Victor’s POV
I watched the wolf approach and sighed. He was the spitting image of his father. As he shifted into human form, I could see more of his mother in him. I couldn’t help the sudden urge to tell the young man to cover up and that I hoped he didn’t walk around naked in front of my daughter, but I held back. I was about to break all royal protocol but I didn’t give a damn!
“Where is my daughter?” I hissed. I didn’t even know if she would recognize me, but that didn’t matter. I had to see for myself that she was okay.
“She’s safe.” The young man crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “The king and I have an agreement and as long as you bloodsuckers stay off my land, she will remain safe.” He was arrogant to the point where I would actually enjoy draining him! But the ancient made sure that vampires couldn’t feed on werewolves! Hence the need for the dhampir guard. A vampire couldn’t drink the blood of a werewolf because it was poisonous to us. Sadly, the ancient never anticipated that his precious beasts could turn on us. Their bite is enough to kill one of us! Enter the dhampir guard who, for some reason, is immune to a werewolf bite.
“I don’t trust you beast!” I could feel my fangs protruding but the little mutt didn’t move. He stood firm and smiled.
“I don’t care. I need to think about my people. I can’t allow you onto my territory.” I realized that he was playing for time and as I started to scan the surrounding forest, I could feel them moving in. His soldiers had slowly started to surround me, and if I decided to be difficult, they would attack. The young man sighed since I wasn’t leaving and finally agreed to show her to me, but it wasn’t what I expected. We exited the forest and immediately turned to the right. He stepped into a small building and seconds later waved for me to come in.
As I stepped inside, I could see my darling daughter on a monitor. She was healthy and unharmed. I watched as she stood up and walked over to the door and heard as she demanded to be fed. I almost told the wolf that she did not feed on blood, but stopped myself just in time. I wanted to see what they would do and if they would give her blood. I was also curious if she would actually drink it.
“Okay, you’ve seen her. Now leave.” He softly growled and my eyes flashed in anger. In my haste, I hadn’t thought about the disadvantages of coming here alone. I would be able to take a couple of them with me when I went down, but they would win at the end of the day. I nodded and disappeared back into the forest.
Fynn’s POV
Something about her father was completely different from her grandfather. Viktoria’s grandfather was always the king and arrived with a small guard to protect him, whereas her father went there alone. I could imagine how he must be feeling, seeing the actual worry in his eyes. So, vampires can actually feel love? Was that something I could exploit to get what we wanted at the end of the day? We weren’t asking for more than what was owed to us. We just wanted to be treated with respect. Treated as equals. Some of my people wanted revenge on their ancestors, but mostly my people just wanted to live in peace.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely sure how all of that would change when my pack found out that the princess was my mate.
Viktoria’s POV
The door opened and the wolf brought a tray into the room. On it was some human food and to the left was a blood bag which almost made me laugh. I found it interesting that they didn’t know as much about dhampirs as Fynn would make me think. I looked at the bag as I grabbed one of the sandwiches and a smile crossed my face. I put the sandwich down and grabbed the blood bag. Wondering only for a second before dumping the contents down the drain. I followed it up with some soap to cover the scent of the blood and put the bag neatly back onto the tray before grabbing the sandwich again.
If that warrior saw this, I knew he would be more careful and if he was anything like I read in our history books, word would spread that I am sustained by both food and blood. Hey, these beasts had to pay for what they did to me somehow and, if that meant, I had to scare them with little things like an empty blood bag. I would do it!
When he collected the tray, his eyes popped and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. After he left, I walked around the room going through the cupboard to look for anything I could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. I wished that I had one of those ancient books with me, so I could at least keep busy while I was locked away in my damn tower! In the end, I had no other choice but to lie down on the bed and wait.
Fynn’s POV
She looked like a princess when she slept. Her black hair was splayed out behind her almost like a blanket covering her back. Her lips tinted just the right amount of natural red and her beautifully long lashes just kissed her skin.
