The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

He was dropped into a kneeling position on the ground and his knees stung from the hard impact it made with the dark linoleum floor of his living room.

The urge to get up and fight redoubled when two men dragged Maria into room. Her arms and legs had been bound and when they dropped her on the ground just as harshly as they’d dropped Bran, he saw tear-streaks on her face and a bright red spot on one cheek.

Had one of these men slapped her?

Bran saw red.

The minute he was free from the chains, he would rip them in two. Extricate their limbs from their bodies bit by bit and enjoy their cries of pain. Even in death, they would remember to never lay a hand on anything that belonged to him. “Hello, daughter,” Ariti said to Maria, walking over to her and dragging a finger down her face. She shook away from his touch but that didn’t deter him. “This isn’t the reunion I hoped for, but you have never looked more healthy so I can’t complain.”

The asshole. As if he cared about her.

Maria’s head lifted and when her eyes latched onto Bran’s from behind Ariti’s average frame, a fresh wave of tears flooded her eyes and ran down her face.

Don’t cry, he wanted to tell her.

We’ll be okay, he wanted to tell her.

But he knew better than to say those words out loud because, hell, Bran didn’t know what he was going to do right now. He was bound, as was Maria. They both had no means of breaking out with these people in the room.

Right now, the odds were stacked fully against them and it was making it impossible for Bran to think properly. Add that to the mating instinct screaming inside him to get Maria to safety, he was just shy of going completely insane.

“I guess I have the vampire to thank for that, don’t I?” Ariti went on, his lips twisting in a wry smile as he threw a look at Bran. “But he was doing it out of his own selfish desires, so that means we’ve evened out.”

Selfish desires? What was he talking about?

Maria looked just as confused as Bran. The tears were still streaming down her face even though her hair had fallen forward to cover her face like a curtain.

The sight of her tears made his heart ache, his body restless and his mind worried. So he tried to tell her with his eyes that they would be okay. That he would do everything he could to get her out of this situation, even though he didn’t have the beginnings of a plan.

Creeping down the hallway and into the living room, was Elizabeth. Her head was up and her shoulders were pulled back in that confident way she walked, not knowing that she was walking towards her doom.

And because Bran still cared about her-even though she had pissed him off alot recently-he yelled at her to go back, that the living room wasn’t safe. But she just kept coming and Bran started to think that she couldn’t hear him.

Until she threw a nervous smile at Ariti, lowering to greet the Queen, then Bran knew that she had heard him. She’d just chosen to ignore him because apparently, she knew these people. Was even friends with them.

But how?

“Now the both of you must be wondering how I know Elizabeth here, but don’t worry. I’ll clear your confusions tonight. All of them.” Ariti began to pace, his strides long and slow, the look on his face telling Bran that he was enjoying this a bit too much. “You were very unwilling to let my daughter go even after guaranteeing that you’ll get your sister back.” Maria’s eyes flew to him at that and her eyes screamed ‘what the hell?’. Knowing that he couldn’t explain himself right now, he forced himself to look away from her and focus on Ariti. “My first guess was that you were growing feelings for her. So I thought, what better way to open your eyes that Maria isn’t for you than sending your long time mistress to you?”

Bran’s breath caught.

No. No.

Fuck, this couldn’t be heading where Bran thought it was.

“I told her to seduce you,” Ariti announced, confirming Bran’s suspicions, and Bran could barely breathe under the weight of the betrayal he felt. “The demoness is one of the most beautiful females I have ever seen. I thought seducing you wouldn’t be an issue. So imagine my surprise when she tells me that she failed.” He paused dramatically. “I almost admitted defeat. Almost. But thankfully, I had a back-up plan, and this is where my man comes in.”

Before Ariti could speak up again, Bran lurched forward like he wanted to attack something. Preferably someone.

“Elizabeth, how could you do this to me?” Bran and Elizabeth’s relationship went way back. Even though they weren’t going to be lovers anymore, he still cared about her and would always help her any way he could. It hurt terribly that she had betrayed him like this. “I trusted you. I let you into my home-”

“You’re a man, Bran,” Elizabeth snapped, using Bran’s given name for the first time since he’d known her. “You can’t possibly understand what women have to go through everyday.” Her face morphed into something evil and ugly and she looked so different, Bran could barely recognise her anymore. “He offered me protection for as long as I lived and in the state I was in, it was the best thing that anyone could ever do for me.”

Situation? What situation?ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“If you were going through anything, you could have told me. I would have helped you in any way that I could.”

Her laugh was mocking and it grated on his nerves. “For how long? Until you found your mate?” She scoffed. “You expected me to accept your help until you cast me away to the side like I was never there?”

Bran shook his head slowly, unable to believe that this side of Elizabeth existed. That the woman he’d called his mistress for as long as he could remember, had an evil streak in her. That she had the ability to hurt him this deeply.

“Now,” Ariti spoke up when the room had been quiet for a while. “That was fun to watch, but I have to complete my story so that we will all go on our merry ways.”

A quick glance at Maria confirmed that she was still watching, still following everything that was happening, and Bran wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that she’d just watched his ex confess to betraying him so boldly.

“As I was saying, this is the part where my man comes in.” Just then, a man entered the living room. Bran recognized him instantly as one of the men he usually had meetings with, and as he did, a chill settled over his spine. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a spy among your men. Someone who would get back to me incase they got useful news, and imagine how delighted I was when I heard that you were agreeing to the deal.”

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

This couldn’t be happening to Bran. This couldn’t be happening to him right now. Maybe he was dreaming one of Maria’s memories and he would wake up soon.

But he had never been in Maria’s dreams before, and this felt too fucking real to be a dream.

“What deal?” Maria, who hadn’t said a single word this entire time, asked.

If Bran could make a wish right now, he would wish for Ariti’s mouth to become sealed forever. For everything to be a dream.

He didn’t fucking care. He just didn’t want Maria to know the truth.

“Why, the vampire agreed to give you back to me in exchange for his sister.”

Maria gasped and she fell back on her ass, as though knocked off balance by the news.