The Queen's Forbidden Love

Chapter 5

Claudia's POV:

I could feel the fear in Bella at the idea of being around so many vampires. This isn't actually as uncommon as one might think, having several supernaturals in an area where humans go as well. Several in all of the species live peacefully together with humans. This just might be the first time she's ever come into a bar or club or anywhere that had so many in one spot. At least seven out of everyone here were vampires. The rest were humans with a few werewolves enjoying their night out.

"Should we find a different bar?" She asked.

"No, it will be fine. None of them will do anything in front of so many humans. They also know that we won't do anything to them because of the humans. It's actually the safest place to be." I informed her but could tell that she wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea.

"Trust me," I told her and she looked over at me and slowly nodded.

I gave her a small smile and led her over to one of the bar chairs. Wasn't long after we sat down and the bartender walked over and took our order. Along with a couple of drinks, we also got a hamburger and fries since we hadn't eaten yet tonight. I had just finished a few of the fries when I sensed a vampire taking the seat next to me. I chose to ignore him. It's not like he can't sense who I am just by my smell just like I can him.

"What brings you all the way out here? Last I heard, you were somewhere south with lots of sun and beaches," I heard him ask as he grabbed his beer and took a drink.

"Where I go isn't really your concern," I responded to him as I fiddled with the fries on my plate.

"Considering I'm one of your higher targets, I think this does make it my concern," He responded.

I just shifted in my seat and turned myself a little more away from him so I could try to ignore him. Bella was just sitting in her seat, eating her meal, and not noticing the fact that a vampire had sat next to me and was trying to get me to talk to him.

"All will know you are here and in this state in less than 24 hours," He told me, even though I already knew this.

Whenever any royal from any supernatural species goes somewhere or moves locations, everyone in the supernatural realm knows about it. It isn't exactly something you can hide. Word travels faster through the supernaturals, especially between enemies.

"Even the one you didn't realize anyone knew about will know that you are here in his state," He whispered in a low tone, causing me to quickly turn and look at him.

"Oh, yes, we all know about that night. One of the biggest prophecies to ever come to fruition isn't exactly something to go unnoticed in this world. Except, that part of the night isn't the part that I'm referring to." He told me, confessing to me that he knew more of what happened that night than I would ever want anyone to know about.

"Nothing happened after the Enchantress was sent to Hell," I told him and he just gave me a devilish smirk as he took his beer and took another drink.

"If that helps a woman like you to sleep at night, while the rest of us in this room..." He said as he moved his hand out to include everyone here.

"We all know differently," He told me as he looked back at me while leaning a little closer to me, almost as if he wanted to whisper to me so no one else would know what he had said.

"You're scent was all over him and I don't mean casual contact. More like..." He paused as he took a slow glance at me and placed his hand on my thigh.

"The scent of your arousal all over him," He told me as his eyes landed back on mine.

I placed my hand on top of his that was on my thigh. I felt his hand squeeze my thigh the moment our flesh came in contact.

"What I do in my personal time is personal and is not made available to others," I told him as I glared into his eyes.

I squeezed my hand over his. I gathered up the heat from my body and pushed it all into my hand. I let the heat rise. The moment he realized what was going on in my hand, it was too late. I already had a death grip on him. I was much stronger than he was and he couldn't pull his hand away from me. I watched in his eyes as the heat started to burn the flesh of his skin. His eyes turned black, telling me that he was calling from within for more strength. A strength that was still of no match to me.

"We are in a building with humans," He reminded me through a growl deep in his throat.

"I'm not the one who is about ready to make a scene if he isn't careful," I told him calmly as I watched the pain radiate through his hand and into his body.

I could smell the burnt flesh and knew that others would be smelling it too. Thankfully, the humans will be too dumb to understand what it is they are smelling and wouldn't know where it was coming from. Just all of the other supernaturals in the room would know what was happening.

"Claudia?" I heard Bella say my name in concern once she could smell his burning flesh.

I could see her in my peripheral vision, looking over my shoulder to see what was happening.

"I am not and never will be for your pleasures, regardless of what you may think happened that night. I am still your worst nightmare and will have no problems blowing your body into the smallest bits with just the flick of my hand if you were to ever try to make a pass on me again," I told him sternly with a powerful dominance laced in my voice.

I could feel the fire in my hand start to ignite. The heat was more than hot enough now to create a flame. A flame that was burning his flesh only. I could feel the pain in his hand, the strain in his body as he did what he could to try to remove his hand without alerting any of the humans. He knows as well as I do that if he exposes what he is in front of the humans, that will be his life. His eyes quickly surrendered and turned back to gray. I knew by the look in his eyes that he was relinquishing.

"Yes, Your Majesty," He said softly with a nod.

I squeezed his hand even harder, cracking the bones without even a hint of strain in my hand. The tears welled up in his eyes as he did what he could to keep his pain from being known to the humans around us.

"I won't forget your face. Remember that for the next time, we may meet." I told him just as another one of the bones in his hand snapped and pushed through his skin.