“Wow! You should have become a poet my friend.” My beta laughed through the mind link and I rolled my eyes. I had to remember to block everybody when I was near her!
“Hey! What are you staring at?” I teased him as I caught him frowning at her. He grinned and turned to leave her room, but not before giving me a little bit of interesting information.
“She ate and drank blood.” He turned around and lifted an eyebrow before leaving her room. Well, well, well. The princess drank blood. According to the information we had, dhampirs were basically humans with some superpowers. Almost like witches, but they sure as hell didn’t drink blood like vampires! She stirred and I quickly rushed to take a seat in the corner. I couldn’t afford for her to catch me staring! That would just be rude!
“Hi,” She yawned and stretched as she sat up in bed and I found it adorable the way she rubbed her eyes and smacked her lips before glaring at me.
“Hi, did you have a nice nap?” I tilted my head to one side as she shook her head.
“No, this bed is too soft and the bedding smells like a wet dog.” She grinned and I felt relieved. If she was making jokes, she couldn’t be that unhappy here, could she? I felt a little spark of hope flicker that I might even convince her to stay with me.
“I will see what we can do about that. Maybe I can arrange for them to put a blanket on the floor for you and remove the bed.” I winked as I got up and before she could say another word, I told her we were going to the library.
Viktoria’s POV
I was slowly growing to love this guy and hate him at the same time. He was funny even if I didn’t want to admit it. The strange thing was that it almost felt as if he was reading my mind. When he informed me we were going to the library, I wondered about it for a moment, then it hit me. They probably had cameras in my damn room! It’s what I would have done if we had a dangerous prisoner walking about the castle! I wondered if they saw me pouring out the blood in the basin, but it didn’t seem as if they did. Which made me wonder more about this wolf. Did the beasts have powers we didn’t know about, like telepathy?
“I thought you would find it interesting to read about our real history.” His voice pierced my thoughts and I nodded.
“I was actually going to ask if I could take one or two of these to my room. If you are going to keep me locked up all the time, I would like to have something to keep busy with.” I walked down the shelf letting my fingers glide just above the backs of the old books.
“That’s not what I’m doing if your …” His eyes grew wide as if he had just stopped himself from saying something he shouldn’t. “I will arrange that the guard brings you to the library whenever you want.” He frowned and stuffed his hands into his pockets. I picked a book and walked over to a desk with four chairs around it.
“Are you going to watch me the entire time?” I tilted my head to one side. “Don’t you have work to do?” I hated it when people stared at me and having him watch me while I read was just uncomfortable.
“Uhm, yeah, I mean no.” He turned to leave and turned back. “I will be right next door if you need anything,” He whipped around only to turn back again. “Oh, and your guard is right outside your door.” He smiled with his hands still in his pockets before finally leaving!
Viktoria’s POVI scanned the books, and I wanted to be careful with them as they didn’t look fake old. They were really old. As I pulled one off the shelf and I felt the texture of the cover, I dropped it on the floor! A shiver ran down my spine as I looked at the book. The cover was made out of skin, not leather! It wasn’t human, and it wasn’t an animal. I couldn’t place what kind it was, but it was definitely skin! I carefully picked it up and shivered as I put it back. I would have to be more careful and was lucky that the book didn’t tear or get damaged. No longer able to slip my finger over the backs of the books for fear I might touch something else I didn’t want to know about, I tried to read some of the titles, but I could see these books had been handled a lot.I wondered where they would have been stored in the library and who would have spent so much time reading them. I found one that had to do with the history of the first beast and made sure the cover was animal before I
Viktoria’s POVAn incredible pain struck my heart as I uttered the words, but I fought it off so as not to show any weaknesses. I needed to stand my ground and demand that he take me back, but a smile started to form on his lips.“I’m sorry princess. We still have a lot to show you before you can leave, and in my opinion, you won’t want to leave once you’ve seen everything.” He gripped me behind my elbow and led me back inside. The dark wood used to build this place reminded me of our dungeons. The soft light inside makes it feel warmer than the dungeons thought. If I wasn’t here under these circumstances, I would probably have liked it, but all it did at the moment was make me miss home even more! I wasn’t even going to tell him to stop calling me princess since he seemed to enjoy infuriating me.We walked back into the library and he handed me the blanket before almost shoving me back into the seat. Taking the seat next to me, he opened the book I was reading before and started to r
