. 

"Yes, remove them, else I am going to kill you right now!" Ileus warned her as he stood up. 

His threat worked and she slowly released Darla from her grip and pushed her away from her towards Aidan who caught her before she could fall. The snakes snapped their jaws at her. 

"Who sent you here or brought you here?" asked Anastasia. 

"That is not the right question, Anastasia," she said as she placed her hands on her hips. "But let me give you a hint. Do you know who was the one who passed those letters from Maple to you?" 

"Yes, there was a small child you spoke about," said Anastasia, narrowing her eyes. 

Lilette's red lips kicked up. "No, it was me. I was Maple's messenger." 

Anastasia gasped as her hands fell to the side. Ileus held his wife's waist and pulled her closer to him. She went completely still and her mouth fell open. She blinked slowly with disbelief. "Why are you doing this Lilette?" she asked in a confused voice. "What have I done to you? Our paths never crossed before I came to Óraid and so I can't do anything that would have annoyed you." Her thoughts ran blank as if her brain had stopped working. She just felt… emotional numbness. 

"Oh, get lost!" Lilette snapped. "You know what—I have struck a deal with the dark witch," she said with reverence as she looked at the white snakes and the fog that was hugging her waist now. 

"Dark witch! Iona? What deal?" Anastasia said and pressed her hands to her mouth. 

Ileus stepped in front of Anastasia protectively as terror seized his heart. 

Lilette crossed her arms across her chest and looked at Ileus tenderly. "I get him and the witch gets you." 

"And you think it's so easy?" Ileus said and lunged at her with his lengthened claws and fangs to snap her neck, but as soon as he touched her, she disintegrated in tiny fragments of dust that floated in her shape. 

"Gods!" Anastasia breathed. 

Lilette laughed when she became corporeal. "Do you think that after I have struck a deal with the dark witch, after I have come here to caution you, it would be easy to kill me? I have the blessings of the dark witch." 

"Those are not called blessings," Anastasia said, trying to drill sense in her. "This is trickery. She is tricking you to fulfill her purpose." 

"Anastasia, you are just too naïve to see the reality. No one is going to let you stay here. As I talk with you, there's a group outside that is already spreading hate rumors amongst the citizens that the crown prince of Draoidh has married the fae princess, Anastasia. There is yet another rumor that has come up—you were in love with a girl from Óraid, whom you ditched to marry the princess." 

"What the hell is going on?" Ileus said as adrenalin hit him hard and he clenched his jaws. 

Lilette continued, "If you want them to stop, you should either leave this kingdom forever and go back to Vilinski or—" 

"Or?" asked Anastasia. 

"Or Ileus can tell the people here that he is not marrying you. He has to convince them that the rumor is baseless and puts me in front of them saying that I am the girl he married. The pretense is only going to benefit you." 

Hot lava flowed into her blood and Anastasia felt something deadly humming in her chest. She wanted to take it out and her body heated up. 

"That's it!" Ileus said in a gruff voice to Lilette, halting Anastasia's emotional outburst. Anastasia bit her lip and let the fury curl inwards. "You are not getting out alive from here!" Ileus forewarned Lilette and stepped closer.