The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

She blinked, then blinked again. Her eyes were hazy and with the amount of blinking she was doing, it looked like she was trying to clear herself out of a fog.

He shook her hard, repeating the question. “Why has your hand not healed?”

The faster she answered his questions, the earlier he was going to be done with her. The close proximity was already fucking up his brain as it was. He didn’t need to spend more time with her than necessary.

“Its been just three days.” She shrugged, her eyes falling from his and fixing on his chest. He wondered why she did that. “I don’t know how it works here, but in my realm, helloing usually takes longer than that.”

He ignored her sarcasm. The fact that she still managed to talk back at him even in her situation surprised him, but he was not going to let that show. She obviously had no value for her life.

He had a sinking suspicion about why her hand had not healed. Actually, that suspicion bloomed from a seed Edgar had planted in his heart. That the sorceress was not yet an immortal, although he had not believed it at the time. He’d refused to. But now he was finding it hard to ignore the fact when proof was presented to him in its raw form.

“Immortals heal faster than that.” He forced through clenched teeth. “You were supposed to heal in a day. Two days tops if you’re not getting enough energy.”

She frowned, staring at him now as if he was crazy. “I’m not an immortal yet.”

He almost staggered back from the impact of her words.

No, this had to be a joke. This had to be a bloody joke. She had to be lying.

But then a voice whispered in his mind that if she was actually lying, why had her hand not healed? Why was the injury still there on her hand, glaring at him?

Guilt ate at him, but he forced it down. He simply refused to accept that she was a mortal. The great Maria Hatzi a mortal? It wasn’t just him; no one would believe it. There was no way she would endanger herself severally the way she did when she was still a mortal.

One blow from her immortal, one backhand from even the youngest of immortals could end her life, and yet she went around without fear?

She had ventured into a calm of vampires and killed their king and queen fully knowing that a stray hit could kill her?

No. There was no way this woman was a mortal.

“Don’t lie to me.” He shook her again, as if to punctuate his words.

She tried to yank her hand out of his, but he held tight, glaring at her through narrowed eyes and daring her to challenge him, which she didn’t disappoint him by doing exactly so. “Let me go.”Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

“Answer my fucking question.”

“No. Let me go.” She tried to force her hand out of his again and this time, her strength surprised him.

“Not until you answer my fucking question, Princess.”

“I already answered your question, asshole. Now let me go.” She punctuated the insult with a yank of her hand and Christ, he couldn’t ignore the spark her fire ignited in him anymore.

With a groan, he walked her backwards until her back was pressed firmly against the wall and he was sure that her shoulder blades had to be digging into the concrete painfully, but he didn’t care. He was far past caring.

Maybe a tiny bit of him even wanted her to experience the pain too.

Her eyes widened for a moment, before in less than ten seconds, heat filled her eyes and her lids lowered, mirroring his. Hell, she wanted this. He wanted it too. What reason did he have not to give the both of them what they wanted? He could go back to hating her after, but for now, they could have this and get it over with.

Just this kiss…

He’d had an extremely rough day. Maybe this was his compensation. Maybe he deserved to have this forbidden kiss with her in the dark, where no one would know.

As his head descended, the idea to kiss her decided to become more and more promising. She licked her lips, wetting it and his shaft shot hard as stone so fast that he almost went dizzy from the speed at which his blood rushed south of his body.

He groaned again as he stared at the pump flesh, now a glistening pink with her saliva. He bent to close the remaining distance between their lips when a growling sound reached his ears.

It took him quite a while to process where the sound had come from-it was from her stomach; she was hungry-, what was happening and what had just happened. When he did, he wrenched away from her, casting her a look of disgust as if she was to blame for the situation he found himself in.

And maybe she was.

He’d had the sinking suspicion that she was trying to bewitch him and now, he was sure. How could he forget himself so easily around her? Why did his self control turn to dust whenever he was in the same room as her?

He had been having doubts about whether this body belonged to her of if she’d simply worn it because she intended to seduce him with it, but as the days went by, he started to come to the conclusion that it was indeed her body. He had also sought out the witch who sold the collar to him and asked if it was possible that Maria was still using her powers, but the witch had assured him that there was no way she could.

Which meant that this curvy little body actually belonged to the witch. He had to admit that she was sexy even though he hated it.

But he wasn’t supposed to be noticing that. He was not supposed to be looking at her at all.

Shaking his head, he tried to go back to the conversation they’d been having before. “You’re a mortal.”

It was not a question; It was a statement.

“Yes. I’ve not frozen into my immortality yet.” She said in a shaky voice, wrapping her arms around her stomach. He thought he caught a wince.

He refused to feel bad. He absolutely refused to. He might have gone a bit far and taken his anger and frustration from the day’s events out on her, but she’d had it coming. She should know better than to try to escape.

If she didn’t before, now she did.

He angled his head. “And yet, you take risks most mortals would think twice before taking.”

She shrugged, but didn’t say anything in reply. She had gone back to staring at his chest instead of holding eye contact with him. He hated it, but he also didn’t know why he should care. He shouldn’t care about her eyes on his.

He was done with this. He was done with her. He gripped her hand and ignoring the current that passed through them, pulled her along with him as he walked back to the cells.

When he passed several guards at their stations, he didn’t miss the surprised expressions they tried to hide. Not that he particularly cared anyway. He could give a fuck what they thought.

He was going to line them up and have some words with them today. One of his men’s incompetence that almost led in Maria escaping. She was his only means of finding his sister. And she’d almost escaped.

As for the man who had even let the thought of touching her cross his mind, he was going to pay for it. To think that he could do whatever it was he wanted with her and he would get away with it.

He felt anger at Edgar in that moment for leaving his duties just because he wanted to stop him from killing his uncle. Bran would without second thoughts, pick his uncle’s death over the sorceress getting assaulted by a guard of his.

And he didn’t know what that said about him. Or what it said about his confusing feelings towards the sorceress.

Edgar was standing outside the throne room when they passed, watching them with a look Bran was not interested in figuring out what it was. Bran’s blood boiled when he reached her cell and found his guard pacing in the cell. He looked up when he heard them entering and his eyes widened with fear.

He knew what his incompetence had almost cost Bran. He also knew that he was going to pay for it with his life.

Bran moved on autopilot as he deposited Maria in her cell, dragged his man out with a hand at his nape, looked the gate, before storming out with the worthless piece of shit walking in front of him, his head hanging low.

He made a mental note to tell Edgar to give Maria meals that contained more nutrients. If she really was mortal, then she was only a few days away from falling ill.

And he couldn’t have that.