The Vampire King’s Captive

MARIA

It was in that moment that Maria realised she might actually deserve what was coming for her. Was this how her victims felt when she was about to take their lives? They had to feel even worse than this because it was her hand that was going to be chopped off. Not her life.

How many times had she stood before her victims with her arms raised ready to unleash hell on them?

Just last week, that teenage girl had sat on the floor of the palace courtroom with her head held high ready to receive her death blow. Why couldn’t Maria find that boldness now? Why was she shaking life a leaf as she watched the blade inch closer to her skin?

Before today, somehow, at the back of her mind, Maria had conceded that she did evil things to people. But not once had she actually seen herself as evil. Now that she was in this position, a position even more preferable to the ones she had put people in several times, she realised that she was an evil person.

Any person who could make another person feel this way was evil. She was sweating, shaking and frankly, she was scared as shit.

The tips of the blade had spikes. It was sure to leave an ugly scar. The first time the blade touched her, she squeaked and jumped in the chair, the bands binding her to the chair, quickly pulling her back down. The second time the blade touched her, she let out a full blown scream and she didn’t stop.

Pure, unfettered pain speared up her hand, sharpening at the point the blade touched her skin and then spreading outward slowly, until her hand felt like lead and suddenly became ten times heavier.

Unable to look at her flesh giving way, she turned her face away, biting at her lip to stop her scream, but that didn’t help. Tears spilled faster down her cheek, falling from her face and hitting her shirt.

She couldn’t look at the man who was doing this to her, neither could she look at the man that had ordered it. They were monsters, watching her suffer like this and probably enjoying every single second of it. It was that victory that she couldn’t bear to see on their faces that had her staring at the floor beside her, trying to control her screams as best as she could.

She wished she could think about anything else, but the pain was so profound, so absolute and it was the only thing that she could think about.

A sob escaped her lips and she flat out started crying. Bawling her eyes out, to be honest. In front of these vile men. She hated herself almost as much as she hated him.

“Enough.” Her captor yelled. She knew his voice. She didn’t have to look up to know that it was him.

She tried to control her sobs, thinking that he was talking to her. It was when the man pressed the button and the blade stopped moving, that she realised that he had been talking to the man torturing her.

Immediately the blade stopped moving, she let out a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived because pain speared up her hand and she tried-and failed-to free her other arm so that she could cradle the injured one.

Her blood had pooled underneath her hand and was starting to spread out slowly on the table. Tears in her eyes, she looked up at the man who had tortured her, hating him so much in that moment.

She paused when she saw that his eyes were trained on her injured hand-on the blood, and he swiped his tongue along his bottom lip. The movement caused the two sharp fangs on each side of his mouth to become visible to her.

Gods, he was a vampire! And the idiot was fantasizing about drinking her blood.

Rage boiled like larva in her belly.

Her eyes snapped to the far side of the room when she heard movement. Her captor had pushed away from his chair, and was stomping towards her in barely leashed fury.

Why was he staring at her like he wanted to chop her head off-or, considering the direction he was leaning, her hand?

And why had he ordered the man to cease?

Perhaps he wanted to question her a bit and then when she still didn’t give him the answers that he so seeked, he would ask the man to press the button for the blade to cut her hand off completely?

Her hand throbbed in pain and she wanted to look at it to know the extent of the damage, but she was too scared to look. What if a huge chunk of her hand had gone? Gods, she was going to scar. The Sorceri detested scars. A person with scars was considered less than perfect. Which was basically an abomination.

He stormed towards her, shoved the man away without even looking at him, then proceeded to unlock all the shackles keeping her from moving. She noticed that he was extra careful when he freed her injured hand and had she been able to, she would have frowned in confusion.

Because she was confused as hell right now. Why was he freeing her? Why did he push his own man away like he had done something wrong to him?

The moment her injured hand was freed, she peeked at it, then turned her face away quickly. She didn’t want to look at it. She was too scared. She couldn’t believe that she was going to scar.

The thought almost had fresh tears springing to her eyes.

Gods, how she hated this man.

He walked around the table to the chair she was sitting on and bent to free her legs, which put him at exact height with him. She kept her eyes firmly on a spot on the table, intent on not looking at him. Swiftly, he finished with the ties and he got up.

She still had her hands stretched out in front of her, too scared of dragging them back only to find out that a chunk of the injured hand-her left hand-was hanging out. She would throw up. Hopefully, on her captor.

She really needed to stop referring to him as her captor and ask him what his name was. But that was before he had proceeded to rip her hand from her body. That was before when she thought that he was capable of feeling emotions. Now, she knew that he didn’t feel anything but hate and anger.

And she was done not seeing him as the enemy.

He seemed to hesitate for a bit before shoving his arms out and wrapping them around her. Frozen in shock and disbelief and any other emotion suitable for the situation on ground, Maria could do nothing but stare as he lifted her from the chair and into his arms.

He had one arm wrapped around her hip, very close to her ass and the other around her shoulders, bringing her close to himself. She let out a scream when the position made her injured arm touch his skin. She quickly cradled it against her chest like a new born child.

“Sorry.” He muttered as he rearranged her in his hold. Admittedly, this position made her feel more comfortable.

Okay, she wasn’t going to lie, she was confused about a lot of things. The major one being him carrying her. Like actually touching her, and not yelling at her and calling her a sorceress, since he seemed to hate them so much.

With her in his arms, he turned around and walked out of the room without a single word to the man whom he had assigned to torture her.

Her sobs had reduced to little whimpers and against unconsciously, she burrowed her face into the warmth his chest provided. She told herself that she was only doing that because he was carrying her and there was no way her face wouldn’t rest on his chest.

His chest was warm, surprisingly seeing as he was a vampire, and strong. But there was no sound of a heartbeat, again, that was normal with vampires, but that wasn’t the only thing it meant. What it meant, was that he was an unmated vampire. He had not found his mate yet.

And she had absolutely no idea why she felt a huge amount of relief because of that.

One of the things that Maria would stew on later, was the fact that he didn’t take her to the cells. Not directly anyway.

They walked down the long corridor and entered a small room to the left. He transferred most of her weight onto one of his hands, again, careful not to nudge her injured hand and with his other hand, opened the door.

He flipped a switch to turn on the light and she squinted when they came on.

She couldn’t even focus on the details of the room. How could she when her enemy was right there for her to look at. Add that to the fact that he was already staring down at her with an expression she couldn’t name.

He walked them into the room and deposited her on a couch. Gods, it was so soft and inviting she almost forgot about her injury and purred.

The sound caught him by surprise because he looked at her quickly with a brow raised. She ignored him and searched for something else to fix her eyes on. Namely, the huge painting on the wall of the royal family.

Him, his parents and the sister he spoke of. The picture couldn’t have been from a long time back because he looked exactly the same way he looked now, but she knew that the picture couldn’t have been from anytime soon because his parents weren’t alive anymore.

Because of her.

Her heart gave a guilty pang.

She looked away quickly, turning to watch him grab a small box out of a cupboard and walk towards her.

He seemed to be watching her as warily as she was watching him. They both looked like they didn’t know what to do with themselves and it was quite obvious that they were doing something that they didn’t usually do.

That he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

He sighed, resigned, and dropped the box he was holding at her feet, went away to drag a wooden chair over and placed it in front of hers.

Dropping down on it, he was so soul-crushingly close to her that she almost didn’t hear him when he said, “Give me your hand.”