The King's Hybrid Slave

Chapter 2

Keyara's POV:

I slowly started to open my eyes. My head was killing me and I felt very cold and weak. I felt like I hadn't slept in several moonrises and was left out in the cold. I slowly sat up, putting my hand on my head as I leaned against a cold wet wall to my side.

"Easy, my child," I heard a soft voice, causing me to turn my head in her direction.

The woman looked younger than my mother but older than me. She had soft eyes and a gentle smile that was still filled with fear and pain as she helped me to sit.

"Where am I?" I asked as I looked around.

I was in a large room that was surrounded by cold wet brick that looked hundreds of seasons old. There was a wall of iron bars with a door in the center. There were several of us women in the room together. Mostly the age of the woman next to me all the way to young women who were my age, maybe a little younger. Several groups were huddled together to keep warm.

"We're in the King's dungeon." She told me in fear.

"The King? As in King Zarathustra?" I asked in surprise but she shook her head, confusing me more.

The man I saw I didn't think was King Zarathustra but I had never actually seen him, just heard about him from my mother but what I saw in the trees wasn't human. At least, I don't think what I saw was human.

"No, King Tiberius." She told me and I felt confused.

"I don't understand. Who is King Tiberius? I've never heard of this king." I told her and she gave me a look of sorrow.

"He's the king of the cold ones with the cold skin that drink blood from our kind." She told me and my eyes widened in fear.

My hand shot to the spot on my neck where the man bit me. I felt around but didn't feel anything on my neck. I didn't feel any cuts or anything. Even when I pulled my hand away, there wasn't any sign of any blood.

"You won't find any signs of the bite. They make it go away somehow." She told me and I felt my hand start to shake as I looked at it.

"But he wasn't cold. You said cold ones." I responded to her and she nodded.

"That's why he's king. He's not cold like all the others but he's worse. He's stronger and more powerful." She informed me, scaring me even more of this...this thing.

"Why are we all here?" I asked in a trembling voice as I looked into her sad eyes.

"He feeds on us. If he kills one of us or one accidentally dies, he goes out and hunts for a replacement which is why you are here. You're the replacement of the last one who died." She told me and I pulled away from her only to push into another woman, causing me to look behind me at her before looking back at the woman who was talking to me.

"Why all women?" I asked as I looked around, my heart beating wildly in my chest at the thought of why he would want only women.

"His preference is young women." She told me and I felt myself want to cry but I held in my tears the best that I could.

---

My head shot up quickly in fear when I heard the old iron doors open, echoing loudly through the air. I tried to push myself back on the hard wooden bench that I had been sitting on for so long that my entire body was hurting.

"Don't worry, you were recently bitten, he won't take you this quick after." That woman told me and I looked over at her.

"Too early seems to kill the people." She told me as she looked over at me.

I looked back at the man who opened the door and his eyes were glowing red. I wanted to run but the fairly large cell had a lot of women huddled together as if they were trying to keep themselves from looking appetizing. This whole setup and why we were here made me feel sick to my stomach.

"You!" The glowing-eyed man yelled as he pointed his finger at me and started to walk in my direction.

"No!" I screamed as I tried to push my way through the women but it was difficult with how many where in here and I kept tripping and stumbling over their legs and bodies as I tried to get through.

"You said it was too early!" I screamed at the woman when the man grabbed me quickly and pulled me out of the jail cell.

He held onto both of my hands as he held them tightly behind my back. His hands were ice cold and made my entire body shake from the cold coming off of his body. Even his fingers on my arms were like frozen water on the side of a barn.

I stayed quiet, knowing that if I were to talk, I could get hit for being rude and out of place or for overstepping my social status as warriors of a palace are of higher status than a servant of a manor. Besides a slave, I'm considered the second lowest of the social status and ranks. I have no right to fight back or right to talk back.

There wasn't much to look at as we walked the long corridors of the King's palace. The walls were old bricks with a lot of water seeping through the cracks. The iron candelabras on the wall held three candlesticks each that barely lit up our way. I could barely see in front of me but the man behind me seemed to know exactly where he was going. The floor we walked upon was nothing but cold dirt, making my feet and toes numb as the dirt filled between my toes and around my feet. There were more rooms with iron bars throughout the entire area and a few times I jumped in fright when a man baring his large pointy teeth and red glowing eyes as he or she ran into the iron bars.

After walking through the several walkways of dirt, we finally came to a set of cold stone narrow steps that lead up to a door. I shivered several times as my already frozen feet touched the stone on each step. The man behind me took out his ring of keys and unlocked the door in front of us. It creaked open with a loud high-pitched noise that hurt your ears that make you close your eyes as if that was going to make the sound any better.

I could feel right away when the door opened that it was warmer in this part of the castle. The stone walls looked cleaner and there were more candles all over to help light up the corridor. Even the floor was made of a smooth stone that felt nicer to my feet as I made my first step upon it. There was a red runner along the floor that felt nice to my frozen feet. That was all there was in the corridor until we walked into a larger room. There was red drapery hanging from the huge windows that were the size of both floors of my Master's manor that I once cleaned. I looked up and the ceiling was so high that I missed my step, causing me to stumble to the side and forcing the man to yank me back into step in front of him.

