The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

Immediately he stepped into the house, he knew that there was something wrong.

It wasn’t just the fact that the gate was missing, that the walls supporting the gates weren’t there anymore, or the fact that three dead bodies awaited them in the yard. No, it was the fact that when he’d stepped into the main house, he’d heard nothing.

Nothing at all.

The sounds that usually came from the cook when she was busy in the kitchen, the children training at the back of the house, Corey’s cousin watching TV upstairs, none of it.

There was just nothing.

He supported Corey over to a couch and walked away, telling him that he’d be back shortly as he ran up the stairs, going straight to Maria’s room. His heart caught in his throat when he pushed the door open and saw that her room was empty. He stalked into her closet and checked, praying that she was miraculously hiding in there because she didn’t want to see him, but she wasn’t in there too.

Her bed, clothes, everything was in there. But she wasn’t.

He grabbed the single wooden chair in the room and threw it, watching it hit the wall and scatter into many bits before, not wanting to destroy anything anymore, he stalked out of the room and found his way back downstairs, seeing that a few men were already gathered around, relaying everything that had happened to Corey.

They stopped talking when they noticed that he was there, apprehension showing on their faces.

“Anyone care to tell me what the hell happened between the two hours that we were gone and now?” Bran asked. When none of the men made any move to speak, he snapped. “Well?”

A man snapped to attention and told Bran in detail everything that happened. How a sorceress and an army of men had showed up and destroyed the gate, killed the three men he’d assigned to Maria and taken her with them-unwillingly, the guard added, because apparently, they’d put a bag over her face.

Why would her own father do that to her?

“Are you sure this man you saw was her father and not some other person?” He asked the man just to be sure.

“It was her father.” The man confirmed. “I’m very sure of it.”

Still, some things about his story didn’t add up. First and foremost being that her own father had resorted to forcing her out of here, putting a bag over her face like she was being kidnapped.

Then second was that the man told him that the sorceress killed everyone she saw. How had she not killed the man then?

When he asked the man this, the man told him that he’d perched by one of the windows on the third floor and watched everything from there. Bran didn’t know whether to kill the man for his cowardliness or to reward him because if not for him, Bran wouldn’t have known what happened.

He ended up doing neither.

Fuck, Bran thought as he ran his hand through his hair, so agitated, he didn’t even know when he started pulling on the strands. It wasn’t until his skull felt as if it was splitting into two that he realised just how hard he was pulling on it.

“Shit,” he cursed out, pacing. He didn’t even give a flying fuck that the men were watching him. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

He carried a couch and threw it across the room then stormed out, the sound of the couch crashing against the wall not doing anything for him. He’d felt Corey’s tired eyes on him, watching him the entire time, but the man hadn’t said a thing, probably coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t the right time.

***

Bran heard the door creak open behind him, but he didn’t turn. He already knew who it was. There was only one person who could come into the room like that without knocking and it was no one other than Corey.

He cocked a brow when he saw the man struggling over to sit on the couch beside Bran, his hand bandaged and his injuries stitched. In less than a week, the injuries would heal completely and the marks from the stitches would be invisible.

Bran downed the scotch in his glass and got up, walking to the other side of the room to refill it.

That was the only thing he’d been doing ever since he got back, drinking and thinking, his mind working overtime. There were so many questions running through his mind.

What would he do now?

Should he strike back?

Should he steal her back?

And right there was the problem. That bloody word.

Steal.

That was what he would be doing if he went back into the realm of Sorceri to get Maria back, because she definitely wouldn’t be coming back with him willingly. And then even if he did bring her back with him, what was the point? Why was he bringing her back?

If the man’s story was true-and Bran believed it was-then the sorceress had obviously been taken by her father and that was what she’d always wanted, wasn’t it?

Just this afternoon, they’d fought over the same thing. She, wanting to escape and him catching her and bringing her back. The argument had gotten so heated that she’d slapped him so hard, his ears had ringed even minutes later. And God, it had turned him on so fucking much, he’d battled a raging hard-on even while cutting Corey out of his chains.

And it wasn’t like she knew where his sister was. He’d asked her several times, even gone as far as torturing her and summoning an oracle and yet, he still hadn’t gotten answers.

If Bran was being completely honest, a huge part of him was starting to believe that she really didn’t know where his sister was. Honestly, he didn’t want to think about what that fully meant because she was the one that had killed his parents and taken his sister.

Could that mean that she really had been working on orders?

Believing that would mean rethinking everything he knew about her. It would mean seeing her in a different light.

But Bran didn’t want to. He didn’t want to believe that was possible.

“I’ve been thinking,” His friend started, already sounding better than he did a few hours ago. “And I still don’t know how he was able to trace you and the sorceress to my house.”

After hours of racking his head, Bran still hadn’t been able to answer that question.

There were only two possibilities. One, that Maria had somehow managed to reach her father and tell him where she was, and two, that they’d been seen by Ariti’s spies and they’d filled him on where they were.

The former wasn’t possible unless she’d gotten her hands on a phone and used it, but then Corey’s men watched her constantly and there was no way she could have managed to do that. The latter, however, would mean that he hadn’t been as careful as he thought he’d been.

That made his blood boil, but it was very much possible.

Cradling his glass in hand, Bran walked over to the couch. “He probably had us followed.”

He thought back to that prickly feeling of being watched he’d felt in Elizabeth’s bar when he’d been following her up to her room. He’d turned around but there had been no-one there and he hadn’t thought much about it, thinking that he’d just been paranoid and that the stress was finally getting to him.

“He definitely had us followed,” he said with more conviction as he dropped next to Corey.

Hell, he should have known better. His instincts had never failed him; they’d always been spot on. So why had he ignored that feeling?

Now see what it had cost him.

“Her father’s taken her back, Bran.” Corey delivered flatly. “It’s over”

Bran snapped to attention at that. “No, it’s not.”

“It’s not?” Corey asked innocently.

It was obviously fake.

“Do you forget how important she is to me?” When his friend gave him a pointed look, he paused, replayed the words in his head, and realised how they’d come out. Shit. “What I mean, is that she’s the only one who knows where my sister is. If I let her go, I might as well kiss all the chances of seeing my sister again goodbye.”Nôvel/Dr(a)ma.Org - Content owner.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” his friend cursed suddenly, surprising him. “You know that’s not true, Bran, so would you stop saying it like you believe it?”

Bran’s heart hammered in his chest because he knew exactly where his friend was going, and he couldn’t say for certain whether the man was wrong or not.

“It was you who told me that she doesn’t really know where you sister is not long ago.” Corey continued, turning to face him as much as his injured hand would allow him. “You sounded so sure when I asked you that day and I knew that for you to come to that conclusion, you must have been thoroughly convinced. So why do you still say that she knows where your sister is?” His eyes searched Bran’s face. “You don’t truly believe that.”

Bran hung his head, unable to look his friend in the eye after calling his bluff like that.

Corey was right.

Bran believed that she really didn’t know where his sister was. No mortal would allow their hand to be cut off because they were withholding information, not when they knew that they would freeze into their immortality that way.

Now, the question was; Why did he still want to go after her even when she was of no use to him?

“Fuck,” he cursed, slouching in the couch.

Some minutes later, he heard the door creak open and close, signaling his friend’s departure.