The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

Bran jerked up to a sitting position when something brushed his leg.

He looked around, but found nothing. Thinking that his eyes were still hazy from sleep, he rubbed them with his fingers and looked again, his eyes darting around. But there was nothing there.

It was probably a rat. He should be thankful that it wasn’t a wild one and had not tried to eat his toe.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He groaned, observing his injury and he almost smiled when he saw that it had almost completely healed. They were going to be walking a very long distance today and he didn’t need to be worrying about reopening the wood anytime twigs brushed his legs.

Yesterday, he had been so close to gagging Maria when she wouldn’t stop talking about how he needed to rest. He knew that she had a point, but-

Maria!

Where was she?Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

His now frantic eyes searched the cave, looking for any traces of her, but there were none. The wood from the fire had burned completely and whee there was once fire, there was ash. He knew that had to have happened early this morning because for the most part of his sleep, he’d felt the heat from the fire.

Maria was not in the cave.

Had she taken the opportunity when he was sleeping to escape?

Fuck, he should have known better than to give into sleep so fully when he was around her. He should have had his guard up. He shouldn’t have slept at all. But it was hardly his fault.

In the past week, before Ariti had attacked the castle, he had not been getting enough sleep. Disturbed with thoughts about his sister and false images of her suffering, conjured in his mind by no one but himself.

He’d also been thinking about his people and how little they thought about him. They pitied him, for fucks sake. They felt bad for him, thought that he needed help. And he could have pretended that he hadn’t heard them had his uncle not made things worse by confirming everything Bran had heard.

Maybe if he’d been able to get enough sleep during those past few nights at the castle, he would not have slept so deep last night and Maria would not have been able to run from him.

A chill ran down his body when a thought hit him.

What if she had not actually run from him? What if something happened to her?

The incubi in the previous cave had been more than happy to take her and even though there weren’t any in this cave, it didn’t mean that they couldn’t come from outside.

It didn’t mean that other dangerous creatures couldn’t get to her.

He reached for his sword and shot to his feet, stopping when he heard a sound coming from the entrance of the cave. When he looked and saw nothing, he figured that the sound had come from outside.

Clenching his sword tighter, he walked silently towards the entrance of the cave. Hopefully, he would find the creature that had taken Maria. And when he did, he was going to kill it.

Bran had been expecting a creature, but he had not been expecting to see Maria sitting on the ground, playing with a… squirrel?

He sighed out in relief. So nothing had happened to her after all.

He didn’t say or do anything to give away his presence. He wanted to stay there a while and watch her.

She pushed a stone towards the squirrel and stared at it with a small smile on her face as it nudged the stone with its nose, climbing over it and back again. The squirrel wasn’t really looking at her; it was more focused on the stone, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for Maria as she watched it try to hold the stone with its hands and eat it. She laughed, her laughter bright and melodious to Bran’s ears.

He didn’t even know he was leaning against the wall until his finger accidentally brushed a rock and it fell to the ground noisily.

Her eyes flew to him and the squirrel scurried away at the sound. As she stared at him, he found himself wondering why she had not escaped. He’d asked himself the same question when she’d pushed the rock off him yesterday.

Both times, he had been physically unable to stop her and she could have run as far as she wanted to. Maybe she realised that the forest was too dangerous for her and she needed him with her anyway, but it still didn’t make sense.

Desperation made a person make foolish decisions. If she really was desperate to escape, then she would have run without care for how she was going to survive.

But at the incubi cave, she had not even looked like she wanted to run at all. She hadn’t given it a second thought before she dropped to her knees beside him.

“I know I haven’t had a bath in two days, but you don’t have to make it so obvious.” She said, pulling him back to the present.

He cocked his head, wondering what she meant by that. If she was trying to say that somehow, her not having a bath in two days had reduced her appeal, then she was wrong as fuck.

Her skin glowed with a slight sheen of sweat and cheeks had a rosy hue to them. She was by far the most beautiful woman he had ever seen-he wasn’t even joking-and believe him, no one hated that fact more than him.

It would be so much better if he could look at her and not notice how beautiful she looked every damn time. If only he could look at her and not noticed how plump and pink her lips were when they were parted or when she was pouting, or how cute her button nose was, or how mesmerising and beautiful grey eyes were when she gave him the full force of her glare.

He could bear it when she was calm like this, but when she was pissed, he got hard as iron and he definitely didn’t like the way his zipper dug into his dick.

What he hated most was the fact that he would not be able to do anything about it.

“Seriously.” Her voice dragged his eyes to her bewitching ones. “Do I have something on my face?”

Ignoring her was better than saying something stupid, like telling her that she was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, so he did just that and walked past her, knowing that she would follow.

“Awfully chatty this morning, aren’t we?”

He ignored her even though he knew that it wouldn’t deter her. She would keep on talking until she managed to provoke him to talk. Which she always did.

The path from where they were to the next town was clearer now since hunters usually walked this distance and Bran didn’t have to do much clearing for them to pass.

“You know vampire, it would be so easy for people to assume you’re mute.” Maria started behind him, “I did at first too, until you opened your mouth and then I realised you just have a stick up your ass.” He shot a killing glare at her then and she swallowed visibly, pausing. “What I meant was, you just don’t like speaking. Better?”

He didn’t even grace her with a reply. Still, he heard her talking behind him. For such a small thing, she talked enough for two people.

As they walked, Bran’s thoughts were occupied.

He didn’t have his phone on him, so there was no way he could tell Corey that he was coming to his house. He would have to appear unannounced with nothing but hope that his best friend was around.

The people at Corey’s manor knew him and they would undoubtedly give him a treatment befitting a king-which he was-but Bran would prefer it if Corey was around so that he would be able to bring him up to speed on the issue with Maria.

Corey wasn’t as hot-headed as Bran was, but Maria had taken from him too before. Once. But it was enough to make him hate the sorceress and label her an enemy to his people.

If people had seen the sorceress before, then they wouldn’t be able to recognise her now, and Bran was glad about that. He didn’t have to worry about fighting for her life on top of-

She squealed all of a sudden and he swivelled sharply, his sword at the ready.

He was so confused when she ran towards him with a grin stretching her lips and his frown deepened even more when she ran past him. Muttering to himself about how crazy she was, he turned back around and there, he saw the reason she’d screamed in excitement.

He had been so immersed in his thoughts that he had not seen it before, even though he was in front of her.

On a wide opening was a small fountain. Water poured down the rocks, pooling at a dip in the ground, before it fell completely down the rocks and rolled down a path that most definitely led to a river.

“Vampire, look!” She squealed, clapping her hands in excitement.

“At what, exactly?”

“Water.” She giggled. “Lots of it.”

He was helpless not to look at her whenever she made that sound and right now was no different.

“I can see that.” He murmured, not really looking at the water anymore. Not when he had other better things to look at.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to occupy yourself with for the next twenty minutes or so.”

What did she mean by that?

“Why would I have to occupy myself with anything?” He asked her, wondering where she was driving at.

If she was going to suggest that they rest for a bit simply because they’d seen water, then she had something else coming. The only reason he’d listened to her yesterday, was because he knew that he needed it and dragging it out would only mean dragging their journey out as well.

When she said, “Because, vampire, I’m about to have a bath.”, he thought that he must have misheard.

And when she shoved her thumbs into the bands of her shorts, Bran thought he was going to pass out.