The windows were curved at the top and the drapery was partially pulled back with a tassel showing the white snow that had collected on the windows. The snow at the manor had melted at least 30 sunrises ago. It was still cold and rainy there but here, the snow and frozen water were still everywhere! Where was I?

There were beautiful large paintings along the walls with gold trimming the borders. There were large iron chandeliers hanging from the ceiling that were filled with candlesticks to help light up the room. It was much brighter in here and allowed me to see so much more than it was below.

The man pulled on me hard, pulling me from my thoughts as we started to walk up the grand stone staircase that curved with the round room. I had never seen something so magnificent and beautiful in my life! My Master's manor was nice but this is just out of this city gorgeous and luxurious! Even the second floor which was high off of the first floor that you could fit my Master's manor in it was just as tall and beautiful as the one below it!

We came to a set of large floor-to-ceiling double doors. The man behind me unlocked them with one of his many keys. He pushed them open so easily with one hand yet the way they opened and the sound they made as they moved suggested that they were a lot heavier than they appeared. The doors opened up into a large sitting area with large benches with soft fabrics over them that looked so soft that I could easily fall asleep upon one.

We walked through the large room till we got to another set of doors. This time, the man behind me took his fist and knocked hard on the door, echoing the sound through the room.

"You may enter!" I heard a loud powerful voice from the other side of the door.

My heart started to beat the hardest I think it has ever beat before. I jumped when the deep growl from the man behind me startled me as his hand squeezed my arms. I winced in pain from the strength that he possessed and the pain I felt in my arms. He quickly pushed me through the doors as they opened.

The heat from the fireplace warmed me instantly but it didn't take away the chill I felt from the man that stood in the room in front of the fire. He was tall and slender but looked somehow very strong and powerful with his black-as-night hair. Even from the side, he was so gorgeous to look at yet deadly all the same.

"Leave her," He said strongly without looking over at us and I felt a trembling sensation through the hands of the man who held me.

"Yes, your majesty," The man said behind me when he released his tight grip on my arm, and before I had a chance to look behind me, he was gone and the doors were shut.

I wanted to run to those doors and run away but somehow I was frozen in my spot, unable to move.

"You would never get away." The man said as he turned just slightly and looked at me.

"I would have you before you got to the doors. Besides, they are locked." He told me as if he was mocking me somehow.

"Who are you?" I asked him and he gave me a devilishly handsome smile.

"I told you already, in the forest of your village," He said as he glared at me which sent fear straight to my bone.

He turned the rest of the way around and walked closer to me. His eyes never left mine as he stared at me. His eyes were a cold gray color, nothing like those red glowing eyes I saw in the forest. Maybe the eyes only turn red and glow when he is in the dark, or like in that cold dark room below when that other man first appeared to take me away.

"Do you know who and what you are?" He asked me as I looked up in order to keep eye contact with him.

"I'm Keyara, just a common servant, your Majesty," I told him politely, assuming he was the king, as I looked away from his gaze so I wouldn't come across as being rude and disrespectful.

"Oh no, you are much more than that." He said softly as he placed his warm fingers under my chin and forced me to look back into his eyes.

"Your blood says you are much more than that." He told me and I swallowed hard as his smile grew on his lips.

"What's your age, my child?" He asked me.

Even though his voice was soft and welcoming it held so much power and strength in it that told you that he wasn't one to disobey. He held more power in just his eyes than I ever saw in all of my Master even when he tried to force himself on me.

"I was born to my mother 15 seasons ago," I told him and he nodded.

"You have never been with a man?" He asked me and I nervously shook my head.

The last time a man asked me questions like this, it caused him to try to impregnate me by force and I wasn't sure what would happen with the man standing in front of me. I may have been able to protect myself from the last man but I'm fairly certain that I won't be able to stop the man in this room with me from forcing himself between my legs if he so wished to.

"You will stay untouched." He told me and my eyes widened a touch in surprise.

"I don't understand. Why ask me if I've ever laid with a man if you have no intentions of doing so yourself?" I asked him and he smiled as he pulled his hand away from my chin.

"Laying with a man will change your hybrid blood and I plan on feeding on you for all time in this world." He told me and my eyes widened again in confusion and disbelief.

He chuckled as he looked into my face. He walked away from me a few steps before he stopped and put his hands behind his back.

"You don't know what you are, do you?" He asked me as he turned around to look at me.

"What I am?" I asked in confusion.

"I'm only what you see. I'm a poor young woman of breeding age who has no dowery to offer and only has the skills of a servant." I told him honestly but at the same time, not really telling him anything that he didn't already know.

"No, my sweet and tangy Keyara with a hint of sour. You aren't at all what you think you are. You aren't human, or at least, not all of you." He told me and I stood there in shock at the words he was saying.

"You may look and feel as if you are human but you are far from being human." He continued to tell me.

"You're a hybrid, a demon."