She felt his chin against her head, his smile ruffling a few strands of hair. He had always had a spell on her, the one which had nothing to do with witchcraft.Hate, want, and something deeper seized her head and her body. The fact that they were out in the open went out of her mind; she had no choice but to respond to his demand. Her body arched towards him, her lips kissing the base of his throat, between his collarbones.A pink cluster of elms swirled in the wind before it landed near their entangled feet when she was lifted from the ground. A determination glinted in his hooded eyes when he spared a glance at her, carrying her in his arms. Dangerous and dark with a warning of finality. For her.She simply leaned into his chest, finding no word or thought. Right for this second, everything was up to him. Not her. Danica shut her eyes for a second and when she opened them again, they were before the sports car with which Mr. Hacke had come visiting her street once. The car door op
Her bare back against the wooden board, she twisted around as soon as the pressure over her body was reduced, which he had done with a flick of his physical hand. Of course, she could have protested him out loud, to stop, but the sounds that came out of her mouth were incoherent. The invisible fingers stroked her shoulders; trailed her collarbones; played around below them; and then went down until around her sensitive sets of flesh became the playground of his. No, he didn’t quite get there. He was just teasing her—apparently to her frustration—above her ribs and at her sides. “So entertaining to see you squirm,” he remarked casually, to her humiliation. She didn’t want to be this senseless creature, so easy for him to toy with. She gritted her teeth, to stop her twisting about while his stroking continued.“Should I continue?” He looked so smug. “Or stop?”There, he asked, at the same time stopping the sensation.“Please don’t…” she answered in near-anguish. No lie. No deception.
Sweat poured out of her scalp despite the chilling air. The slightly sticky, flame-red strands tickled her shoulders. Since she had not thought he would accept her invitation, she had not prepared herself for this moment. But she could never have—even if she had believed otherwise–for a moment like ‘this’.She might as well be his trophy or his new car, since he was scrutinizing her up and down. Her heart could not slow down its aggressive pounding while her flesh trembled with the thrumming blood. A brief moment he was taking, like he was actually in a rush, but for her it was so long.The ceiling light that was falling over her and him felt different. To him, it was bowing down and wanting to admire his unearthly appearance, but did not quite have enough capacity to do so and was feeling guilty for it.To her, however, the light was too bright, too glaring, and she almost wanted to cover herself. Almost, because his assessing eyes over her completely naked body was like some sort of
What she wanted right now was to undress him, to see him baring himself just as she was being so, and most importantly to lose his control. “I’m fine.” She reached for his shirt to unbutton it.With both hands, she started undoing his shirt. The vampires… since they don’t sweat, he appeared to have not lifted a finger the entire night, no sign of exertion on him. At first, with his composed face, he watched her fingers move through his buttons. One after another. When only a few buttons remained, she pulled the shirt out of his slacks. She was wrong; he was not letting her get away even with this. His hand moved like a flash; it seized her hands together.“No,” he blinked slowly and was gone.At her bedside, he stood facing away and buttoning his shirt back up. She rose in surprise, supporting herself on her elbows. Why would be a stupid question, he had already told her.He turned back around before placing his hand on her chest and pushing her gently down on the bed. At that secon
None of that mattered anymore. All of this should be gone before the morning arrived… everything about him should disappear but his shell. Danica was trying her best to continue in her movements, picking up the fork and blade to slice the bread.She was trying not to falter or even breathe loudly lest that would change his mind, he might set down the wine glass and instead go for the food. Reign continued holding his glass, staring at the dark liquid for a prolonged moment. If he was suspicious, she could not tell. The way he had changed his tone earlier still made her more than cautious. She put the slices on his plate and set it down, before quickly picking up the glass.“Let’s go for the drink first then,” she managed her voice to sound casual.Under the table, she set her feet apart, ready to take a quick move if necessary. “No. You must be hungry,” he muttered, more to himself than speaking to her. He appeared distracted. Good for her.He set the glass down and she swallowed be
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “Release me, coward. Release me and let’s see what happens.”Any second now, the potion should start taking effect, but he looked totally unaffected when his face moved away from her ear. With fright, she realized a possibility that the potion might not work on Reign at all.“Unbelievable. When I began to…” he trailed off.“When I began to WHAT?! Stop the nonsense,” she snarled, more furious because she wanted to slap him away, but she couldn’t. “You are a murderer. A monster. DON’T PRETEND LIKE YOU HAVE ANY EMOTION OTHER THAN YOUR HATE AND EGO! What is there to not believe for a beast like you?”For the first time since they had met, he showed his weakness. He flinched like he had been actually slapped in the face, just like she was attempting to do, and recoiled back. She got up, finding she could suddenly move. Danica watched Reign disappear from her bedside and appear back near the couch. When a depth of silent emotion showed on his face, she could n
A human maid knocked on the door when he was in his nanny’s pool of blood—her body had broken apart into multiple pieces. Blood splashed over his brown leather boots as he took a faltering step back at the knock, the noise being too loud for him. The maid had never learned to be quiet around the young vampire prince.Without permission, she opened the door; took two steps into the room; and screeched like a banshee at the sight of the gory scene. Hitching up the hemline of her gown, she spun on her feet. She was alerting the entire mansion, and… and he had just…Reign stretched his shaky hand out of instinct. With a bang, the door slammed shut. A child from hell was what he looked like at that moment. Along with the movement, drops of blood flew up from the floor onto his face, tunic, and breeches. His teeth chattered, elongating.
