The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

“If you value what is left of your miserable fucking life, you will tell me where my sister is right now.”

Bran might as well be talking to himself because there was no sign on the man’s face to show that he’d just heard what Bran said. His eyes remained completely shut and his face, blank.

Making a fist, Bran reared his hand back and sent his fist flying into the man’s face, getting him right in his nose.

The asshole jerked from the impact and groaned, his hands flying to his face to cradle his broken bone, confirming Bran’s suspicions that the man actually was alive but was just pretending that he wasn’t so that Bran would think him dead and abandon him.

This was the man that had betrayed him. The man that had given confidential information to Ariti. The man that had indirectly contributed to him losing Maria.

At the thought, his heart gave a sharp throb and an ache started at the back of his right eye. Hating the man even more for what he had caused him, Bran sent two more punches into the man’s face and only stopped because he still needed him to answer his question.

“Where the hell is my sister?” Bran yelled, gripping the man by his collar and shaking him.

The man groaned and his head lolled to the side. “Please…”

“Tell me where my sister is right fucking now or I’m going to extinguish the remaining life from your body so fucking slowly that you’ll beg me to make it quick.” Bran sneered, his hands tightening on the man’s collar with the urge to follow through on his threats. “I will tear your limbs out one by one until you beg me to put an end to your suffering.”

The air reeked of something acidic and Bran felt something touching his boots. Looking down, he saw that the man had pissed himself.

A grimace formed on Bran’s face. How fucking perfect.

“Tell me.” The man’s eyes has glassed over-probably-with fear and Bran had to shake him again to get him to focus.

Stammering, he said, “S-she’s being held close to the cells. That was where the portal led us.”

Close to the cells? In his castle?

His sister had been within reach this entire time they had been fighting and he didn’t know?

Lips peeling back from his teeth in anger, Bran gripped the man’s head in his two hands and twisted, snapping the man’s neck. His head dropped to the ground with a thud, eyes rolled back.

Bran rose from where he had been crouching next to the man and wiped the urine on his boots on the man’s shirt before side-stepping him, his eyes lingering on the dead corpses on his living room floor.

Fuck, he couldn’t believe that Maria had done this without even knowing that she’d done it. He suspected that she had hit her immortality but she hadn’t known either.

He believed that she had, because after that moment when she’d screamed and fallen everyone in the room, when she’d stood, she’d changed. She had appeared rounder, fuller. Her hips had been fuller, her breasts rounder and her hair longer. Even the way she walked had been different, her strides more sensual, the greys of her eyes darker.

And, fuck, Bran had never been more attracted to her than he’d been in that moment and he had never loved her more than he did when she’d turned and faced him with her fierce expression.

Yes. Yes, he loved her.

It was just unfortunate that it had taken her leaving him for him to realize that.

He’d wanted to tell her.

To tell her that she was it for him, to convince her to come back. Hell, he had been willing to get down on his knees and beg, but she had not been willing to listen to him. She had been too angry, her feelings too raw.

He would give her a few hours even though it fucking killed him. He would give her a few hours to calm down, then he would go after her.

As he passed Elizabeth, he saw that her fingers were still twitching with life but not for long. Her injuries were fatal and in less than an hour time, she would be out cold. He felt absolutely nothing at all for his ex-lover. She deserved a worse fate for betraying him the way that she had.

Bran was already running down the hallway when he suddenly skidded to a halt, cursed then traced. Why on earth had he been using his legs when he could easily trace?

That just showed how lost he was. How out of sorts he was from the events of the day, the betrayals he had suffered and the loss of his mate.

He appeared in the corridor that led to the cells and saw that the space was packed full with bound men and women. The sight answered the question of where his men had been when Ariti had them bound in the living room.

So him and the sorceress had bound all his men and left them down here so that they would not be able to help.

“What are you all doing down here?” He asked as he made his way through the throng of bodies, searching for the one that resembled his sister.

“We were bound by the sorceress.” One man leaning back against the wall answered. “The ropes are hexed so that even if we try to trace out of them, we cannot.”

Now that answered Bran’s other question.

Leaning down, he quickly untied the man’s hands and legs. “Untie the other men.”

He didn’t wait for the man to reply. He hastily continued his search for his sister until he found a slight form at the end of the corridor, her knees pulled up and her head bent low.

Bran’s heart gave a sharp pang from both excitement and relief.

With her milky white skin and bright blue gown, Iris would stand out anywhere even if she tried to blend in as much as she could.

Bran hurried over to her and tapped her on her shoulder. “Iris.” She didn’t move. “Iris, we have to leave.”

“Leave me alone.” The words were muffled by her gown.

“I would if I could but you’re the reason I’m here and-”

Her head flew up immediately and her eyes grew wide. “Brother?”

Words could not describe how happy Bran was to finally see and hold his sister after so long. To know within him that the war was over, that the people would have their princess back and that he would have his sister back, was almost impossible for him to believe.

Joy filled him, but it was held back by one thing. Sadness that Maria was not with them to celebrate. That she was the only reason Iris was here because he’d had to give her up.

And that knowledge was why Bran couldn’t muster up a smile for his sister no matter how hard he tried.

So that she wouldn’t worry, he crushed her to him and hugged her tightly, breathing in her familiar scent, although tainted by grit, smoke and dirt.