The King's Bite

Chapter 5

The air was rife with a thick tension. Allegra stared unseeingly at the warm fire almost as if she hoped it would give her answers to the questions she so desperately sought. Alas, there were no words forthcoming from that direction. She would have to force herself to find them from the last two beings on earth she wanted to speak with.

“Was this all some sort of game?” she asked Niklaus. The tremor in her voice was clearly heard. She was not about to cry, she was just shaken. “Why the ruse? What was it all in aid of?”

Nik was shaking his head even before she had finished talking. “It wasn’t some sort if trick. Well... it was, but I was the one who was tricked. He offered he a way out and I took it with both hands. My only mistake is trusting that my older brother had my best interest at heart, when in fact ask he was doing was selfish thinking of himself.”

“This chain...” she trailed off, knowing he would catch onto her meaning.

“The chain is meaningless. The pendant, on the other hand, was forged with ancient fae magic. It cannot be taken off by anyone except its wearer.”

Allegra allowed the silence to extend a little bit before she spoke. “So you took it off,” she said, completely deadpan.

“I didn't think he would immediately put it on himself!” pleaded Niklaus.

“You didn't think to tell me about this thing? It was crucial to our engagement, and yet you chose to keep me in the dark about its existence.”

“Fae magic is extremely volatile. I was trying to protect you. The less you knew the better. The more involved you get in it, the more drawn you are to it. It sucks you in.”

She continued as if she had not even heard his interruption. “And now, I'm what? Just engaged to your brother? My opinion on the matter doesn't even count, does it? Just foisted upon one brother from the other and I'm supposed to be okay with that?”

Niklaus opened his mouth once more to plead his case, but realised how pointless it was. He recognised how fragile, how betrayed she felt. Nothing he could say would change that, so he closed his mouth and helplessly hung his head dejectedly. Satisfied with his defeated demeanour, she turned her attention to the King himself. He had not spoken a word since he dropped his proverbial bomb and turned her life upside down, so she made sure to push so the animosity she felt into her glare. Before she could spew her vitriol, however, he spoke.

“Are you quite finished?” came Vladislav's unimpressed drawl. As if she were inconveniencing him.

“As a matter of fact, we are not. I did not sign up for this. My family... my country... Everyone I know is already expecting me to marry Niklaus. How do you expect me to get away with marrying his brother?”

“We both know how delighted everyone you just mentioned will be at this turn off events. What's the problem exactly? You knew what you were getting into. You were to marry a stranger and that is still the case,” the King reasoned.

“The difference is that Nik isn't a stranger anymore. I grew to know him and I grew to trust him. There are only three weeks left until the wedding. We worked hard at establishing an understanding in the time we've known each other. Am I truly expected to replicate everything I’ve built with him with you in this short a time?”

King Vladislav smoothly got up to his feet before sparing his brother a dismissive glance. “Leave us, Niklaus.”

She mimicked his actions and got to her feet as well. “I want him to stay. Despite the glaring errors he has committed, he's the only one I truly know here and I would be uncomfortable without him here.”

“She is my intended now,” said the King with an increasingly hard glare towards Niklaus. “You have no business being here. Leave. Now.”

Allegra pinned a pleading stare onto her former fiancé, but he seemed almost powerless to his King’s commands. Instead of sticking up for her or indeed asking his brother for understanding, Niklaus got up to his feet with an apologetic glance in her direction. She steadfastly ignored him as he shuffled his feet right out of the room.

***

Vladislav did not waste a moment after his brother had left the premises. She almost jumped out of her seat when his large hands reached to capture her own in their grip. They were cold to the touch. She did not know what she had been expecting, but certainly not that. Allegra was unsure if the chill she felt travelling up her spine was a result of the temperature or just the contact of her skin on his. Either way, she knew she was not supposed to entertain these thoughts.

She raised her brow to the King, prompting him to carry on. He must have chased Niklaus from the room for a reason, after all. In a perfect mimicry of the moments they had had before, her reached for her hands. This time she did not pull away from his cold grasp. Instead, she watched as he brought them around the golden medallion so they were gently cradling it. They both watched as one when it began to glow. The brightness only increased when both his hands surrounded hers. They stared at it in awe. Allegra could have sworn she felt some of that magic trickle down her spine and into her very being.

