***An hour later***“Slap!” Her palm resounded against his cheek and he had not avoided it. She swung her hand to slap him again and this time, he took hold of it. Groaning, she struggled with all her might to break free. When she could not, she attempted with her free hand. “Enough,” he scolded, seizing it.The sense of betrayal was so deep all she could feel was despair and anger. Because she knew she still loved him after everything he had just told her. She raised her knee to attack him where it would definitely hurt–even if he was the most powerful being on earth. He released her hands and slipped out of her path.She fell on all four, losing her balance.“I said enough!” he snarled, pinning her on the floor when she tried to attack him yet again. They were so close, their faces mere inches apart, but this was different from all the other times. While his eyes held no glint of desire, the pain in her chest was so great it overpowered all other feelings.“How could you do this to
None of the guests seemed to be aware of how they could lose their heads in any second, ignoring his cold fury. Despite his cruelty towards her, Danica was appalled by how they did not even bow at the sight of him or how they refused to talk to him with respect while they were all vampires and he was their crown prince.“Took such a long time, did you?” “Look how pretty he is. Obviously, he needed some time to put some makeup on.”The guests, dressed in suits, laughed between themselves, standing in the middle of the hall, their eyes darting around. For nine people, the hall was simply too huge. Reign had dismissed all the guards at the beginning of the meeting. “Where is Magnus?” Sitting side by side, Danica could hear the hidden pain in his question. “You made us wait forever and now you want to know right away where your p**sy of a brother is? Ooooh! I’m so scared, looking at that beautiful angelic face!”She fidgeted in her seat, wanting to get up and slap that mouth. She soug
They entered from both doorways, the front and the back. Two groups, one in suits and casual outfits and another in cloaks. The first group carried a half-naked male, his head covered in some dirty bag, and amid the second group was an uncloaked female in a disheveled dress.The first group went stiff as they stepped into the large pool of blood, while the second group stopped behind Reign after paying their respect to him and throwing her hostile glances. The uncloaked female, with her eyes full of tears, gave him a beseeching look before her eyes darted to the half-naked male.It was Campana, the queen—Danica recognized belatedly—when she made a heart-wrenching shriek that could have been, “Your Majesty,” before dashing toward the second group. The chaos erupted as the first group cried out after her and the second group took aggressive stances.“No, Campana. I promised you I wouldn’t let him die. I keep my promises.” He appeared right between her and the second group, putting the c
It had been four days since she had left him in that nightmarish hall. The last she had seen him was when she looked back and had a glimpse of him in her mid-run. ‘My God,’ she had gulped.From a distance, red sparks appeared to have filled the entirety of his eyes. His head turned in one jerky movement and he looked at her. For one second, and he had continued his massacre, allowing only a few to escape. Four days she had not seen him, and she doubted she’d see him, ever again.Knock! Knock!Dread replaced drowsiness. Tensed, she grasped the bedsheets. Another day had been wasted, yet again, to find her escape from this awful house full of tortured people. Last night, she had not had a wink of sleep because of heart-wrenching cries from right beneath her bedroom, just like the nights before. So far, they had yet to impose any physical torture on her. They had treated her almost like royalty. Almost, because they had locked her up in this room soon after her arrival while they kept r
At the very least, hell should be a different place other than this gloomy bedroom, other than the same dull canopy she was looking at upon opening her eyes. Maybe this was hell; this was a fitting place to be. Then why was she seeing Marc gazing down at her, shocked and concerned? “You’re a vampire, Dani! What the actual fuck?!!!” he yelled into her face. “Ugh!” The painful scream followed as she bumped into his chin, jolting up.“Ow,” she rubbed her forehead. “That hurt. Who were you calling, ‘vampire’? Why are you here? Wait, am I actually dead?”Marc opened his mouth and closed it back before looking back to the door. Dread had invaded before she could properly be glad about her friend showing up here. Remembering Fragor’s blade cutting her flesh, she grabbed her right arm and looked down to find her unmarred skin. No ink. No wound. Still, she dismissed it as some confusion. “Marc, talk to me.” She grasped his arm. “Did Fragor force you to come here? What did he do to you?! He c
The table leg slipped out of her trembling hand. She couldn’t attack her own father, although she did not feel any endearment for him, from him. All these revelations overwhelmed her enough that she backed away till her legs touched the bed. “Release him if you’re my father! You forced him to come here, didn’t you? He has nothing to do with any of this.” Marc was back on his feet. Amidst his violent coughs, he reassured, “Dani, I’m okay. Don’t w—” Fragor raised his hand. “How dare you interrupt me while I was speaking with my daughter?!” He convulsed again with his eyes nearly bulging out. “What are you doing?! Stop!” She swung her leg. Before her kick landed, she was thrown away. Given the sharp pain, her left arm was broken. Whirring motions entered the room. She hurried to her friend as his convulsion stopped. Timely, the world around her spun yet again. Despite his best efforts to defend himself, he was being dragged away. “Where are they taking him?!” she screamed her he
Reign could not have possibly suggested what she was thinking? Reign, who had been… she tried to not continue her thought lest he overheard. ‘That is the only way,’ he drawled. Alarmed, she asked, ‘What is the only way? What do you mean?’‘You know what I mean,’ he answered, slow and thoughtful. ‘You want to save your friend, don’t you?’‘Yes! But, there must be another way!’‘That is the only way,’ he chided. ‘I know about your father more than his followers do. I have been in his head…before. He will skin him alive once you try to free him by any other means.’‘No!’As much as she was frustrated and angry, he sounded awfully calm. ‘That settles it. You need not to think too much of it. I consider this a way to redeem myself after all the sins I have done.’‘Redeem yourself? Your life will be hell on earth forever! He’ll torture you! Reign! Reign!’Just like that, he had ended their mental connection without listening to her mental screams anymore. Or maybe he was listening but cho
At a guard’s announcement, somebody was making a heart-wrenching scream: her. ‘Reign Hrudnand Eclipsis,’ the guard had announced. Hands were roughly shoving back down into her seat while she didn’t remember she had stood up. She would not back down without a fight. Her fist hit one vampire’s jaw. She dodged and struck. She was much faster and stronger than she had ever been, but all those came down to nothing against a group of vampires. ‘Please stop,’ murmured a voice in her head. ‘For me.’ “How insolent! You dare communicate with my daughter right under my nose!” Fragor roared inside and outside of her head. “I’m not your daughter. Reign!” she raced to the doorway. Nobles stood still as though nothing strange was happening; how eerie. They were under some sort of spell or mental manipulation, she realized, just like the crowd along the way. Despite the earlier voice, he had yet to enter. Her father was seething on the throne behind her. Then he entered, wearing a wry smile. She
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