CHAPTER 6 – House of Blood

The doors swallowed us whole.

The grand hall beyond was the kind of place you only saw in movies or in the worst parts of my imagination. It was huge—cathedral‑tall, echoing, the kind of space built to make people feel small.

Black stone tiles covered the floor, polished to a dull, warped shine that caught the torchlight in smeared reflections. A long strip of dark red carpet ran down the center like a dried river of blood.

Portraits lined the walls from floor to vaulting ceiling. Pale men and women in high‑collared coats and gowns stared down with heavy‑lidded eyes. Their clothes looked centuries out of date, lace, and velvet and buttons that had never seen a washing machine.

As we shuffled in, they tracked our progress.

Their eyes moved**.

I watched one woman’s gaze follow a trembling teenager all the way across the room, pupils sliding in oil paint like they’d been painted yesterday. Another portrait’s subject turned his head just enough to look directly at me.

I swallowed and looked up.

Chandeliers hung from the ceiling—massive constructions of blackened iron and dozens of taper candles. The wax that dripped from them wasn’t white or cream. It was red. Deep, dark, and too thick. It slid down and pooled at the bases of the candles like slowly congealing blood.

One fat drop plopped onto the floor near my foot, spreading out in a sticky, glossy puddle.

Yep. Definitely not IKEA.

The doors boomed shut behind us with a finality that made everyone jump. When I glanced back, the seam between the doors already looked thinner, like the castle was healing over the wound we’d made by entering.

“Cheerful,” Grant muttered under his breath.

My eyes snagged on the far wall.

It wasn’t blank anymore.

Words were searing themselves into the stone itself, lines of scarlet burning through gray, letter by letter, as if an invisible hand was writing in fresh blood:

> SURVIVE UNTIL DAWN.

> DO NOT DRINK THE WINE.

> DO NOT SLEEP ALONE.

> DO NOT BLEED ON THE THRONE.

The letters pulsed faintly, like a slowed heartbeat.

I stared.

“See?” Grant murmured near my shoulder. “Rules. Each place has its own.”

“Do they… help?” I asked, throat dry.

He gave a humorless little shrug. “Depends on how good you are at following instructions.”

“ ‘Do not drink the wine,’ ” a voice mocked from our right. “What is this, a church lock‑in?”

It was another new voice—different from Designer Jacket, but oozing the same kind of smug arrogance. This guy had on a puffer vest over a designer hoodie, sneakers that looked both expensive and spotless. He walked right up under the glowing letters and squinted at them like he was reading a restaurant menu.

“ ‘Don’t sleep alone,’ ” he quoted in a sleazy tone. “Kinky. ‘Don’t bleed on the throne’—what, they gonna charge us a cleaning f*e?”

A few strained laughs rippled from the back. Fear looked for any excuse to pretend this was a game.

He jabbed a thumb up at the wall. “I’m telling you, this is overproduced bullshit. They make it look scary, but nobody’s actually dying. We’re not in… "Saw.”

“Some of us already watched a guy get pulled under a courtyard,” I said. “That wasn’t exactly a foam pit.”

“Plant,” he shot back. “Actor. Do you really think they’d get away with actual murder? There are laws.”

“Not here,” Grant said, flat.

The man rolled his eyes and turned away, muttering something about “NPCs really committing to the bit.”

The group drifted farther into the hall, our footsteps thudding dully on stone. The air felt too heavy, like it’d been exhaled and never inhaled again.

An older woman stepped up beside me again, close enough that I could smell something faint and familiar—lavender soap, maybe, and old book dust.

Iron‑gray hair, low knot, deep lines at her mouth and eyes. She carried herself like someone who had seen too much and still wasn’t impressed.

Her gaze flicked over me, then to the man pacing a few steps ahead: Corvin, dark-haired and sharp, scanning shadows like they’d personally offended him.

“You came in with him,” she observed softly.

“I… got yanked,” I said. “He hauled me off the street. I didn’t exactly sign up for Team Tall, Dark, and Terrifying.”

“Doesn’t matter how you got there,” she said. “Only that you’re there.”

She tipped her chin in Corvin’s direction. “If he’s willing to keep you close, let him. This place eats strays.”

“I don’t—” The automatic protest rose: "I don’t need anyone." Years of making myself smaller, proving I wasn’t a burden.

I bit it back.

She gave me a faint, knowing look, like she’d heard the rest of that sentence even if I hadn’t said it.

“Everyone needs someone,” she said. “If you don’t pick who stands beside you, the Game will.”

Her eyes lingered on me for a heartbeat longer, and then she moved ahead, folding quietly back into the group.

I tried to steady my breathing.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Corvin detach from the front and drift back until he was pacing a half‑step to my right. Not touching. But there.

“Those rules,” he said, gaze still flicking over exits and shadowed archways. “You read them?”

“It’s hard to miss giant bleeding letters,” I said. My voice shook less than I expected.

“Some ignore them anyway,” he said. “They don’t last long.”

I looked up at him. “You’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

His jaw tightened, just slightly. “Once or twice.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s all you’re getting right now,” he said. Then, almost as an afterthought: “Combat skills?”