Viktoria’s POVClearly, Fynn didn’t understand when I told him to take me home! I wanted to go back to the castle. To the people I knew and the truths, I was taught.Flashback“Today, your lives will change. You are no longer the children from the convent. You are now the dhampir in training.” I watched our fearless leader as she walked up and down the front of our platoon. My mother had told me so much about her that I almost felt as if I knew her myself. She wasn’t just our teacher. She was also there when our parents joined the dhampir. My mother had tears in her eyes whenever she talked about her days here, but I knew that my father chose her as his concubine, which took her out of the running to become a dhampir. Without telling me too many of the details, my mother explained that she was his only concubine and spent a month in the castle until they we
Viktoria’s POVI woke up feeling a little disorientated, but it didn’t take me long to recognize the room I was in. If I was at the castle, I would probably have met my father by now. I had no idea if he would actually know who I was, but a girl could hope, couldn’t she? I always carried a very small hope that he wanted to meet me just as much as I wanted to meet him even if he was the prince second in line to the throne. That was what I worked so hard for after all. Not the only reason, but still one of the bigger ones. I felt a little dizzy as my thoughts wandered over to our ranking system and if the wolves also had special females that were meant only for breeding and others, they turned to wolves. If I had to be that honest, I didn’t know much about them. Only what our books told us about where they came from and most importantly that they were beasts, not human.There was never any mention of children and there were clearly little beasts running around. How much of what I was ta
Viktoria’s POVI was feeling much better, but my mind was still all over the place and I needed some answers. Even if I didn’t ask them outright.“Okay, you seem to know almost everything about me but I hardly know anything about you and the beasts.” That was a bit obvious! Wasn’t that the reason why they kidnapped me? “Tell me in your words how things are different from what you think I’ve been taught.” I was hoping if we could just sit and talk about it as we have been talking now, I wouldn’t feel sick to my stomach!“What do you want to know?” He leaned back against the post of the bed and smiled, crossing his arms over his chest.“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “You were the one who kidnapped me. I’m sure you wanted me to know something. Unless you wanted to kill me.” My eyes grew wide! I didn’t think he would openly admit it!“Well for one, we aren’t beasts, but I think you’ve figured that much out by yourself.” He looked amused and shifted so he could sit more comfortably. “What els
Fynn’s POVThese damn vampires weren’t leaving us alone even after I had an agreement with their king! I walked up to the prisoner being held down by my men, but her scent immediately told me she wasn’t a vampire and I growled at my men!“Let her up!” I glared at them. They caught an intruder and didn’t take care to check if she was a vampire first! I ripped the cloth from her head and she glared at me.“Prince Victor sent me to make sure his daughter is still alive, but these animals won’t let me see her!” I had to fight not to laugh when she growled and it sounded like a young pup who had just found his voice.“I told the prince that his daughter would be safe. I also showed him video footage of the princess. What more does he want?” I crossed my arms and watched her squirm as she tried to break free. She glared at me for a moment before calming down. Explai
Viktoria’s POVWithout thinking, I went into fight mode, but Fynn blocked the first attack. However, I was probably faster than he anticipated as the second punch connected with his jaw.“OW!” He flinched looking surprised but caught my hand mid-air when it came around for the knock-out. “That actually hurt!” He looked surprised and I burst out laughing.“What? Did you think it wouldn’t, ‘cause it was meant to!” I was furious, and amused at the same time! What did he expect? That I wasn’t going to punch his damn lights out when I found out he had been keeping my family from me? “You have been going on and on about all the lies the vampires have taught us, yet you have been lying to me since I arrived! How am I ever supposed to believe a single word you say ever again!” I ripped my wrist from his grip and walked away fighting to catch my breath. The dhampir taught us to always keep our emotions in check, but since I wasn’t there, I didn’t see the damn harm in losing my temper completel
