The Vampire King’s Captive

MARIA

We need a cook, Maria thought as she stirred the mixture in the bowl while fetching pans from the rack on the wall at the same time with her powers.

Over the past few days, she had taken on the task of hiring a live-in maid, a cleaner that would come every two days and gardener, but she hadn’t employed a cook yet.

She had not been allowed into the kitchen when she was younger and therefore didn’t know how to prepare a decent meal, so for the past three days-because while heartbreak couldn’t kill her, she could very well die of hunger-she had taken up the task of cooking.

To save her time, all she would have to do was envision the meal she wanted and it would appear in front of her, but she had recently come to see how important a cook was. She wanted to learn how to make at least a few meals and it didn’t hurt to learn with a cookbook. That was what she’d been doing for the past three days anyway, and the meals had come out okay-most of the time.

The doorbell rang through the house and Maria sighed as she remembered that they needed a doorman too.

Puffing her cheeks, she blew a tendril of hair that had escaped her ponytail out of her face. She let the pan drop on top of the kitchen counter and left the spoon in the mixture as she hurried over to the front of the house, wondering who it could be.

The cleaner wasn’t due to come until tomorrow and the live-in maid was currently upstairs, helping her mother with a bath. It wasn’t like her mother couldn’t bathe herself-she could-but Maria had updated the furnitures and design of the house to a more modern one and her mother wasn’t used to them, having been frozen in limbo at a time when things had not been so updated. So she had asked the maid to help her incase she had any difficulties.

Without using the peephole, Maria pulled the door open and blinked when she saw the person on the other side.

“Hello.” The slight brunette’s soft voice drifted across the small space between them to Maria, causing her grip on the door to tighten.

“Iris,” Maria breathed.

She was so completely taken aback by her presence that Maria forgot to invite her in and just kept standing there, running her eyes over her svelte form clad in a yellow sundress.

Her green eyes, so very much like her brother’s that it made Maria ache, were bright with life, her hair covered with a scarf tied just under her chin. Male boots adorned her feet, the masculine thing so at odds with her otherwise feminine outfit, that it made Maria want to smile.

What confused Maria, however, was Iris’ presence on her doorstep and the slight, unsure smile on her face.

What was she doing here? And how did she manage to know where Maria lived?

“May I come in?” Iris asked after what felt like an eternity had passed with them staring at each other, and Maria snapped into action.

“Forgive my manners,” she apologised as she stepped out of the way for Iris to enter. “Please come in.”

As Iris walked ahead of her into the house, Maria tried to calm her racing heart. What was Bran’s sister doing here?

After the way they’d parted the last time they saw each other, Maria had been riddled with guilt, knowing that the next time they saw each other, things would be awkward. In fact, she had expected that Iris would want absolutely nothing to do with her after that day-she would have understood if Iris hated her even-which was why she was quite surprised that the girl had sought her out. But for what reason?

She hadn’t spied a car outside too, so there was also the question of how she had arrived here. Perhaps she was here to give Maria a piece of her mind.

Still, that didn’t explain the smile on her face when she’d arrived and how she knew where Maria lived.

“Would you like me to get you anything?” Maria asked as Iris sat on the couch, her hands clasped on her lap gently. “Water? Tea?”

A small, kind smile touched Iris’ lips, proving to Maria again that a confrontation was the last thing on her mind. “You’re being awfully polite. Are you nervous?”

Leave it up to Iris to ask a person so bluntly whether they were nervous. At first glance, one would think her timid. Shy. But after a full conversation with her, one’s perception of her would change.

“No.” A brief hesitation. “Why do you think so?”

“You just asked if you could get me tea.” When Maria simply stared at her-because what did offering a visitor tea have to do with them being nervous-she explained. “I’m a vampire.”

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Oh shit.

She’d just asked a vampire if she could get them tea.

Maria slapped a hand to her face, groaning in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m so nervous.” She shook her head and forced her hand away from her face to look at the teenager who was watching her avidly. “It’s just-you know. You just appeared on my doorstep and I wasn’t expecting that after what… after what happened the last time.”

Maria didn’t have to elaborate. They both knew what had happened the last time they saw each other.

Iris sighed and leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and dropping her face into her palms. “When I heard the man who took me away from my family call you daughter, I was heartbroken.” She started, her eyes focused on a spot beside Maria’s leg. Maria had decided to sit on the sofa opposite her so that she would have this conversation with her squarely. “Do you know what the funny thing is?” She didn’t wait for Maria to answer before she continued. “When you told me your name back when we were still in the cells, I knew. I knew that it was you. You were the Maria Hatzi everyone was talking about, but I didn’t want to believe it because I liked you.”

Oh gods. To think that Maria had been keeping her identity away from Iris when she already knew who she was.

“But if you knew who I was, then why did you still talk to me?” It didn’t make sense. “Why did you keep talking to me even after everything that I had done to you?”

Green eyes flicked up to Maria’s face. “You sounded different from what I had imagined and then from our conversations, I just couldn’t believe that you were the same person.” Everyday, Maria hated herself for what she’d done to people, but knowing that she’d hurt people she cared about was a different feeling entirely. “I assumed it was a coincidence that your name was Maria and that you somehow landed in Ariti’s cell. Actually, the fact that he had you in the cells was enough proof to hold onto the idea that you weren’t the same person.”