The Bride of the Vampire King

The Heart of the Party

Aneela

Aneela twisted in the arms of the unfamiliar vampire in an attempt to pull free by applying all she had into the effort. The rage was overwhelming her and as she fought, she could barely take a breath, face flushed and heart beating like a drum in her chest.

The new vampire was unwavering. Somehow he was stronger than her, more resilient. His lean wiry body seemed like a rock against her back and his iron grip didn’t let her move even an inch as he pinned both her wrists between them without even breaking a sweat.

“Let me go you dead b*astard!” She ordered, angry like never before, lips curling into a snarl as she kicked and fought in the strangers arms, ready to break free at any cost.

The other one, the vampire whom everyone called ‘master’, the one who stole her for a dance just half an hour ago, only watched with his icy stare. His eyes as dark and mesmerising as the night itself drank every movement Aneela made. He seemed… amused by the fight she put up, like it was all a game. Like it was all in good spirits that he and his people had somehow bewitched an entire ballroom full of the most powerful magical beings to ever exist and the screams of all those people were music to his ears.

For a second, as she looked back into those eyes, Aneela fell silent. Her kicks and shouts drenched in the frantic beating of her heart while she felt like she was getting lost into these impossible eyes. How come hadn’t she noticed they never seemed to have a particular color? Neither black, nor green or blue, not even violet or hazel. They were all at once and neither. What kind of a creature was this man? A compeller, that’s what.

Getting back to her senses, Aneela cursed herself for her own stupidity. Never look into a vampire’s eyes for too long. Everyone knew that. Just because she was the alpha king’s daughter, it didn’t mean she was immune against their tricks.

The grip of the other vampire still holding her in place got even stronger. His cold long fingers dug deep into her flesh and she was sure it would leave bruises on her skin. They’d heal almost immediately but it was the humiliation that counted. How was he this strong?

“What the hell do you want? My… queen will kill you for this audacity!” Aneela shouted again, her rage fuelled by the thought that Rumiana was actually nowhere to be found. She tried calling her mother again through their psychic link but again it didn’t work. It was like the link didn’t even exist, or there wasn’t anyone at the other end of the line. Which was alarming on its own but right now Aneela had to focus on her own problems. As her dad always taught her - it was better to work your way through the problems one at a time or she’d get into even bigger troubles. So, she focused on her current situation and the vampire ‘master’ who was still pinning her with his gaze. He looked… amused by her. Entertained. The expression on his deadly handsome face was the one of a person so enthralled in their new toy they just couldn’t put their eyes down, or didn’t even know which game to play first with it. It made Aneela’s skin crawl with gooseflesh and she flinched instinctively.

The vampire caught that flinch immediately. His perfectly shaped dark eyebrows lifted with amusement, a cold sardonic smile immediately landing on his full pink lips.

“The little wolf seems appalled by our ways,” he dragged, honey-dipped voice dripping with boredom. “Should we teach her a lesson now, or maybe later when I have her chained to my bed?”

His all-coloured eyes pinned Aneela in her place. The thought of what he said, the image, was not supposed to be thrilling, and she looked away, appalled. She refused to let it affect her and started fighting again even though somehow she felt weaker, the strong blood of her wolf suddenly felt like lifting its weight from her.

Confused, she lifted her gaze back to the master. He was still waiting with his predator grin for something to click in her mind and as the realisation slowly hit her, she wanted to scream as loudly as the people in the ballroom whose voices were making her want to run and hide and forget whatever nightmare was happening there. No one touched their sacred animals. No one played with the wolf spirit!

“What have you done?!” She demanded, surprised her voice didn’t shake as she asked the question. Whatever it was, that damn spell trapping everyone in their spots, had somehow weakened their shifter powers. Her own wolf, her poor Diana, was silenced now. Aneela couldn’t feel her strength. Was it why the link didn’t work and they weren’t able to catch on Mother? Goddess, where was Mother?

“Blythe!” The master suddenly snapped, turning his face towards the vampire woman who stood silent up until this moment.

The second her attention was brought to this Blythe though, Aneela’s eyes laid back on her too. She was not silent at all as Aneela thought initially. No, she was chanting some kind of a spell. Her thin red lips barely moved, her pale hands wrapped around the medallion on her neck, black eyes unfocused. She looked like her mind was not here at all, like she was lost in a trance and there was no way for her to come back. Otherworldly and divine, these were Aneela’s thoughts. Everything in her screamed in protest. Her shifter nature was telling her it wasn’t natural for a vampire to cast spells, that’s not how things worked in the world. Vampires sucked blood from the living in order to appear as ones. They lived in their kingdom trapped in darkness and ruled their feeding grounds where the rest of the world sent their worst of prisoners.

Aneela knew much about them as she was forced to study their history back when she was still at school. Up until tonight she had never met a vampire, that was a fact, and if it was up to her she’d never see one until the day she died. She couldn’t see the appeal and romance others put behind the image of the vampires. Yes, they were mysterious, these dead men turned into superior creatures and their powers of compelling were a force to be reckoned with. Surely, there was a reason so many creatures were ready to give up the light and their freedom and become willing vampire pets, but Aneela just didn’t see it. She did like the darkness herself but only for as long as she could control it. And these three creatures in the room with her were out of her control.

“Yes, my king?” Blythe asked now, suddenly snapping out of her trance. The change in her demeanour was so sudden, it broke Aneela out of her thoughts too and Aneela cursed herself again for allowing to be so easily compelled into distraction.

She had to get out. Now. There was something though… something else than this entire situation that was important, something escaping her. King.

“Make them stop!” The king ordered and Aneela’s attention snapped back at him. He was the vampire king? The one she came looking for in her naive hope he could help her track down her father’s killer and demand answers why he did it? That same king? Roan ‘Fox’ Alexander? That had to be some stupid joke, something brought out of the twisted mind of a spoiled god or something.