A painful deep moan erupted in his throat as a few tears fell down his cheeks. I released the heat in my hand, sending a small burst of fire against his skin just as I released my grip on him. He hissed harshly as he quickly took his hand against his body and held in it place with his other hand. His hands were shaking as he nodded quickly in acceptance. After a few seconds of glaring at him, I finally turned away, allowing him to discreetly push the bones back into his hand so they could heal properly.

"Everything okay?" Bella asked me as I turned back to the plate of food that was in front of me.

"Yeah, I don't think we will have any problems tonight," I told her with a smile.

---

"Come," He said seductively as he pulled away from my kiss and from my hands wondering over his very sculpted body.

He stepped off of the bed and stepped a few steps away. I carefully pulled the blanket away from my body, only to hiss under my breath from the pain I felt in my lower abdomen. I quickly placed my hand there to create heat to warm the tender area.

"Are you alright?" He asked with concern as he knelt down next to me.

"I'll be alright. I think I need another day of rest to finish healing," I told him as I looked into his beautiful eyes.

"I'll give you all the time you need, there is no rush," He told me with a smile before leaning in and placing his lips on mine.

I put my hands around his neck and pulled him into me to deepen the kiss. Something about the coldness of his body, it does something to the heat of mine. He is the first of his kind, as in a turned vampire, I have ever kissed. The first I had ever touched intimately, and never did I ever think the deathly cold would arouse me like it does.

"Are you even listening to me?" I suddenly heard Bella ask the next morning as we were getting around to go to the store to pick up a few things so we didn't have to keep eating out each day, pulling me from my thoughts once again.

"Ah, yeah...um what did you ask?" I asked her.

"You were thinking of him again, weren't you?" She asked as she tilted her head and put her hand on her side as if she was disappointed in me or scolding me.

"No, of course not. I have too much on my plate at the moment to think about something as small as that," I told her with a shrug of my shoulders as if it wasn't a big deal.

"Bull s**t! You haven't been fully here since that night! He's all you ever think about! There's no way you're going to be able to do this with one of those other men because he's the one you want, not them." She told me as she moved her hand to the side as if she was pointing to a group of men.

"I do not! I just need to do something that will replace those thoughts with something better. It's not like it was all that great. I mean, he's dead...and cold...and..." I tried to say but stopped when I saw her glaring at me in disbelief.

"Can we just get back to our task at hand?" I asked her but she didn't say anything back.

"What is it you were asking me?" I continued to try to change the subject as I walked from the bathroom to my bedroom to finish getting ready.

"I had asked, where do you think we should start first to find one of the lucky four men even though I am having my doubts about any of this going as planned. I think you are either going to ruin your chances because you will only be thinking about him or the thoughts of him will cause you to turn them down," Bella told me sarcastically as she followed me.

"Any...I thought, to make my life easier and for this process to go a little faster, I would do the locating spell again to help locate them," I told her, keeping us on this topic instead of the other as I put my vest on over my long-sleeved shirt.

"How do you plan on choosing which one you will use? Especially when you can't stop thinking of the vampire?" She asked me, insisting that we continue to talk about him.

"He is not all I think about and I plan on doing it the old-fashioned way," I responded with a sarcastic smile of my own.

"I'm going to make them earn the right to be the father of the next royal witch even if a relationship with the baby isn't something they will have," I continued to keep her from bringing him back into the conversation as I grabbed my bag and headed out of the cabin.

I think she was getting the hint because the short drive to town, she didn't bring him back up again. In fact, we stayed silent as we drove into town and found the store.

"Since you claim he wouldn't be the cause, wouldn't doing the dating scene with them make it possible for you to hate all four of them? Make it harder for you to choose and then decide to not pick either of them?" She asked as we walked through the grocery store, obviously still hinting around to the other topic.

"I guess it's possible," I responded, ignoring her first statement as I looked on the shelves for items that we could use.

"Are you sure you want to keep looking? If you can't find one here because you can't stop thinking about him, then you'll never be able to find one. There will be no point in going somewhere else," She reminded me while bringing up the subject she would rather talk about, telling me she didn't get the hint that I wasn't in the mode to talk about it...again.

"I'm hoping that one of the four will be good enough and I won't have to continue," I told her as I put a few of the boxes into the cart.

"Yeah, with where your mind has been going? You can't even go one day without thinking about him or about that night. Might as well kiss this goodbye and just head back home to Florida where you know he won't show up at all because it's too sunny." She snapped at me with a little sarcasm and attitude.

"Just remember who was the one who wanted to come to this state in the first place." I reminded her and gave her a sarcastic glare of my own.

"Maybe so but I'm also not the one who chose the largest town closest to where you last heard he had moved to," She countered.

I opened my mouth to respond back to her but she cut me off before I had a chance to get a word in.

"And! Don't even use the excuse that you only chose this town because it had four of the suiters in it," She quickly said.

"It is the reason to come..." I tried to defend my decision only for her to cut me off again.

"No, it isn't. If that was the case, we would have gone to New York City where there were over 20 possibilities!" She said with a smirk as she grabbed the cart and started to walk away.

"Not to where there are only four," She continued with a wink as she walked away with a smile on her face because she knew that she was right and that she had me.