Page Eight.
My father said I cannot keep my friendships now I’ve turned twenty-two and now a rider, because it is an insult to my fiancé. But the calling of the entwined mates is burning me pure like sunlight and moonlight combined.
The slamming of a door sharply wakes me up in my bed, and the smell of smoke chokes my first breath. I wince at the bright light coming from the corridor, from my open door, as I listen for any sounds outside. All I hear is silence as smoke rolls across the ceiling of my room like a fog. I jump when a pained scream echoes from outside my door, a male scream that sounds like it’s coming from downstairs. More screams, pleads and shouts echo below as I shake in my bed, gripping the sheets tightly, begging for this to be a nightmare and I’ll wake up soon. This isn’t a nightmare, it’s too real.
Fear crawls up my throat, choking me as I climb out of bed, and I embrace the tiles’ coldness on my bare feet. Grabbing my red cloak, I pull it over my shoulders, tying the string at the front of my chest as I quietly tiptoe out of the door, into the small corridor that leads to the stairs down to the main bedroom areas. I know exactly where to step on the wooden steps so they don’t creak, but it’s pointless if vampyres are attacking—they could hear me anywhere in such a silent house.
When I get to the bottom of the steps, I can smell more than smoke. Blood. The thick metallic smell floods my senses, and I gulp, looking at the shiny red blood splattered all over Aleksander’s double doors. There’s a trail of blood all the way through the half-opened, almost broken doors, and it’s silent. No more screams, no more pleads fill the house, and I know, when they find me, I’m dead too. I don’t know who is brave enough to attack Aleksander, but he is strong and old. He wouldn’t go down easily. My heart is still in my throat as I step into the room, nudging the doors open with my hand, and one falls off the hinges, slamming onto the tiles.
I scream. Aleksander is on the bed, covered in blood…well, his torn-up body is. His head is on the floor at my feet, his mouth open like he was shouting something. A warning to me perhaps. Horror floods me as I lift my bare foot, sticky with his blood, and I throw up right onto the floor next to his head. I stumble backwards as more sickness rises up my throat, only to slam into something. Fast, I turn around, my heart pounding in my chest like a drum as I see Valerian standing behind me. It’s been a week since I met him at the castle, and now, he doesn’t look so perfect. He’s covered in blood; it is dripping from his hair and eyebrows like paint. His eyes are glowing silver, and he’s smiling like he won something.
“Story, I told you we’d see each other again. I’m sorry it took so long.” He places his hand on my shoulder, and I can’t stop shaking. It was him. He did all of this. Alone. He has killed everyone in the house, including the professor. Aleksander is dead. “I already had a favourite blood slave, and she wasn’t happy about not being my favourite anymore. I didn’t want you getting jealous, so I killed them all. It’s safe for you at the castle now. I rarely live there, but my father wants me to stay there for a few years to oversee the city. You’re moving in with me!”
I can’t move as he runs his other hand through my hair. My heart is pounding as he looks down at me, and pure hunger flashes in his eyes. Before I can even blink, he aggressively yanks me to him, and his teeth sink straight into my neck. I scream in pain as he bites me like an animal, nasty and rough, and my knees go completely weak from the pain and shock. I can’t fight him, can’t do anything as he keeps me in his grip, like a rock wrapped around me as he feeds from me, grunts and groans escaping his lips at every drop of my blood he takes. When I’m starting to feel woozy, he finally pulls back, blinking a few times like he’s in a haze. “You taste better than any fae I’ve ever drunk from,” he whispers, licking his lips. Possessive fury flashes across his eyes. “You’re my blood slave now. Mine. If anyone dares touch you, I will paint the walls with their blood. My name is Prince Emyr Valerian Vampirion.”
Prince? His name roars through me, Prince Emyr, heir to the throne. He is known as the Prince of Cruelty and Blood, and I’m now his. My neck is burning and sore as I look at the vampyre who I kissed in the garden, who was not just some young vampyre but one of the oldest vampyres alive. I can’t talk. I don’t know how I’m still breathing. “We’ll go back to the castle, and you’ll be my favourite blood slave. I’ll keep you alive and safe. I promise you that.” He kisses me, my own blood mixing against my lips, and I can’t do anything as silent tears fall down my cheeks. If I fight him, he is going to kill me. Maybe death would be a better fate. I’m too terrified to do anything but stare at him. “I think I fell in love with you when we first met. I never felt anything like it before, and now you’re mine. The deities have been kind to us.”
