The Vampire King’s Captive

MARIA

The small window didn’t allow for much light, but it was enough for Maria. Not like she had a choice. She’d gotten used to it.

The sun was beginning to show signs of going down, which meant that her food would be delivered soon. She couldn’t wait; she was starving.

With the way she was anticipating the food, one would think it was a good meal. They wouldn’t know that she was being fed crumbs that barely filled half her stomach. But she couldn’t complain, could she?

She was lucky that she was getting food in the first place. Ariti’s prisoners weren’t usually fed.

But then again, Ariti was a monster. She wasn’t quite sure if her captor was too. She didn’t know what to make of him yet.

Of course the reason for her hesitancy was due to his reaction to her hand being chopped off. It spoke volumes that he had arranged for the torture-had ordered it. Yet, called it off the moment the blade made contact with her skin.

She couldn’t decide if that was because he had other plans for her or if he simply couldn’t bear the thought of her being hurt.

The former seemed more possible and the latter was too good to be true. She would have to be crazy to believe that the man actually had feelings other than hate for her. Still, it didn’t explain his later care. Him treating and patching up her hand with an unfamiliar gentleness that she wasn’t used to. A gentleness that was completely at odds with the usually aggressive man she knew.

Gods, the man confused the hell out of her.

The door groaned, then banged against the wall loudly, before, almost immediately, it slammed closed back.

She was not expecting anyone other than Edgar. Bran had not come to see her in the past three days and even though she knew that it was because of how things went down that day, she both hated and liked it. Hated it because it only meant that her days here were growing longer and she wasn’t able to do a damned thing about it, and liked it because it meant that whatever future torture plans he had for her were being held off.

Boots scuffed loudly against the stone floor and Maria tensed, her shoulders flying to her ears.

There was no way in hell that the person coming towards her cell was Edgar, neither was it her captor. At first, the careless opening of the door had told her that it was someone else coming in. Sure, her captor slammed the door at times, but he never let it bang against the wall. He always managed to close it before more than a little bit of light could get in. Edgar was the same way.

The other thing that made her believe that it was actually someone else, was the footsteps. Her captor walked in a leisurely and-even though it killed her to admit it-sexy stride that did things to her body that she absolutely hated. The same could be said about Edgar-although his wasn’t half as sexy as her captor’s. At least that was what she thought.

So, that brought her to the question; Who was this person?

Had her captor sent one of his guards to retrieve her for another round of torture?

Slowly, she turned around in her cot and was shocked to see a strange man-he was definitely a guard, she could tell from the uniform-walking towards her cell with a plate on hid hand.

He was bringing her her food. Someone else was bringing her her food.

Where was Edgar?

This was a first. From the very first day she had been in this cell, Edgar was the only one that brought her food to her and she had gotten used to him. She was pretty sure her captor had assigned him to bringing her food on purpose. Was he stopping now?

The guard unhooked a set of keys from his belt hook-keys that Edgar usually carried-and singled out the one that opened her gate before shoving it into the lock and turning it. The gate groaned as it swung open.

The guard waltzed into the room, dumped the plate on the ground carelessly so that some of it fell onto the ground, then turned around, about to leave, before suddenly, his head swivelled in her direction, he looked away, then his eyes settled back on her. This time, he turned his whole body to face her, letting her know that his focus was now on her. Fully.

“Damn, you’re one hot piece.” He swiped his tongue along his bottom lip.

She had been pretty content watching him, partly amazed and the other part curious, but his words and that small action of his tongue, had her back going up. Disgust filled her immediately.

“Who knew His Majesty was keeping a woman this hot down here all this while?” The guard advanced towards her, the lust in his eyes unmistakeable.

Maria scooted backwards on her cot. She couldn’t believe that she was running away from this man. This disgusting cursed man that was looking at her as if he had plans for her. The Maria that she knew, the Maria from a month ago would have ripped his tongue from his throat and fed it to him afterwards, relishing every moment of his torture, for no other reason but simply because he deserved it.

But now, she was running away.

She was running away because she didn’t have her powers anymore. She couldn’t defend herself against him.

Because that goddamned vampire had locked her powers.

Her eyes darted around, searching for a weapon. Anything at all that she could defend herself with, but she found none. The only thing in sight was the food the animal had just brought, and outside her cell, was the chair her captor sometimes sat at.

In her panic, her eyes snagged on the key. It was still hanging on the door from where he had opened it.

She could make a run for it!

If she wanted to do that, then she would have to make him weak enough to actually carry out something like that.

A plan started to cook up in her head. She hated it, but she had no other choice at the moment. It was either she ran or she got assaulted by this man. Or worse, raped.

The realisation of what could happen to her steeled her spine and she stopped scooting back on her cot. She let the man come towards her, his tongue swiping along his lip like a fucking snake as he closed the distance between them. When he was standing before her, he bent towards her, his eyes focused on the flesh under her tank top and his hand going towards them.

She took advantage of his distraction. Just before his hand could make contact, she struck.

Her knee came up hard on his dick and she dove out of the way to the side, already anticipating his move to double over from pain while trying to reach out for her. His hands cradled his goods as he groaned, his eyes squeezing shut and his face contorting in pain.

She ran towards the door of the cell. The small time it took him to realise what she was doing and recover enough to run after her, she was already on the outside, twisting the lock and yanking the key out of it.

“Get back here you fucking bitch.” She leapt back before the hand he shoved through the bars could reach her.

“Rot in hell.” She shot back before breaking into a run, the key thrown carelessly on the floor far out of his reach. She would have taken it with her but she didn’t need it jiggling and drawing attention to herself while she ran.

To be honest, she did not know where she was going to. She had been unconscious when she’d been brought into this castle so she didn’t know the way to follow, yet, that didn’t stop her from running.

In the middle of her run, she realised that her hunger had suddenly disappeared. But who cared? She was finally going to escape this bloody castle. It almost felt like a dream.

She ran down a long corridor and luckily, there weren’t any guards in sight. She kept running, judging by her instincts and going left or right when she saw bends, until she reached a door with a silver of light flowing in from underneath it.

Her heart leapt. That could be her way out!

Without second thoughts, she pulled on the door knob and flung the door open, her heart coming to a standstill when she saw the occupants of the room.

Her captor, in all his glory, was sitting on a a throne and a man stood at the far side of the room, with Edgar close to him. All eyes locked on her when the door creaked open and her heart summersaulted in her chest.

Oh, Gods. She walked right into the lion’s den.

She didn’t have the time nor the will to gauge the emotions that flitted across her captor’s eyes at that very moment, but one stood out clearly. Shock. He definitely had not been expecting to see her-and why would he? It was not like she had free rein to walk around the castle like she owned the place. Her room was a cell.

It didn’t take long for the shock in his eyes to give way to rage and that sparked Maria into action.

She yanked her hand away from the door like it burned her and turned around quickly, sprinting in the other direction.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Blood wooshed in her ears when she heard the unmistakable sound of boots chasing after her.