The Vampire King Wants Me

2: The New King

His whole body shook, he could feel the way life was coming back into his body and how every vein, every muscle and every organ was getting filled with blood as it rushed through every crevice and corner of his whole body. He groaned in so much pain as his body stretched and he wondered where he was and why was it so tight for his body? With one push of his hand, it opened and he stared at the pitch darkness of wherever he was. Everything came back to him, the memories, the day…he wasn’t going to think about that day yet.

He just had to…get out of here first. And get some blood to feast on. With the reflection of his eyes, he got up from the coffin and turned around into the room he had been kept for years he wasn’t sure yet. He began to walk out, he had known this room when he was just a small boy. His father had brought him there on days he wanted to lecture him after something so important that he didn’t want anyone to hear. When he was the vampire prince, Ezra.

His name sounded so alien to him, he thought he had forgotten his name. As he pushed the door with all the power he had got, it broke down in front of him and he walked on top of it. He had to get to the palace, to show the world that the vampire prince had resurrected from death! His father told him he would when he was on the verge of dying and it happened that he did. He wanted to see his father, show him that he had fulfilled his promise and they could now go get their revenge!

As he walked through the dark and long corridor, his eyes roaming around the place that had once been always lit with fire but it now felt like a graveyard, he wondered how much time had passed for everything to change this way. He would have to find that out, but for now, he needed blood to sustain his years of bloodthirsty. He met some guards as they rushed to check where the sounds he had made while waking up were coming from, and when they saw him, in an attire even their king couldn’t lay his hands on, they froze.

“Who are you?!” One of the guards asked, pointing his gun at Ezra that he had to look at it for a moment, wondering what that was. With one glance at them, he knew they were vampires but this was no time for that, he had to feed on them.

One of them walked toward him and in a single swift, Ezra had his mouth on his neck and he sucked all the blood in him before he threw his body. The other ones came until there was left only one of them and before he killed him, his rough voice grumbled. “Which year is it?”

His sharp pangs were already on his throat, and the guard realized that he could never compare his strength with that of this strange man that practically came out of nowhere. “It’s 2019.” His eyes flashed as though he had heard something so horrific, his bloodthirst was taking a toll on him but he had to find all the information he needed before killing the last of them. “Who’s your king now?”

“King Angelus…” he wasn’t able to close his mouth when he etched his pangs into his neck and sucked up all the blood in him. He threw them away as he walked further into the palace. King Angelus, who was that? And where was his father? Did this mean everyone he knew was dead? He said the year 2019, which simply meant, he had been dead for 500 years now.

What had happened to the Phaya Empire while he was gone! Had his family been long dead in the 500 years he had been dead?! He walked faster now, he wanted to see who the king was and what had happened to their empire. On his way to the main palace, Ezra realized that everything was the same, the structure of the building but not the building, the furniture, everything had changed. But he could feel that it was his home. Just now taken over by some Angelus of a guy.

He had killed many guards to count on his way to the palace and when he had reached, instead of the statue of his father that had stood gallant at the entrance, he saw the statue of a man that he had developed a sudden bloodthirst for, and so he strode into the palace, sucking blood and killing whoever got in his way until he stood in front of King Angelus, the royal members all stood up as they wondered who he was. 

“Who are you?” One of them asked, and when he enigmatically turned to look at him, as his eyes shone with nothing but venom, they all took a step back. 

King Angelus pulled out a sword beside him and pointed it at Ezra, “How dare you barge into my palace this way?! Who the hell are you?!”

“I’m Ezra Stoutblood, the only prince of the Phaya Empire 300 years ago. And now, I’m the Vampire King of the Phaya Empire.”

“How dare you!” King Angelus shouted and before his next words came out, Ezra had pulled his throat out of his neck and was happily sucking his blood as though it were juice. When he was done, he threw his body to the door and sat on the throne, placing the crown he had taken off King Angelus body. 

“Do any of you have something to say?” He asked enigmatically as he used his tongue to wipe off the remains of King Angelus blood on his face. 