Kind? They have been awful. I barely even notice as he picks me up and carries me out of the house like a prize, a prize he paid for in the professor’s blood. He is dead, gone, and it’s all my fault. I watch from over Valerian’s shoulder as the house burns in the night, red flames dancing high enough they look like they reach the sky. I don’t want to be here anymore; I don’t want anything anymore. I’m in a complete haze as he throws me into the carriage. It feels like only five minutes later that he’s picking me up again. My feet stumble as he puts me down and starts walking me through the empty, quiet castle full of paintings on the walls, past the vampyre guards, working fae in brown uniforms, and statues of knights with red armour that glitters in the light of the oil lanterns on the walls.
He opens a guarded door for me, and I walk in, knowing he will make me go in either way. The room is beautiful, lush with red fabrics, and smells like feminine perfume. He said he killed the last favourite blood slave, and this must be her room. My blood is still pouring down from my neck, down his lips too, as he looks at me with nothing but desire and hunger. “I want us to be different, Story. We can be friends and I will care for you.”
Friends? Does he even know the meaning? The prince looks over his shoulder, clicking his fingers. A guard walks in and bows low before rising. Shiny red armour does little to hide his thick body, fae ears sticking out of his brown hair under a red helmet. “This is Kyrell. He knows to look after you.” He lowers his voice. “I may have drunk too much from her, and she is my new favourite. Get some healing herbs, clean her up, and then bring her to me when you’re done. We have a long night.”
The prince leans into me, breathing me in. The first words I say are nothing more than a ghost of a whisper. “You promised not to hurt me.”
“For one day.” He turns on me with anger flashing in the depths of his pupils. Did he expect me to be happy? Maybe another fae would be happy to be his favourite blood slave, but I’m not. “I like you scared, your eyes bright and beautiful. Your heart is so loud, as it pumps your delicious blood so fast.” The prince reaches out, touching my neck, pushing down on the bite mark until I cry out, and even then, he doesn’t let up. “Pain is good, Story. Pain can be pleasure and I’ll teach you this. My beautiful one.” He lowers his hand and I gasp, nearly falling over as he walks away, shutting the doors behind him, and I flinch. I fall to my knees, sobbing into my hands, and I feel like I don’t stop for years until I realise the guard is still here and has taken off his helmet.
I look up through my messy hair to see the guard softly smiling at me, but his eyes are full of pity. He looks familiar, his blue eyes… I think I’ve seen him before. “You know my mum, Blaire. We have the same eyes,” he tells me, like he can read my thoughts. Maybe he can. I know some fae can do that. “I know of you, Story. I’ve seen a picture of you. She…” He pauses. “It’s not what she wanted for you.”
“Tell my mother I’m sorry…if you can. Please, just tell her that and I love her and it’s all my fault—not hers,” I whisper. The prince will probably kill me tonight, if not by accident, just for fun. I know I won’t live long, and a part of me wishes I was strong enough to jump out of the window behind Kyrell.
He continues smiling softly at me. He’s about my age, I think. “May I touch your neck? My power is like my mother’s, but rare because I can heal by taking the injury as my own without hurting myself. My mother can see injuries, read your blood, and then she makes a cure. When my power came out, I was chosen to serve the royal family. Emyr took a liking to me. One of the reasons I’m close with the prince, as he keeps me to heal his blood slaves.” I nod. He touches my neck, and the pain is just gone, and seconds later, I feel it healed. “I’ll make you a drink to help with the blood loss. I’ll make you stronger, enough to survive whatever he wants for the rest of the night, and then we can talk more tomorrow.”
“Kill me,” I ask of him. I know it’s not fair to ask him to risk his own life to end mine, but I don’t want to live. I don’t want to die at the prince’s hand. He doesn’t deserve to have my final moments after he killed the professor. I gasp. “Please.”
He looks back at me with sadness, still making some kind of strange smelling tea. “No, and don’t ask me that again. The answer will always be no. I believe in life, in our paths and destiny. Story”—he shakes his head—“I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry for everything that probably will continue to happen to you. But don’t give up hope. I’ll be your best friend in here, and I’ll try to keep you safe while you follow the path the deities set for you.”
“I don’t have any friends left alive.” I look at the moon in the sky outside the window. How many blood slaves has the prince had stare at the moon from this window and wish for death?
After a while, Kyrell comes back to me, kneeling in front of me. He hands me the warm tea. “Once we give up, they have won. Live, Story. Come on, live for the people who can’t anymore.”
He sounds like the professor. But he’s dead. He’s dead because of me, because I kissed a boy for the first time, and he turned out to be a prince of nightmares.
