The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

“Please, no.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, child.”

“Oh, gods, no. I don’t want to kill them.”

“You will.”

“Please don’t make me do this.”

“If you want her to live another day, you will stop making me repeat myself, walk out of this room now and go do what I asked you to do.”

There was silence except for the distinct sound of her restricted sobs, her heart aching from the burden she was being forced to carry, aching from the knowledge of what she was about to do.

She loved her mother too much to let anything happen to her. And if losing Maria’s soul was the price she had to pay to keep her mother alive, then so be it, Maria thought, making up her mind to do what this man who called himself her father was forcing her to do.

“That’s my girl,” he crooned, his face lighting up with excitement. He must have realised that she’d made up her mind.

Turning away, unable to bear looking at him anymore, she crept out of the room, her long gown trailing on the floor behind her.

She dressed differently now. She usually wore short leather skirts and halter tops with jewellery adorning her fingers and wrists, but not anymore. Now, all she wore were long, dark, conservative clothes that pleased her father.

When she stepped into the courtroom and faced the couple sitting on the ground, tied with their backs to each other, her heart gave a sharp guilty pang.

They had been murmuring softly to each other, words that she was too far away to hear but from the soft looks on their faces, they had to have been reassuring words.

They were in love. And she was going to have to kill them.

Her soul cried over the unfairness of the situation.

As she lifted her hands and ended the couple’s lives, as she held their pain filled accusing eyes while she killed them, she couldn’t help but think about how things could have been different had her mother been there, couldn’t help but think about how she could have had a better life had she had a different father.

“You did that very well, my child,” her father praised when the couple lay lifeless on the floor. “Now, your mother gets to live another week. See what happens when you obey me?”

Maria couldn’t speak. She simply stared into the dead eyes of the couple.

As she’d snuffed the life out of them, she’d felt her own soul dying inside her, felt her heart cracking inside her chest.

That day, after killing for the first time, Maria lost a huge part of herself that she was never going to get back and she knew it.

Bran jerked up in the bed into a sitting position, sweat pouring off him in waves down his chest even in the cold of the night.

He’d just had a dream about Maria and the dream had felt so real, it was like he had been experiencing all her emotions with her. He’d felt her pain, fear, sadness and then the numbness.

He’d felt everything as though he was right there in the dream with her. As though he was the one that the things had happened to. He’d heard her thoughts clearly in his mind as though they were his own.

Another odd thing about the dream was that she’d appeared younger, not like she was now. She’d looked smaller, her eyes more innocent than they were now, her expression trusting and unsuspecting.

Until she’d killed the couple.

Then a light in her eyes had died and her face had crumpled into a blank, unexpressive mask.

But that dream couldn’t be real, could it? Her father hadn’t really ordered her to kill anyone. It must just be that Bran’s overthinking was now making him dream all sorts of things-even the ones that didn’t make sense.

Turning over on the bed, he forced his eyes closed and tried to go back to sleep, but he immediately found himself in the grips of another confusing dream about her.

The room was huge. Wide, with dark walls and empty but for the woman who stood in the middle of it.

Well, she wasn’t really standing. She was floating in air. Her hands were stretched on either sides of her petite form, her legs like an arrow straight down with a long blue gown that drifted past her toes.

She was on a pillar of some sorts, her eyes firmly closed and the peaceful expression on her face would give the notion that she was sleeping.

The sadness that resonated from the younger version of Maria standing in front of the woman proved otherwise. Peace was the furthest thing from this woman; she was in suffering.

In this dream, Ariti appeared by the door of the room, leaning against it and staring at the woman with an odd smile on his face. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Maria jerked around, appearing startled by his presence, and the moment she saw him, she wiped the tears that were trickling down her cheeks and spoke in a soft voice Bran had never heard her use. “Why do you do this to her? How can you do this to your own wife?”

A confused from marred Ariti’s expression. “The answer to that is quite simple; because I can.”

“But don’t you love her?” Maria cried, her heart shattering in her chest and Bran felt it like it was his own.

Her father shook his head as though he was dealing with a child. “Love is a fickle notion and as you grow older, my child, you’ll see that for yourself.” Then he turned suddenly. “But wealth? Lands? Possessions? Those are the things worth fighting for.”

“You already have those!” Her chest heaved as she dared to raise her voice at him, regretting it immediately and praying that he would pardon her. “How much more do you want?”

His eyes flashed in warning and he made a move to hit her. “You can never have too much.”

Bran jerked up from the bed, flinching like he was the being hit.

This time when he woke up, he didn’t bother trying to sleep anymore.

He got up from the bed, fastened the button on his jeans and pushed the door to his balcony open, walking through it.

The cold night air washed over him, cooling his hot, sweaty skin. But no matter how cold and refreshing the air was, it did nothing to soothe the confusion inside him.

He braced his hands on the railing, staring into the dead of the night with unfocused eyes, while a thousand and one thoughts ran through his mind.

Over the past few days, Bran had been having series of dreams about Maria. Most of them had been short and uneventful, nothing like the two he’d had this night.

Actually, it was the first time he was dreaming about her twice in one night. It was usually one dream a night and Bran believed that something must have triggered the second dream.

His stomach roiled as he thought back to the feeling that had gripped him when Maria had killed that couple. That had been her feeling. It was what she’d felt. And he didn’t really know what to make of a person so young, having a feeling like that course through them.

When Bran was at that age, the people he’d killed had all been in self-defence. They’d had it coming.

But with Maria…

Maria had killed because she needed to. Not because she wanted to.

He’d gotten it all wrong.

“Fuck,” Bran cursed as his head fell against the railing, his head spinning from his chaotic thoughts.

There was no denying what he’d seen-he’d dreamed her memories, felt everything she’d been feeling and seen everything through her own eyes.

Miserably, Bran realised that when she’d told him that when she’d killed his parents, she’d been acting under orders, she actually had been saying the truth. But he hadn’t believed her because he’d thought she was just saying that so that he would let her go.

Now he had proof and, fuck, he’d been wrong. So fucking wrong about her.

The revelation was almost too much for him to bear.

Her father was the real culprit and he was the one that Bran should have captured. Hell, Bran should have killed him right then and there, but then he still wouldn’t have been able to find his sister.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

If Maria had only been acting under orders, then that meant it was her father that knew where his sister was.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Fucking shit.

All this time he’d been torturing the wrong person, had even gone as far as giving her a scar on her hand-a scar that would freeze into immortality-when the real culprit roamed free, unharmed.

He couldn’t wait to tell Corey about everything tomorrow. Maybe then he would see reason and not hate Maria anymore.

Bran froze at the train of thought he was having.

Why did he care if Corey didn’t hate her anymore? It wasn’t like she was here to be on the recieving end of his hatred.

Even as Bran asked the question, he knew what the answer was.

He was going to fight to get her back.

It had been almost a week since she’d been taken by her father and Bran hadn’t made any move to get her back because his friend’s words were true.

He’d captured her because he thought she knew where his sister was and now that it was plain as day that she didn’t, there was absolutely no reason to fight for her.

However, Bran’s discovery tonight changed everything.

No wonder she hadn’t wanted to go back with her father when he’d come for her.

Fuck, she must have felt so helpless. Wanting to run away from Bran while at the same time, wanting to escape her father when she had nowhere to go to.

A sharp pain lanced through Bran’s chest as he thought about all that he’d done to her.

Bran wasn’t really sure how to apologize when he managed to get her back-he wasn’t big on those-but he would treat her differently.

Surely, she would see just how sorry he was about everything he’d done to her.

There, on his balcony in the dead of the night, Bran made up his mind.

He was going to get the sorceress back if it was the last thing he did.