First Kill by Cassie Parker (i read books TXT) 📕

The chamber maid came running into the room, her face alight with perspiration. Her dark curls were tied up under her blue and white cap, her matching dress was wrinkled, and her dull brown eyes were filled with fear. Elizabeth looked at her, her pale face filled with anger.

"I called you five minutes ago! What could have taken you so long?" The Queen demanded of her maid.

The maid curtsied as low as she could, stumbling over a quick apology. Of course Elizabeth ignored this and stood to face the young woman. "And who is it do you think you're apologizing to? A peasant?"

The maid's face lost all color. "My Queen, I profusely apologize for my tardiness. I have no excuse."

Angry, Elizabeth spun away from the maid, her slip brushing the floor of her massive bed chambers. "Run my bath. I must wipe away the stink of the peasants with whom you have been associating."

The maid, whose name was soon after whispered within the palace halls, hurried to do as told. She filled the pales with water and carried them to the claw foot tub, her arms trembling not with effort but with fear. Elizabeth Bathory was not known for her kindness to her help. Anna, the maid, wipes her face with her sleeve, her sweat staining the sleeve. When she has finished running in and out of the room to fill the tub, Anna turned to the queen with a small smile.

"My Queen, your bath is ready." And with a curtsy, Anna turned to walk away.

However, Elizabeth had other ideas. "Stand before me my girl." Her voice filled with menace. As Anna made her way closer to the queen, the wariness was obvious in her footing, the fear clear in her eyes.

"Yes my Queen?" Anna whispered.

And, without another word, Elizabeth brought the backside of her hand down upon the poor maid's cheek. It was an accident, the first draw of blood. When Anna looked up with a bloody lip and Elizabeth looked to her hand, she could not help but marvel at the beauty. The blood from the young maid made her pale skin shine, glow even." How could that be possible?" Elizabeth did not know, but as soon as the blood had been drawn, there was no turning back.

Elizabeth smiled, her eyes turned cold. When she looked to Anna's terrified face, she couldn't help but take a step forward. When her hand sought out the blood on Anna's lip, the young girl had to fight the urge to leap backwards. Anna wasn't sure if the Queen was really sane in mind as her smile was so wicked, and she wasn't about to test it. Anna had let the Queen wipe her fingers over her lips.

The Queen couldn't believe that such beauty could be held in such an ugly, worthless girl, and Anna was growing more terrified as she saw the queen's eyes widen in lust. Neither women were sure of what was to happen was next, but one was a lot more surprised than the other.

With lust in her eyes, Elizabeth spread the blood on her hands over her arms. As Anna looked on terrified and disturbed, the queen couldn't stop looking at the scarlet color on her skin. Only Anna's small squeak of fear brought her back to the other presence on the room. Anna really wished she hadn't made a noise.

"Anna. Make my bed." Elizabeth's voice was filled with both wonder and malice. Anna, unaccustomed to disobeying orders, tried to make excuses. She failed like she knew she would and walked to the bed.

The Queen watched, her eyes making their way around the room looking for something to cut Anna with. Anna was merely trying to hurry with the bed sheets hoping she could leave the queen's chambers at once. Neither expected it when Elizabeth shoved a fire poker through Anna's throat.

Anna's mind went blank thinking nothing of nothing, her mind shocked. Elizabeth was too entranced by the blood running down Anna's dress to care much of anything. She had surprised herself, killing a girl. It was illegal, but what did it matter. She was queen; she'd get away with it. Elizabeth, her focus drawn to the last breath of Anna, looked to the eyes of the woman she killed and dropped her hold of the poker. The body landed on the ground, a thump resounding throughout the chambers as everything but her head hit the wooden floor.

Elizabeth walked the few steps to her bed, her slip sliding through the small puddle of blood on the floor. Elizabeth couldn't let the blood go to waste. It would have been a travesty. Only, she wasn't sure what to do with it. She looked around the room finding nothing of use, not until her eyes fell upon the pales Anna left by the tub to drain all the water from it. With a smirk, she began to devise a plan to drain the blood from her corpse.

After five minutes of searching her bed chambers and finding nothing that she could see hanging a full grown woman up by, Elizabeth conceded that she would have to summon yet another maid to bring her rope. With a slight shake of her head, Elizabeth pulled her brown locks to the side of her delicate neck.

After her first survey of the room, she noted the large wardrobe. At the time it was a passing thought. However, Elizabeth needed rope which required a maid. A body on the floor would have caused too many problems for her. Elizabeth looked at Anna's throat, the poker sticking out with flesh on the points and blood dripping. Elizabeth didn't care about the lifeless eyes staring at her or the torn flesh. All she could see was the blood.