The visitor was in bejeweled clothes, and his long cloak seemed to reflect nonexistent light. Justus had seen him as the prince in the throne room, the one time he had visited the palace when he was months old. Despite being an infant, the prince’s fixated eyes on him had imprinted on his mind.The well-trimmed mustache and the thick lips belonged to Fragor. In the estate, his father would mention the name occasionally. He was now in the dungeon, looking down at him. “Get up and bow. What are you still doing on the floor?”His father’s impatient words suggested he was simply being lazy, loitering here. What he was actually thinking, Justus couldn’t say. Sometimes, people’s minds would penetrate his, and other times, they were blank canvases. Despite that and being a three-year-old, his body was proof of how much his father hated him.“I don’t think he could move, Theodulus. Even if I were him, it’d take me a couple of days at least. You might have broken him for good,” Fragor assesse
When he led her down the stairs, she eyed Marie, who was biting her lips and giving her a conspiratory look. An hour later, she was in his mansion, having lost the crowd at last. Marc and Loyd arrived with Marie, Both whining they would have come sooner if they had known. In the garden, they sat down for dinner, five of them. Reign asked Mr. Hacke to join and the old man cried before he took a seat at the table. “You’re coming with me back to the kingdom, my darling,” he announced, in the middle of their noisy chats.“Am I? Why?” she set down her fork. “Are you…giving me orders? Already?”He tilted his head, candle lights half-shadowing his face. “If you’d love to stay behind, of course you can. I’m not giving you an order. Chaos could break out soon without me or you with the remnants of…” he halted as though searching for words, “my enemy. I simply thought you’d agree with me to come along.”She looked down at her plate.“I’m sorry I brought this up at our engagement dinner.” He k
“Cut!” the director’s voice boomed. Nova slumped her shoulders and dared a peek at his direction. This was the 51st take of one single scene and the sunlight was burning her in her voluptuous Snow White costume. This was how a vampire would feel under the sun, she thought sarcastically. “Snow White’s supposed to be sad thinking about her late mother.” he shook his head. “You looked freaked the hell out. This is her birthday. She is ‘lonely’. Again!” Her jaws felt so stiff, almost paralyzed with trying to get into that sad smile the director wanted for hours straight. Before she was ready, the director shouted, “Action!” She looked at the giant birthday cake and sighed. “Happy 16th Birthday, Princess,” said the co-actress. She smiled wryly, or tried to. Thankfully, it worked! “Cut.” Director Clark rose from the chair. “Good job, everyone.” She exhaled in relief, before slumping down into a nearby chair. For today’s scenes which started at six am in the morning, she had to wake
“Wait, Your Highness! Your outfit! How silly of me.”The woman gestured to her assistants, who gingerly carried what she was going to wear for this evening over to her. She stared at her dress in a daze; it was easily the most beautiful gown she had ever seen. The sleeveless, low-cut dress was neither black nor silver, or both perhaps. It shone whenever it moved in their hands. Delicate forest green laces were sprinkled with…diamonds.She swallowed the urge to refuse it, biting down on her lips not to slip that it was too expensive and she couldn’t accept it. Unlike the other dresses she had received from him, this felt so different. This gorgeous dress was full of his adoration for her; she looked away, blushing at her thought.After she put that on with their help, she stood before the mirror they had removed from her wall. Her lips were a few shades darker than her red hair; her cheeks appeared naturally flushed; and her eyes looked glittering, just like all the jewels over her bod
“What is it?” she questioned, pretending to be angry. “You have nothing to be jealous of, do you?”“I wouldn’t dare, Your Royal Highness,” Marc joked. “It’s just, you guys were not even kissing, but the tension was so high. We were afraid you guys might burn down the building.”“Yep. Yep,” Marie agreed vehemently.“You guys trust him now?” interrupted Sage. “Stop, Sage,” protested Marc, but the other one continued, “And you, you don’t care about her. Why are you even here?”Danica was worried Reign would do something to him and prepared to stand between them.But, he merely responded, “I am starting to regret that I healed you. I probably should’ve let you crippled for your entire life.”She spun around and faced him. “You healed him?!”“Yes, my darling,” he smiled, lighting up the entire apartment, or the entire building perhaps.“The vampire prince—sorry—king could smile?” Loyd remarked, sounding dumbstruck.“I’ve seen him smile,” retorted Marc.“I’ve seen it on the net too. But, i
