The Vampire King’s Captive

MARIA

If she focused on the sound of the person chasing after her, she would go crazy, so she tried to block it out and instead, tried to put as much force into her starving limbs and run faster.

As fast as she could considering that she had not eaten a decent meal in a while and she was weaker than ever.

Running back in the direction she had come from would mean going back to her cell and even though that might be a better alternative than letting whomever was chasing her catch her-she had a very strong belief that it was her captor-she still wanted to leave this fucking place.

She had to find her way out. She had to go back home. She didn’t know how, but she would find a way. She just needed to get hell out of here first.

Her steps almost faltered when the suspicion that there was no way she was going to be able to escape hit her.

What exactly did she think she was doing? What was her plan? Did she hope to run out there and scream for help? And even if she did, did she really believe that she was going to get the help she wanted? From vampires that she had killed their king and queen?

They would seize her and return her back into the hands of her captor. There was no way they were going to help her.

The thought almost had her stopping and submitting herself to her fate, but then she remembered that her glamour had worn off and there was no way they were going to be able to recognise her. They wouldn’t know who she was.

That sent a surge of strength into her battered body and she found herself running faster than she had ever run, her feet barely touching the ground before the other one lifted.

She spied a door a few feet away with bursts of light trickling in. Her heart face a joyful thud against her chest. She could do it. She was going to get out of-

A sharp tug on her hair had her crying out in pain. The sound was cut off abruptly when she was suddenly launched in the air, flying backwards until she slammed into a wall, then dropped on the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Before she could sit up and think about what just happened, two legs came into her line of vision and she tried to scoot away, but she already had her back to the wall; there was no where for her to go.

She could do nothing but watch with wide eyes and whimper in pain as the big man leaned down until he was bending over her. He yanked her up by her hand and with only his hand on her, she could tell who it was. Her captor. She had been right when she guessed that he was the one chasing after her.

He pulled on her hand until she was sitting with her back against the wall, her head tilted up as she stared at him, unable to stop the silent tears that trickled down her face, her back singing in pain from the impact with the wall.

Gods, she had never met such a cruel man.

As if he heard her thoughts and wanted to shoe her just how much more cruel he could be, his right hand gripped her face and it was so big that he covered the whole span of her face.

Eyes blazing with fire, he squeezed her jaws tight and continued to do it until she thought she was going to die from the pain. “You think to run from me?” His voice was beastly and if she didn’t know better, she would have thought that he was an animal.

It was at that moment that she realised he could easily just kill her with a snap of his finger and no one would know. No one would come for her, no one would miss her. Because she didn’t have anyone.

The only person she had could very well be dead.

She thought that he would kill her. She half expected him to. To end her life there on the floor like one of the lowly guards or maids back at the palace. Never had she thought that she would be in such a position.

“I should kill you right now.” He sneered, his lips pulled back from his teeth in his anger.

Gods, he might. He just might.

She was surprised that he bones had not started to crack under the pressure from his hands, because to her, it felt like her face was not her own anymore. If he kept at it for a bit more, she would definitely die from the pain.

Yet then he wrenched his hand away from her face like it burned him, then took several steps back. Her head immediately sagged against the wall, lolling to the side as she tried to stretch jaws just to check if she still could. She almost cried out in relief when her lips moved the way she commanded them to, even though it pained her.

She faced him back, saw him sweep his eyes along her frame, before cursing and turning away. He stood there with his back to her and hands by his sides for several minutes. To her, it looked like he was trying to calm himself, but she couldn’t be so sure.

Maybe he was just deciding on what to do with her.

If she’d almost had her hand chopped off before because he thought that she was lying to him, then he was definitely going to kill her for attempting to sneak away.

When he turned back to her, the anger was still evident in his expression, but it was more controlled than it had been before. “How did you escape?”

She thought about lying to him, but then remembered how the last time had gone when he thought that she was.

“The man that brought my food left the keys in the lock.” She told him. “I took it, locked him inside and ran away.”

To say that he didn’t believe her would be a huge understatement. “How did you manage to get your hand on the keys without him noticing you? You’d better not be lying to me.”

She rearranged on the floor, her back aching her. Why not give him the whole story? Maybe then the guard who had tried to rape her would be killed for even thinking about doing something like that. That was exactly what he deserved, was it not?

With her eyes somewhere on his chest, she told him said, “When he came in, after dropping my food, he came to me and tried to… touch me. I hit him and ran out of the cell before he could recover. I looked him in there so that he wouldn’t be able to follow me.”

Her captor took two steps towards her, before seeing to force himself to stay where he was. He was angry again, the emotion rolling off of him in waves. What she didn’t know was if the anger was aimed at her or the guard who had tried to rape her.

She would very much like to believe it was the latter, else she was dead meat.

“You’re telling me that my guard tried to put his hand on you?”

“Yes.” She still wasn’t looking at him. She hated what the sight of his face made her feel even after everything he had done to her.

What was wrong with her? She couldn’t hate her traitorous body any more than she did in that moment.

There was a long bout of silence. One in which she wondered what was going through his head. She snuck a glance at his face to try to gauge his thoughts, but as usually, his face was blank. She didn’t know what he was thinking.

How did the man hide his emotions so well?

And what the hell was his name anyway?

“What did you think you were doing exactly?” The boom of his voice surprised her and had her eyes flying up to his narrowed ones. “Were you going to bring a portal out from thin air? Do you forget you don’t have your powers anymore?” He took one menacing step towards her, pointing to the door she had been heading for. “Say that door actually is open, do you plan to run outside and right past my guards? You think they would let you out of these walls?” He took another step towards her and she drew her knees up protectively. “Make no mistake, Princess, if you ever try to run away from me, I or my men would catch you and you would be back where you started. Or worse. Because if you pull a move like this again, I’m going to cut back on your meals. Thrice a week.”

Her stomach dropped.Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

Three meals in a week? She could barely survive as it was with seven.

He paused, probably to make sure that everything he’d said had simmered into her head, before saying, “Understood?”

Later, she would blame her infamous anger. But as of now, she didn’t know what possessed her to open her mouth.

“I saw an in and I took it.”

If she could take the words and stuff them back inside her mouth and down her throat, she would. But it was too late.

His nostrils flared and in a flash, he had yanked her up until she was standing. She whimpered when the new position caused the pain in her back and side to increase. Her ribs would probably be tinged purple by now.

He paused, frowning as he looked down at her hand. When she followed his gaze, she saw that he was staring at the cut on her wrist that was healing slowly. It didn’t hurt anymore, except for when pressure was put on it.

His head lifted and confused green eyes pinned her to the spot. “Why has your hand not healed?”