The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

“That’s not news, Maria, and that’s not what I’m asking.”

“I’ll get there,” the words came out hard and clipped, yet her tone was soft, cautious. “Can you just let me talk?”

Bran bit his tongue and told himself to shut the hell up and let her talk now that she was willing to.

But she was sitting on the other side of the room, far from him, and she looked so small, so vulnerable with her hands clasped on her thighs like that and he felt this strange urge to protect her even though there was nothing to protect her from.

“Okay, back to what I was saying…” Maria sighed and with her eyes fixed on her hands, started talking. “As you well know, my father is hated by a lot of people because of his abusive use of power. I really can’t say how it started, I suppose he’s always had a thing for being evil, but anyway, he wanted to expand far outside the realm of Sorceri. He already had lands, countless possessions, but his greed made him want more and when he goes after something, he does anything to get it. And I mean anything.”

She took a deep breath, one that Bran assumed was for courage and pushed on. “The first time he made me kill was when I was fifteen.”

Bran shot up from the bed and started pacing. He’d braced himself for the information he knew was to come because he’d known that it would be triggering for him, but he didn’t think it would affect him like this.

Bran had faced a lot of enemies, he’d fought against a lot of opponents that he loathed, but never had he felt hate like what he felt for Maria’s father. He didn’t even like referring to him as her father because it just didn’t make sense to him that a man as hateful as Ariti could have birthed someone as selfless as Maria.Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

“Almost a week before my birthday, his powers got… got witheld. The leaders, they…” She shook her head, her eyes bouncing between him and her hands, and her breaths quickened. “You’re making me nervous with your pacing. Can you please sit?”

He glared at her. It wasn’t deliberate, he didn’t really mean to. But it was something that he’d become so used to doing whenever she so much as spoke to him that he didn’t think twice before doing it and now when he did it, it felt wrong.

He half expected her to glare right back at him but he was surprised when she flinched back. It gave him pause.

She’d reacted exactly like that when he’d asked her about her past and it was then Bran started to realize that he’d only been thinking about how triggering the topic would be for him-he hadn’t even thought about how it must be for her. Her that had gone through the main ordeal.

Fuck.

He ground down on his molars as he stalked back over to the bed and sat on it woodenly, his movements robotic. Sitting when he felt like this was the last thing on his mind but he would do it if it would make this whole thing easier for her.

She blew out a breath which caused the little tendril of hair in front of her face to float around. “Thank you,” she breathed and Bran felt an odd feeling spear into his chest at how beautiful she was.

He doubted she knew. If she did, she wouldn’t be sitting there in front of him. She wouldn’t be letting her father treat her the way he was.

She’d do whatever she could to set herself free because she was a goddess. And she deserved to be treated as such.

Oh, like how you’re treating her?, a sarcastic little voice asked in Bran’s head but he ignored it and tried to focus on what she was saying and not how delectable she looked.

Was this how she looked when she just woke up? If so, then he had to come to her room and watch her sleep more because hell, she was nothing short of lovely with her messy hair, beautiful soft face, trusting look and her baggy T-shirt which served as a gown for her since it reached her mid-thighs.

He might probably never admit it to her but he had come into the room for one reason-to watch her sleep. It hadn’t been a conscious decision. He’d just been pissed, frustrated and a bit lost and he’d wanted to leave but then somehow, he’d traced to her room.

For the first minute, he’d questioned himself as to why he’d traced to her room accidentally but then he’d taken one look at her sleeping form, so innocent and peaceful, and he’d been unable to leave.

“So the leaders had a meeting about Ariti and they all came to the conclusion that his powers should be withheld temporarily,” she continued. “He went crazy without his powers and he tried to convince them to give him back but they refused. They would only give him back his powers if they saw improvements in his character and until then, they were going to hold onto them.”

Bran’s heart quickened and he suspected that he knew what was coming. He was not going to like it. At all.

“I believe he attempted killing some of them but obviously, he didn’t succeed.” She smiled softly at that. Almost bitterly. “I remember a few days to my birthday, he really started to go crazy. He tried to make me do a few things that I wasn’t comfortable with. Torture some people, kill them, but I never agreed. I always fought him on it.” She swallowed and Bran tensed, waiting for her next words. “A day to my birthday, he… he put my mother in a state of suffering and told me that if I didn’t do anything he wanted me to do, my mother was going to pay for it.”

“What do you mean he put her in a state of suffering?” The words came out rough, like gravel.

“He put her in limbo,” there was a catch in her voice. “Asked one of his sorcerer friends to do it. In limbo, time freezes. There’s nothing but darkness and emptiness. When a person is in limbo, they aren’t conscious of what happens in their physical world. It’s like they’re sleeping, but it’s not really sleep. They’re suffering, struggling and trying to find their way out but coming up short. However, they can feel pain.