Patrons went back to their noisy selves although several were still staring at her. “Who cares if you’re someone’s fiancee or not?” he grinned. “By the way, did he tell you? That I saved his life.”“Yeah, Marc is a hero,” said Loyd, looking at him fondly. “He saved the vampire king’s life.”She took the glass Marie was handing her. “Now that I think about it, yeah, he almost told me about you. I think he was saying, “Your friend...” when I started screaming about going back.”“You shouted at him. Now you’re a hero,” Loyd pitched in. She noticed some tables went silent around her. She ignored them and swallowed. The scene in the throne-room from five months ago replayed in her mind.“Thank you, Marc,” she said seriously. “What did you do?”“It’s nothing,” he sighed. “Compared to what he had suffered. I’ve never met someone like… your boyfriend. He’s your boyfriend, right? Excluding Loyd obviously; he is the most amazing. Anyway, I was at the palace gate when the evil vampire king was
After a long, frustrating flight and drive, Danica was finally back in Brickland, Umbre. Along the way, she had yet to meet a single person who did not recognize her as an alleged-criminal-turned-princess. Some stared at her, whispering between one another, and others–especially teenage girls–would surround her and try to take photographs with her, and of her.“I don’t want you to take my pictures. Please. Please!”Nobody gave a damn. They would press their faces next to hers and would take selfies while her face ended up grimacing or contorting. A few would caption their photos and upload them to their social media accounts, right under her eyes.Their hashtags, #withcc, #ccandme #atairport, #milestonemoment, etc., etc. CC meant Cinderella Convict, apparently to someone who practically shouted that to her face. One group of teenage boys even asked her, “Are you hungry now? Do you want to bite me?”“No. I don’t have bloodlusts.”“Really?”They looked disappointed while some girls gav
In the wind, his sentinel cloak was flapping. It tickled her calves below her nightdress. The garden below was in pandemonium just like in the tower. She registered all those noises vaguely while she was too aware of the single presence, the male holding her.“We’re going back in,” he warned.In one swift movement, he lifted both of them back into the tower. Once their feet touched the bathroom floor, he stood face to face with her and leaned down gently, cornering her against the half-broken window. Along the ragged window frame, he placed his hands, seemingly unaware the sun was hurting them.She stared when he spoke, unable to take her eyes off of him.“I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight. It was my fault,” he murmu
That did not surprise her. All of Fragor’s followers hardly consider her a princess anymore since they realized what she was for their king: a device. This sentinel must think the same. He must not feel the need to grace her with a response.She left the chair and went to the wardrobes where she had found the blanket, all along feeling a hawk-like gaze on her back. It seemed her remaining few days would be even more suffocating than her previous days. While Eirene hadn’t given a damn about her well-being, she had kept her good company most days.This new person… she sighed, placing the blanket in the far corner where she had found it. She went to the bed and sat down in the middle. There was no scenery to look out. No sunlight. She had wondered how the sun would feel against her skin since the seal on her arm was gone and she was a hybrid. Hours must have passed while she was sitting on the bed and the person at the door had yet to move at all. She got down from the bed to take a bath
Danica did not blink at the word, ‘the ritual’. She did not care what he was going to do with her. Footsteps retreated and footsteps entered while she did not bother getting up from the floor. Pulling up her hood, her new attendant stopped by the bedside; she did not look like an attendant at all.“You know…” said Eirene. “I came here to kill you.”“I know,” she mumbled. “How do you know?!” her eyes widened.Danica got up, holding onto the edge of the bed to support herself. Her limbs felt heavy after days of no movement. “I saw you in the crowd the other day.”“You couldn’t have possibly known my—”“Here…” she looked at her in his glowing eyes. “I’ve been a hunter for years. I could at least spot someone who wants to kill me. You probably thought I was a dumb bitch, didn’t you? How convenient you want to kill me. Do it now.”Eirene showed her fangs. “No. I changed my mind. You deserve to live suffering.”“Oh…” she breathed, disappointed. “Your father let me in even though he knew I