They all lined up before him, they had known of the Vampire prince that would resurrect back to life after hundreds of years, they had read it in books and had now seen it in reality. Only that, none of them had ever imagined him to be this way, this power that he could defeat King Angelus in a single move. 

They knelt before him and bowed their heads to show their total submission. “Welcome back to life, King Ezra! Praise the Vampire King Of Phaya Empire!” Ezra closed his eyes and relished the taste of power on his lips, and the first order he had given as the king of Phaya Empire was to bring 50 slaves to him and after they were brought, he made sure to suck all the blood in their bodies, but he was still not yet satisfied.

•

Danika stared at Faline that was trying so hard to close her shop but her hands kept trembling. “Give me that, I’ll lock it up.” She said and locked the shop before she turned to look at her, “But Faline, you’ve never closed your shop at this time, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” There was a time Faline hadn’t open her shop for two days and Danika was forced to find her house all by herself because she had never been there, and when she found her terminally ill, she nearly lost her sanity. And she feared if she was going to be sick again.

Faline chuckled and took the key from her hand, “No, I’m perfectly well. The King calls, we all have to appear at the royal palace now.”

Danika chuckled and slowed down her pace, before, she thought that she was going to escort Faline wherever she was going but now that it had something to do with the king, she wasn’t interested. News had all reached them that the 500-year-old vampire prince had resurrected, killed King Angelus and had throned himself as the king and no one ever dared to defy him. She hated him for making her hear the sound she wasn’t meant to, for coming into her nightmares and scaring her even though she had never seen his face, for making her able to now see the pangs and all the traits of vampires and for being such a cruel king everyone was terrified of even though it was only five days since he got back to life.

“You all, not we. Bye, I have an assignment to write at home.” She turned to walk back home when Faline held her hand and she turned with a pout on her lips. “Faline, we both know I can’t go there.”

“But why? It’s not like he only called on vampires, he’s our king so everyone will have to attend.”

Danika rolled her eyes exasperatedly, “At this point, I don’t even know what I am, and it’s all because of a damned 500 years old vampire.” She said through gritted teeth and Faline closed her mouth almost immediately as she stepped closer to her. 

“Hey! You have to be careful of what you say about the king, Danika. And you can’t go back home, the royal guards will be searching for the ones that haven’t answered the kings summon and we both know the punishment will be severe.” She rolled her eyes, it was tempting her to curse the life out of this king so he will go back to being dead and if he wanted, he could stay dead for another five hundred years because she didn’t care!

They walked together with Faline as she told her stories of her childhood to make her forget about where they were going and the thong of people they have met in the humungous palace compound was what made Danika even more uncomfortable. Because before, she could sit amidst thousands of people without being able to point a finger at a vampire and a human because they all looked human to her. Even when Faline told her that Dewhurst was half-vampire and half-human and everyone in Dewhurst seemed to believe that but her. But now, she was terrified of the things she saw, of the sounds she heard and touches she felt.

They stood under the shade of a tree and Danika grumbled, “I’m so going to kill this king if he dared make us wait for long. What did he think of himself? He should be thankful that he got back to life not to be some cruel king already.”

•

King Ezra walked out of the front porch and the people that stared at him almost made his heart lost a beat, almost. He had never stood before a throng of people this much, his father did. He began to scan through the faces of the crowd, to see if the vampires they once had in Dewhurst had doubled or lessen. But when their number didn’t please his eyes, which meant the female vampires had been marrying the male humans and hence producing human babies with a very little trait of vampires, he knew he should make a change to that.

“Welcome back King Ezra! Praise the king of Phaya Empire!” The whole crowd echoed in unison as they went to their knees but as he looked farther to where the people had once blocked his vision from, there was someone still standing with hands at akimbo and he could see, the disgusted expression she had on her face and one could tell she was in no place interested in what was going on there. 

For a moment he stared deeper, and his heart lost a beat when the fact that turned at the same time to look at him was none other than Dru Woodroar, the Queen of Trinnuiven Dynasty, his sworn enemy. He closed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating but when he opened them back, she was no longer standing where she was and the whole crowd were back on his feet that he had all the power in his eyes to scan every face in the crowd but he couldn’t find her.

He had to find her!