I’m glad when I wake up, when I touch my neck and feel only scars and not fresh blood. Scars last forever, just like the nightmares that live with them. There’s not many on my neck. I think he didn’t bite me too much there, didn’t want me looking too mauled. As ruined as I felt on the inside, it didn’t show too much on my outside at the beginning. That night…I decided I didn’t care if I died or not, and I hate that feeling. Hopelessness is haunting, and my soul will never forget how I gave up on myself. I’m fixing it, Kyrell fixed me, and he never gave up on me. He fought for me, picked me up when I was drowning, and screamed at me to fight for my life. He believed I was meant for more than life as a blood slave.
I rub my face and look at the sunlight beam shining through the window onto the floor by the bed, dust dotted throughout. Stepping out of the bed, into the light, I walk to the window and push at every inch of it, searching for a breeze coming through, for anything, but it’s perfectly sealed. Frustrated, I slam my hands against the glass, but it feels impenetrable. There’s one thing I haven’t tried. Searching around the room, I find a yellow crystal sphere decoration on a shelf by the door, and I throw it straight at the glass. It doesn’t shatter. The heavy sphere simply drops to the floor with a thud, almost like the window itself just caught it.
Of course it wouldn’t be that simple to get out of here, and even if I did—would the vampyres be waiting for me? Prince Emyr wouldn’t give up that easily, not with what he had planned. I get myself changed, similar clothes to before, a light gold top, tassels falling down my arms, and I tuck the top into tight dark brown trousers. When I’m done, I look at myself in the mirror. Gold and brown aren’t my colours, but neither is red. If I could choose my own clothes, what colour would I pick? When I was a child, I wore white like all fae children, and I always ended up with brown mud stains or dropped food all over them, much to my mother’s annoyance.
Deities above, I miss her. No one would have been able to get word to her about me, and she likely doesn’t even know I’m missing—that I escaped. She would cheer if she found out, but she won’t.
After leaving my room, I follow the pathway and the smell of food back into the massive dining hall where we had dinner last night. Daegan is already here, and so are hundreds of people, who are talking and laughing together at the many, many tables, and all of them are wearing various shades of yellow, brown, gold, or light orange. Daegan puts his hand up to signal me over, and I walk towards him, where he sits, not on his own this time, but at a table with at least three or four others at it. I recognise Etena seated on the left of Daegan, but I don’t know the others—their backs are to me. Daegan stands when I’m close, pulling a chair out for me, and I sit down on his right. “Good morning, Story. I got you a plate. Help yourself,” Daegan begins, waving at the trays of food in the middle of the table. “I didn’t want to wake you. I thought you might be tired after yesterday.”
I’m about to say thank you when a male speaks first. “Congratulations on winning the first Decidere! There were only forty-two who came out with you.” I look at the man, who I know. Sort of. He winces, running a hand through his blond locks. “I’m sorry that, when we met, I hit you on the head.”
The man from the reception room. “I remember you.”
“Foster.” He inclines his head and points to the man sitting on his left. “And this is my brother, Cove. We are Daegan’s cousins by distant marriage, but not blood. Etena is the same. Makes us lucky, we don’t have to worry about the boring ruling part of being the king.”
“Erm, hello? I’m your girlfriend and you could introduce me!” the woman to the right of Foster exclaims and looks at me with a bright smile. Her dirty blonde hair is tightly braided in two, and her eyes are a muddy brown. “I’m Twila. Nice to meet you.” She looks at Daegan for a minute too long and with a look of longing she doesn’t hide well, then back to me. “If you need anything, you can ask me. I work in the greenhouse in the day, and you are always welcome.”
“Thanks for the offer.” They are all still looking at me, like they expect a speech. “Sorry if I interrupted whatever you were talking about. Please carry on, pretend I’m not here.”
Twila shakes her head. “Oh, we were just saying that Calix has come over and tried to talk to Etena again this morning in training.”
Daegan looks at Etena, who is more interested in ripping at her toast and shoving bits into her mouth. “I told him to stay away.”
Foster huffs. “He’s never going to stay away. They are entwined mates.”
Etena drops her toast. “Even if I don’t remember him or want anything to do with him. The deities can be twisted.”
“What are entwined mates?” I ask, remembering that word from the book. The writer talked about being entwined with the sun and moon.
They all look at me like I’ve grown wings and taken off into the sky. Daegan sighs with sympathy. “Let me guess, you don’t know what entwined mates are because the vampyres made sure you forgot?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” I confirm, picking at some eggs, toast, and bacon.
Etena sharply snaps, “By the fae, the vampyres really kept everything from you out there when you lot rolled over to be their slaves.”