Viktoria’s POVMy mind went straight to our library. To the exact shelf, and book that I read a million times. I could imagine the feel and smell of the paper as I opened it. The first-hand account of how the ancient created the beasts. The paper in this diary was much older and I couldn’t imagine this being a fake. I couldn’t think that anyone would go to these lengths. I couldn’t stay in my seat and stood up just in time to see a group of older men leaving the main house. That must have been the reason Fynn left so quickly and looked so solemn. I wondered how my stay here affected his people. It couldn’t have been good. Now that I knew, my people had come to look for me. I couldn’t imagine … Those must have been the elders! I felt infuriated instantly. After what I had read about the ancient, it aggravated me that our destinies were in fact influenced by these old men! Men who didn’t know how it felt to be young in our time! Men who want things done their way.FlashbackThe smell of
Viktoria’s POVI walked into the garden at the castle and instantly noticed Freya. She was sitting with her eyes closed and her face turned up in the sun. It was something she had been doing a lot these days and I couldn’t help but feel glad that she was safely back home. It had taken a long time to convince the men in my life that our people taking up space in the human world was the worst idea ever, but they eventually relented and our people moved back.The school was still open, and although I didn’t like the idea, our people were allowed to live and work in the human world but not in the same numbers. It had been a couple of years since Freya was attacked and there had been no other incidents of that caliber after that, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want our people out in the world. It was just my motherly instinct that kicked in and that was that.“Hey sweetheart,” I smiled as I took the seat next to her and felt the warmth of the sun. “I have someone here that wants to talk
Viktoria’s POVWhen the news came of the first ever proven vampire attack the humans had ever seen, I nearly had a heart attack! Fynn tried to tell me that everything would be okay, but I didn’t know enough about humans and their ways to know that for sure. Fynn tried to explain that there were a lot of human news agencies that were constantly printing fake news for higher sales and everything, but I just shut off and told him that I feared this was going to happen! Humans were going to come for us! They were going to pick us apart piece by piece and discard whatever they didn’t need!Fynn believed that the only way he could show me that this wasn’t as big of a problem as I feared, he needed to take me to the human city. I really didn’t want to go, but I had no other choice. We needed to find the vampire that did this and who had put us all in jeopardy. As we drove into the city, I couldn’t help but feel as if people were watching us, but Fynn told me I was just imagining things. As w
Viktoria’s POVI hated the idea of having to tame our people, but if they were going to live human lives, we needed to find a way for them to cope here. It was so damn difficult to hold back my hunger as we walked between the humans that my throat was on fire! We walked past a clothing store and something caught my eye. I stopped and walked back and saw the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. Fynn suddenly became excited and he gripped my hand as he pulled me into the store. Within minutes, a young human girl was showing me into a fitting room and I quickly stripped and put the dress on. It was called a summer dress and I just loved it. The thin straps over my shoulders showed off my neck and the dress flared out around to just above my knee. It was just perfect.“Are you okay in there?” Fynn’s voice drifted through the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I opened the door and saw in his eyes that the dress fit me just right. He told me to change and that he would pay for it, b
Viktoria’s POVFynn was looking at me as if he was about to put me into that damn vault for a nice long nap, and there was no way in hell I was going back there! Since we had the unlinking spell, I had not needed to sleep in a long time, but then again, our people were happy in general and I fed off that happiness while I was an ancient. Fynn wouldn’t say it, but I knew he was worried that the spell hadn’t worked and that I was losing it like I did when I thought Friedrich was a monster. Thankfully, this time they didn’t just stuff me into my little box.My father suggested we talk about my fears first and I appreciated that they were willing to listen. It was incredibly difficult to summarise it at first and I really rambled on as if I was losing the last little bit of my sanity, but slowly I started to unpack and we got down to the thing that was bugging me the most.Freya was planning on leaving our safe home and I felt that it was just not safe for her to leave. In fact, I regret