I blinked. “What?”

“Combat skills.” His eyes dipped briefly to my hands, then back to my face. “Anything besides screaming and running in a straight line?”

“My cardio is great,” I said weakly. “Very… flight‑or‑fight. Mostly flight.”

His look said he’d seen that firsthand.

Heat pricked my cheeks. “No,” I admitted. “No weapons. No training. Just… writing horror and overthinking everything.”

He hummed, noncommittal. “So you survive in your head,” he said. “We’ll see if that’s enough.”

“I’m not useless,” I muttered.

“I didn’t say you were,” he replied. “The Game will, though. Don’t believe it.”

The unexpected little jolt of… support?… sat oddly in my chest.

My gaze was drawn back, again, to the wall.

> SURVIVE UNTIL DAWN.

> DO NOT DRINK THE WINE.

> DO NOT SLEEP ALONE.

> DO NOT BLEED ON THE THRONE.

The words pulsed faintly, like they were alive. Like they were watching us as much as the portraits were.

Chekhov’s rules, my writer brain whispered. If you hang a “do not drink the wine” sign in Act One…

Someone would take a sip before dawn.

My stomach rolled.

Because I’d seen these lines before.

Not in a book I’d read. In something I’d written.

Years ago, hunched over my laptop in bed at three in the morning, brain buzzing, I’d sketched out a story about a cursed aristocrat’s manor. I’d scribbled rules on the wall: *Don't drink what’s freely given. Don’t sleep alone. Don’t bleed on the king’s chair.*

I’d never finished it. The file was buried somewhere on my hard drive, abandoned.

And now I was standing in it.

No. That was impossible. There were only so many horror structures; of course, this place echoed my drafts. Of course.

The blood script flared a little brighter, just for a second, as if offended by my denial.

A small table had appeared beneath the rules. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.

It held a silver tray and a line of crystal goblets, each filled with a dark red liquid that gleamed like garnets in the torchlight.

Wine.

One of the teenagers sucked in a breath. “They actually—”

The cocky guy in the puffer vest let out a short laugh. “Seriously? They warn us not to drink the wine and then put it right here?” He stepped toward the table. “That’s not even subtle. Whoever wrote this needs a new job.”

His hand reached out, fingers curling around the stem of a glass.

A flash of motion—faster than I would have thought possible from someone her age—and the older woman’s hand slapped his wrist away.

The goblet rocked but didn’t fall.

“Did you not read the wall, boy?” she said, voice like gravel. “Or did you just decide you’re smarter than whatever bled those words into stone?”

He jerked his hand back, scowling. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

A low, almost subsonic sound rumbled from near my elbow.

Corvin.

It wasn’t a growl exactly, but it wasn’t human either. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

Puffer Vest’s gaze flicked to him. His mouth snapped shut.

Smart.

My eyes went again to the rules, then to the wine, then back.

If I’d written this, Rule #2 would kill anyone who broke it before the midpoint. Quickly. Brutally. Horribly.

My fingers itched for a keyboard. For control, I didn’t have it here.

“Welcome.”

The new voice slid into the hall like oil.

I turned.

A man stood in the archway to our left.

He was pale and slim, dressed in a black tailcoat that fit him too perfectly, white gloves, polished shoes that didn’t dare squeak against the stones. His hair was silver—not old‑man gray, but gleaming, as if it had been poured over his head. His eyes were a washed‑out shade, hovering somewhere between gray and blue.

He smiled, and the corners of his lips pulled back just far enough to show the hint of **fangs**.

Every horror trope in my mental library shivered in recognition.

“Honored guests,” he said, bowing with practiced grace. “The Master bids you welcome to his home… and his Game.”

A shudder went through the group.

His gaze slid across us, lingering a heartbeat on my face. A wrinkle of curiosity, then he moved on, and his eyes landed on Corvin.

Something subtle tightened in his expression.

“Ah,” he murmured. “You’ve brought… him.”

The air seemed to get a degree colder.

The butler’s gloved hand flexed, like he had to stop himself from making some warding sign.

“House policy still stands,” he said to Corvin, smiling, never leaving his face. “No turning. No claiming. No unsanctioned kills.”

“I remember the rules,” Corvin replied, voice flat.

I had about a hundred questions about what “turning” and “claiming” meant in this context, but my brain filed them in a screaming backlog for later.

The butler clapped his hands once, the sharp sound cracking through the hall like a whip. The portraits seemed to lean forward in unison.

“Very good,” he said brightly. “In that case, allow me to extend the Master’s hospitality.”

He stepped aside and swept a hand toward a set of archways leading deeper into the castle.

“The Master of the Castle will dine…” his lips curled wider, “and some of you will be the main course.”

My ring finger throbbed under its faint red band.

The rules on the wall pulsed in my peripheral vision, each line of blood-script a warning, a promise.

Survive until dawn.

I drew a breath, tasting dust and iron and someone else’s idea of a story.

“Okay,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone. “Let’s try not to be on the menu.”

Then, I followed the butler into the House of Blood.

…….