“As you wish, my king,” Blythe, the vampire witch, said with a small smile on her blood red lips as she raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

The moment the motion was done, every sound around them seized. The screams, the commotion, the other, impossible to decipher ones as well. Aneela’s blood froze in her veins.. How did this woman do it? Was her ungodly magic this strong?

A pleased expression spread over the king’s face. His eyes glinted with something that looked a lot like pride and a lot like satisfaction as he focused his impossible gaze back to Aneela.

“Now, little wolf,” he started with his lazy voice, bordering onboredom as he stepped towards her, trapping her between himself and the one still holding her tightly. “Keep quiet, or I will shut you down as well, like the rest of your friends.”

Threats. Aneela wanted to spit in his face. What kind of a king was he to use threats on a girl he didn’t even know? But then again, he had used his woman’s magic to suppress Aneela’s wolf, he had compelled so many people to obey his rules. And the way he moved as if he owned the entire world told Aneela there was so much more to him that met the eye. He had an agenda here, something involving herself, judging by what happened in the gardens. Her heart immediately twisted with pain at the thought of Twyla’s fate.

And as if just to confirm her suspicions, a second later a new vampire, one of the women she spotted upon entering the ball room, appeared. She was just as tall as Blythe, but unlike Blythe, she looked more fierce, more inhuman. Her lips were curled into a snarl, revealing sharp teeth, and her eyes gleamed with the same unnatural light that Aneela caught in the king’s gaze. More like a predator, more dependent she seemed as she walked into the room, bowing in front of Roan Alexander.

“Report!” The king simply said, not sparing her a glance, his entire focus on Aneela, making her skin crawl.

“There was no one in the girl’s tower,” the newcomer said, her expression twisted even more into this snarl and for a second she reminded Aneela of the marble beasts in her mother’s throne room. “We interrogated everyone we could get our hands on, nothing.”

“That’s impossible!” The vampire king snapped.

“I am so sorry, my king…” the vampire woman shivered. “There is no trace of the queen and her future son-in-law either.”

Aneela’s eyes snapped to her assertively. Her mom and Darren had fled together leaving Aneela alone here? But that didn’t make any sense. Yes, Rumiana had everything to lose if she got into a direct confrontation with the vampires but she was no coward who runs away from her problems. And no matter how annoying he was, Darren would never run away either, leaving Aneela, his ticket to royalty, alone.

Sudden, wild laughter erupted from deep into her chest and Aneela wasn’t able to stop it. The attention of everyone in the room immediately turned to her and it was too late to hold herself back as she realised her mistake.

“You!” The king spat, making another step towards her. They were now almost chest to chest, his faint cold breath caressing her cheeks. Aneela felt trapped between him and the faceless vampire who still held her wrists on her back. Her hands had gotten numb under his tight grip but she couldn’t care less right now.

The laughter died in her throat and the corners of her lips fell into a grim line as she held the impossible stare of the vampire king. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh and her entire body shivered under his scrutiny and because of his closeness.

“You know where they are,” the king finally said. It was more like a statement than a question, and his even, quiet tone left no room for arguments.

“I don’t,” Aneela replied and it was the truth. If she knew where her mother was, she would’ve found a way to be with her.

“You know where the wolf princess is. You can’t lie to me!” He insisted again, his tone and expression suddenly turning to ice which felt almost physical. It felt almost as if his body temperature fell a few degrees, spreading coldness through Aneela’s body and she instinctively flinched, some sudden unrealised urge to hide before that ice reached her heart.

She wanted to lie though. She really, really wanted to lie, but something made her unable to even open her mouth and say the words. What was going on here? Another one of the vampires’ magic tricks?

“I will never tell you!” She said instead, raising her eyes to meet his tense gaze that threatened to strip her soul naked and leave her to rot on the ground once he was done with her.

The king’s cold hands gripped her shoulders and he shook her violently. “Speak!” He grumbled.

“I will never tell!” Aneela insisted. And she wouldn’t. “What do you want from the wolf princess? What do you want from the queen and all of us?”

“That is no business of yours!” The king snapped. The way he looked right now, feral, vicious, made her want to shriek and hide somewhere he’d never find her. This only made her raise her head even higher, defiance spreading through her entire body. These vampires were nothing. Who were they to come here in the House of Wolves and threaten their royalty? She’d rather die than give herself to them.

“Then you will never find her. You will never reach the wolf princess!” Aneela snarled, her voice as low and deadly, and determined, as the kings. Behind her her palms curled into fists under the grip of her captor.

“We will see, little wolf,” the king’s lips curled into another evil smile. Earlier that night Aneela had thought Darren looked like a snake. Well, the man in front of her looked like a snake too. A cobra ready to strike her at any chance given.

He turned his attention towards his people, completely ignoring Aneela now. Just as if she were a toy he was not happy with anymore.

“Continue searching. As for this one, take her to our lands! She knows where the royals are and she will speak should our mission fail.”

“Never!” Aneela snapped, and finally did what she had been itching to do for the longest time. The spit landed on the king’s perfect face, fat and nasty, and for a second when it hit him, he closed his eyes, disgust written all over it. Aneela’s lips curled into a smile. “You are no king of mine! You are a damn traitor!”

“You will speak,” the king ordered with his threateningly calm voice as he slowly pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face with it. “Let’s see what you will say when I have you naked and chained to my bedpost with no way out. Take her to the carriages!”

Someone said something after that. It happened so fast as her captor stepped back, dragging Aneela back with him that she couldn’t even register what was happening as her head grew heavy and her limbs felt like they had lead inside them. A second later everything faded to black and even though Aneela wanted to fight it, she was helpless to do it as the world around her lost its edge. After that black ruled everything.