Viktoria’s POVGetting the old pack house ready was an enormous event for our people. Most of the vampires had never even seen the old pack house and were curious as to what it looked like. Wolves got the chance to show their mates where they grew up and it was pretty informative for the vampires to experience a world so different from ours in the kingdom. Fynn and my father set up a team of teachers who would move to the pack house permanently so they could teach the children whatever it was they would need to know in the human world, and Fynn made sure that all the subjects they decided on covered everything he knew they would need.I knew that in time those things would change, but it didn’t say anything to Fynn. He was so happy that everything was finally happening. That our people, both vampires, and wolves, could move freely between the two kingdoms and the pack house. It had been his biggest dream for this to happen and there was a time when he thought it would never be possibl
Viktoria’s POVI was sitting in the garden, just staring out at the people walking past, when Freya came running up to me. She was positively beaming and I noted yet again what a beautiful girl she was. We celebrated her twenty-first birthday just a couple of days ago and when she still hadn’t found her wolf, she was shattered. She had hoped she would be a hybrid like her big brother, but it seemed as though my little angel would forever and always be just a normal vampire like me. However, the excitement around her was intoxicating and I wondered what she had convinced her brother to allow this time around.“It’s time mom!” She beamed again and, for a moment, I felt a little confused until I realized!“Oh, my!” I squealed as I jumped up and we used our superspeed to rush to Friedrich and Melissa’s room. Outside the door, we were met by my parents, Fynn, and my beautiful grandson, Victor. My dad’s chest grew three sizes the day Friedrich and Melissa announced that if they had a boy th
Viktoria’s POVWaiting for the witch to get back to us was driving all of us insane, but at least we had the coronation to keep us busy and when the final day arrived, I almost couldn’t wait to hand over the damn crown! It wasn’t about the responsibilities so much as that it was heavy with all its jewels and gold! Friedrich was coronated as king and Melissa as his queen and they looked absolutely stunning as they walked out onto the balcony to wave at our people.Little Freya was growing at a similar rate as Friedrich did when he was this small and I could only hope that I would be there for everything this time. If we could unlink our people from me, I wouldn’t have to take any more naps … At least, that was what I was hoping for. Again, everyone partied until the early hours of the morning after the coronation. We had just climbed into bed when someone knocked on the door and a worried-looking guard walked in after Fynn refused to get out of bed and I had to call out for whoever it
Fynn’s POVPeople started to run around the bed and I moved out of the way. Viktoria wasn’t breathing and I feared not just for her but for everyone around us! It was the worst couple of minutes of my entire life as I looked at everyone that was running around and caught a glimpse of Victor, who was standing in the opposite corner of the room. His eyes reflected the fear I was feeling when we heard a beeping sound echo through the room.I nearly fell forward as the sigh of relief left my chest and I could hear the love of my life’s heart beating even without the machines. It took another minute or so for her to open her eyes and it was the moment I realized we really had to unlink everyone from her bloodline. Anything could happen at any time and it would be over for all of us. Even for little Freya. I smiled as the nurse handed her back to me and I could have sworn our little one smiled back.Viktoria’s POVI was happily floating down the cool river when suddenly it felt as if someth
Viktoria’s POVMy father was just as hesitant to hand over the crown to Friedrich as Fynn was. They both felt that my son was still a bit young to take on such an enormous responsibility, but I disagreed with them. Our young prince had been through more than most in his young life. He had experienced things people his age should not have and, in my mind, it was time. I understood that my father saw me as the chosen one and whatnot, but I believed that I had played my part in changing things in our kingdom and it was time for Friedrich to step up.After weeks of discussions, it seemed that the privy council agreed with me. I would forever remain their so-called ancient, or at least until we could find a way to unlink our people, but it was time for a younger, more energetic couple to take on the duty of ruling the kingdom. It was time for the last phase of our transition into the modern world. I believed it was the right decision and it might have taken some time to convince my father