With pale arms, she reached down to flip Anna's body over. It pulled at all her muscles to do so. Without a second thought Elizabeth yanked the poker from Anna's throat, blood gushing out from the hole and around the torn flesh pieces. Elizabeth threw the iron poker aside, the clanging of metal echoing through the spacious area. Elizabeth put her delicate hands under Anna's armpits, her facial features scrunching in disgust, and started to drag the body towards the wardrobe.

After a multitude of grunts ranging from curses to inaudible noises, Elizabeth managed to pull Anna's body all the way to the front of the large wooden wardrobe. When she looked behind her, a trail of scarlet followed the path she took, spots having more because of pauses. Elizabeth groaned. This was harder than she had expected, not that she had been expecting to murder her maid in such a brutal manner...or at all for that matter.

Elizabeth allowed herself to take pause to catch her breath. She realized that storing the body was going to be the easiest part of her new hobby. With a sigh she hefted open the doors, the hinges making no sound whatsoever. That was no surprise seeing as she made sure Anna greased the hinges so they wouldn't make a noise. But, that wouldn't be Anna's job any longer. It would be the new maid's. With that thought in mind, Elizabeth tried to remember how she saw her soldiers stand when trying to lift her new furniture. She spread her feet shoulder-width apart, placed her hands back under Anna's armpits, and tried to pull her up.

It took twenty minutes of hefting and huffing for Elizabeth to get Anna's body shoved into the wardrobe, and once the body was in there, she hurried to shut the doors fearing it would fall back out. When she turned around, Elizabeth was presented with yet another problem. Blood on the floor.

Not accustomed to cleaning up messes, Elizabeth didn't know how to get blood from a hardwood floor. She hadn't even known how to get wine out of a tablecloth. Servants were there for a reason, but it wasn't possible for a servant to clean up this mess. So, Elizabeth grabbed the white sheet from her bed. She wrapped it around her arm the best she could and then went to work soaking up the liquid that she so desired.

Soon after she had soaked up all the blood she could from the wood, Elizabeth rang the bell hanging in the wall closest to her bed for a new maid. Having cleaned up all the evidence the best she could, she didn’t fear the maid discovering that Anna was dead and in her wardrobe. Though, if the new maid did discover it, Elizabeth guessed it wouldn’t be too difficult to find the body. But, before she had time to regret her decision, the maid was already at the door, so Elizabeth opened it for her.

“My Queen.” The blonde woman, maybe thirty years of age, curtsied. “What may I do for you?’ Her face nor her voice showed any surprise.

Elizabeth looked to the maid. “Bring me rope. Plenty of it. I would also like a hook from the butchers.” She commanded.

The maid, obviously confused by the odd request, curtsied again. “Yes, My Queen.” She walked away to whisper about Elizabeth’s odd command, but did so after getting the supplies and taking it to her chambers.

Having received the rope and hook, Elizabeth became elated. She looked to her bed frame, it’s iron rods holding steady for many years. While the maid was out getting the supplies she needed, Elizabeth had been planning how to hang the corpse of Anna. Coming to the conclusion that pales would need to be used because there was no way to hang a body over the tub, Elizabeth stripped her bed of the rest of its linens. Elizabeth grabbed a stepping stool from beside her window, being a short woman she could not reach the rods without a bit of help, and placed it in the middle of her mattress.

Elizabeth then grabbed the hook the butcher sent with her maid to her chambers. It was used to hang hogs and cattle to drain them of blood and it would next be used to drain a body of hers. Elizabeth climbed onto her bed then onto the stool, and attached the hook to the iron rod closest to the end of the bed. Once finished there, Elizabeth excitedly ran to her wardrobe. She opened the doors quickly, and Anna’s corpse all but fell out from its hiding space. Elizabeth pulled it from the wardrobe with one large, Anna’s dead legs dropping to the floor with a thump Elizabeth barely heard.

When Elizabeth looked into the wardrobe, she saw blood had already drained from Anna’s neck. She walked back to where her sheet was laid and used it once again to soak blood up. Soon, the sheet would be covered in blood, so much of it that it would turn red. Elizabeth would then sleep on that very sheet every night, never allowing a maid to wash it. But, in that moment, all Elizabeth could think was that blood as beautiful as Anna’s could not go to waste.

Elizabeth then used the rope to wrap around Anna’s stiff legs, torso, and shoulders before dragging her body over to the bed. This time there were fewer grunts and fewer issues. Elizabeth didn’t want to waste blood, so she didn’t pause or stop to breathe as she pulled the body up onto her massive mattress. And, that’s when Elizabeth realized how impossible it would be for her to lift a so much weight to the hook when she was so short and so unaccustomed to lifting. With a sigh of resignation, she once again rang the bell for a maid.

In thirty seconds, the same blonde maid from before made her way to the chambers. She didn’t know what the Queen could possibly want, but she was tired. Elizabeth, having heard the