“It glows much brighter now than it ever did with him,” Vladislav mused.

His words eradicated the enchantment that had been placed around her as they brought her back down to earth. “I wouldn't know whether or not you’re telling the truth, as I never experienced it,” said a disgruntled Allegra.

“Should that not be some kind of sign? Here you are wittering on about the trust you hold for Niklaus and yet here he is keeping things from you.”

The affronted Duchess felt the need to defend her former fiancé. “Now wait a minute. He had a perfectly good –”

“I, on the other hand, showed it to you within an hour of our engagement.”

“An engagement that I did not consent to. Don't you dare try to turn this around on me.” Allegra had decided to damn it all to hell. She would speak her mind to get heart’s content and there was not a thing he could do about it since he seemed determined to keep her around. The least she could do was make him regret his decision.

Vladislav's grey eyes went from light rainclouds to hard concrete in a matter of seconds. “I've been gracious enough to let you know what is happening before anyone else finds out, which is more than I can say for my brother. How you feel is of no consequence. You are my intended now and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it”

The stubbornly determined look on his face blew all the wind from right under her sails and left Allegra feeling hopeless. “Why?” she asked. It was a whisper, so low it would have been missed had it been a human being standing before her. “Why me?”

The King pointedly stared at their hands, still attached and clasping the medallion to both their persons. “You know why. You felt it. Surely you didn't expect me to actually let you go after the experience we shared.”

Allegra let out a frustrated grunt. “What experience? I just met you today and now you’re overturning by entire life.” Of course she had felt it, but she’d also thought it was entirely one-sided. It was inappropriate then and it remained so now. There had to be a way out of this. It did not escape her notice that their hands were still in contact. Feeling his skin against her own brought a certain amount of comfort that she was not ready to explore yet. She was also not willing to give it up yet, so she decided not to draw any attention to it. “Is this part of the fae enchantment?”

It was the first time that she had actually seen Vladislav hesitate. It gave her some comfort to know that this territory was as unfamiliar to him as it was to her. At the same time it filled her with trepidation. It was one thing to think he was arrogantly asserting his dominance at a whim. It was another for him to be acting on impulse because of a bit of magic even he did not understand.

“Yes and no. If it was purely the fae enchantment then you would have felt the same way for Niklaus. Did you?”

She decided not to answer the question. It might as well have been rhetorical. The last thing she wanted to do was give him a reason to get a big head about this.

“No,” the King continued. “What this is, is some sort of natural bond. We find ourselves inexplicably drawn towards one another. Count your lucky stars that I caught it this early. Things may have become inexplicably complicated had we waited for much longer.”

She felt her eye twitch in frustration at his unshakeable arrogance. “Oh, how can I ever repay you for your consideration forethought?” she asked dryly before heaving a heavy sigh. “This is too much for me. It's way too much. Maybe you should've waited for me to be fully functioning before you dropped this on me.”

Without either excusing herself or waiting for a dismissal, Allegra found herself striding to the door her former fiancé had gone through only moments earlier. She half expected the King to stop her, but he did not. Still, she felt his heavy gaze on her form the entire time she was in his line of sight. She could not even find the energy to pay Niklaus any attention when she found him waiting out in the corridor. Having grown up in a place roughly around the castle’s size, she had a great sense of direction and her feet automatically carried her to her designated rooms. She needed to sleep. That was why she was so antsy, she told herself. It was a lack of sleep and not a centuries old, grey eyed vampire haunting he every waking thought.

***

“I take it that didn't go exactly as you planned it would,” came the smug voice of Niklaus.

Allegra had just left and Vladislav was admittedly stewing over the fact that she was not more receptive towards the thought of being attached to him for the rest of her life. He’d expected a much warmer reception.

“This can't possibly be the first time you've ever faced denial,” exclaimed his disbelieving brother.

“The only denial that occurred here was of her true feelings. We have an understanding,” Vladislav said. “She’ll try as hard as she can to fight it, but in the end we both know where she'll end up.”

Niklaus sighed tiredly. “Look... Maybe it's time to try a different approach. Something that isn't quite as self-assured and full of yourself. Not that you deserve my help, but doing something different might help the transition go along a lot more smoothly.”

As soon as the King smirked, his brother knew he was fighting a losing battle. “She's mine, Niklaus. All that remains is her acceptance... and yours.”