The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

The vampire realm, unlike many of the other realms-for instance, the realm of Sorceri and the realm of Valkyrie who frowned upon the entrance of creatures that weren’t of their kind-was one in which creatures of different species co-existed.

Most of them didn’t even live in this realm. They were either passing by and had decided to camp here for a few days before continuing on their journey and some had somehow crash-landed in the wrong realm and didn’t know their way out. The Sorceri weren’t friends of the Vampires, so there was no way a portal opener could be found amongst us which was why many of them that had landed here against their will, had simply started living here.

Seeing as a considerate number of other species had started living here, few bars and restaurants had been established around the kingdom.

Bran, when he sometimes felt like it-which was extremely rare-, visited one of the bars. He wasn’t one of those uptight kings that wanted their ass worshipped whenever they walked into a room; his father hadn’t even been that way. As long as they respected him, he didn’t have a problem.

He walked into the bar he usually went to, flanked by two of his men. Immediately he stepped in, the occupants of the place stood in respect, bowing their heads at him. It made him feel awkward and he barely stopped himself from tugging at his shirt.

Plastering an easy smile on his face, he nodded at them to return to their seats and they did.

He couldn’t help but feel like a fucking imposter in his own kingdom. Was he even worthy of being called a king?

He’d been absent while his home had been invaded, his parents-and a score of guards-killed, and his sister, abducted. And then he’d returned a month later because it had been almost impossible for his people to reach him, only to meet the kingdom in a state of anarchy due to the lack of a leader.

Yeah, some king he was.

He had not even be ready to become a king. Wasn’t prepared for it at all. But his father was dead and someone had to assume the role of King and lead the people. He was his father’s only male child and heir to the throne.

Duties he hadn’t been prepared for were dumped on his laps and he’d grown older and wiser in those first three months of him sitting on the throne than he had in his entire life combined.

He’d been forced to rule.

Because of her.

“Greetings, Your Highness.” The bar owner, Elizabeth, approached Bran as he sat at a table of two off to the side of the room. He always sat at that table and coincidentally, it was always unoccupied. Bran suspected Elizabeth reserved the table specifically for him in case he decided to come in. “I trust you’re having a wonderful day.”

She was way off the mark, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

He nodded sharply. “I am. How are things, Elizabeth?”

In all honesty, he didn’t give two shits about how she was or how things were going in her life. But he was outside the palace walls and these were his people. He had to play the role he was born for.

The question elicited a smile out of her which was nothing short of surprising, really, seeing as he asked her the exact same thing every time he came in here and she never failed to give him the same answer: Splendid.

“Splendid.” She exclaimed as expected.

He would say ‘I told you so’ if he was having this conversation with anyone but himself.

“Shall I bring your usual?” She asked and he nodded, impatient for her to leave already.

A few minutes later, she arrived with a bottle of whiskey and an empty glass, pouring a hefty dose for him before placing the bottle on the table and retreating.

Bran wasn’t in a hurry to drink. To be honest, he didn’t really care much for it. He had only come here in a bid to kill two birds with a stone. He needed to be away from the palace and at the same time, he needed to drink to clear his head. He had not been able to stay back at the palace and have his drink peacefully without images and thoughts of Maria plaguing him, so he had decided to leave.

He couldn’t not think about her body-if it was actually her’s-and how it dipped and curved in the right places. How her barely there T-shirt had highlighted the mesmerising shapes of her pert breasts, leaving nothing to the imagination. And her tiny shorts that barely covered her ass cheeks.

Couldn’t not think about the betrayed look in her eyes when she stared at him that day, as though she had trusted him and he had broken that trust.

Couldn’t not think about the fact that she had shed a tear.

How frail she’d looked when he’d held her in his arms, her body folding in on itself as if she wanted to protect herself against him.

How small she’d been in his arms.

How perfect…

Hell, he’d left the palace, thinking that the high walls were clouding his thoughts since he’d been in there for a while. That he simply needed to leave and clear his head and everything would miraculously go back to normal, but it wasn’t working.

He should have known better. He didn’t believe in miracles.

He grabbed the glass and threw the drink into the back of his throat, relishing the burn as it went down. He dropped the glass back down on the table, not as gently as he’d wanted to.

The sorceress was doing something. He didn’t know what exactly she was doing or how she was doing it, but he knew that she was. She was infiltrating his mind with thoughts of herself, making it impossible for him to think about anything else. So that what?

So that he would develop feelings for her and foolishly let her go?

He almost laughed out loud at that. Did she think that he was really that easily deceived? That he didn’t know that she was lying?

Her performance a few days ago had caused him to start thinking, but at the end of the day, he came to the same conclusion that she knew where his sister was.

According to his most trusted men, men that wouldn’t dare lie to him, it had not been her father that had attacked his family. It was her. She was the one that had captured Iris. Which meant that she knew where Iris was.

Why did she insist on lying to him that she didn’t know where his sister was? Was there something else at play?

He gave his head a hard shake. No. Maria Hatzi knew where his sister was. She just didn’t want to tell him, even when he’d recruited a master torturer to chop her hand off. Which meant that his sister had to serve a greater purpose to her.

One that he was going to find out what it was.

Bran was one of the primordial vampires-the oldest vampires to exist-and he had remarkably keener hearing than most vampires. Which was why he heard when someone said; “He looks so troubled. I feel so sad for him.”

His shoulders went up and he tensed in his chair. He was careful not to look in the direction he had heard the words so as not to give away the fact that he could hear them.

“… wiped out his entire family? How awful.” The remainder of the sentence drifted to his ears, but they weren’t from the same person that had spoken first.

Instantly, he knew they were talking about him. And the pity in their words couldn’t be clearer. They obviously hadn’t expected him to hear the words and if it were younger vampires, they probably wouldn’t have been able to hear them.

His neck burned hotly from shame, his molars grinding in anger.

They pitied him.

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Their king.

They probably had been talking about him for long but he had just been too lost in his thoughts to pay attention.

Was that how they saw him? Troubled and sad and helpless? They thought he was a fucking wimp?

“He has no one. Absolutely no one. I wonder how he-”

He stood up abruptly, unable to hear the words anymore, and threw a wad of cash on the table next to his abandoned drink.

Without a single glance at anyone and with shame scalding him, he stormed out of the bar, not bothering to check if his guards were following him.

He knew that they were.

This was how his own people now saw him. Sad and troubled. All because of a fucking sorceress. Rage burned through him, alive and strong and almost swallowing him whole in its intensity.

He was going to make her pay.

In his haste to exit the bar, he didn’t take note of a man that walked right out with him, lingering a few feet behind his men.

It was obvious that the man wasn’t from around here. He carried himself with a pompous air around him, yet the darting of his eyes from side to side gave out the knowledge that he was nervous. Scared.

Bran watched him out of the corner of his left eye, controlling his breaths until he was breathing normally again, then he slowed his gait so that to the onlooker it would seem like he was just enjoying his walk. Suddenly, he swivelled around and leapt at the man, rendering him immovable with a vise-like grip around his neck.

The man gasped. “Wait! I have information about your sister.”