The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

Bran shot up from the bed, his hands stretched out in front of him as he struggled to fight off Ariti, to get the man as far away from his mate as he could.

He was surprised, however, when a warm body pressed into his from the side, a hand coming to rest on his chest and soothing him with small, wonderfully rubs that had him moaning.

“It’s just a dream,” a sweet voice murmured softly, the hand still making patterns on his chest. “It’s over now, come back to me.”

Bran blinked. Then blinked again.

He was in his room at his castle, on his bed. And the hand on his chest belonged to Maria, the body pressed to his belonged to her too and the voice… the sweet angelic voice that had pulled him out of the grips of the nightmare, was none other than hers.

“Angel,” he let out on a broken whisper, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her into him.

She settled with her ass nestled on his lap-not directly on his cock, but it didn’t stop the asshole from getting hard anyway-and one hand around his neck. With the other, she pushed the hair stuck to his forehead due to his sweat back.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asked after a while of them just holding each other and when Bran’s racing heart had calmed, his anger subsiding.

Bran wasn’t really sure if that dream was something he wanted to talk about. The anger had reduced to a dull thrum inside him-one he constantly felt for a while now-but the fear from the dream still gripped him and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake it.

He’d obviously just dreamed her memories and her father was apparently even more cruel to Maria than he’d imagined.

He was so fucking scared because… Because, fuck, he didn’t want to consider it. Didn’t even want to let it stay as an option in her head, but if at all things boiled down to that and he had to… fuck, he had to give her back to her father, he was scared that she would suffer.

That she would have to go back to living like that. Sad, alone-

“Bran?” Her voice brought him back to the present. She was still sitting on his lap and running her hands through his hair soothingly, and she was still staring at him with those worried grey eyes, groves in her brows.

Here she was, worried for him and he was even letting the thought of returning her back to her father creep into his head?Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Fuck.

He would have to be another level of stupid even consider it.

“I dreamt one of your memories,” Bran told her, swallowing as he reached for her left hand and searched the two fingers frantically, wanting to make sure that they were intact. They were. He let out a relieved sigh. “In this one, I saw him ask men to tie you to a chair, then…” He swallowed, the words hard for him to say. “Then… Fuck. He got a clipper and-”

“It’s okay,” she hushed him, bringing his head to her breast and laying it there, brushing her fingers through his hair slowly. “It’s okay. It’s in the past now.”

She didn’t understand and he didn’t bother to try to make her. She didn’t understand that even though it was in the past didn’t mean that all chances of it happening again were gone.

She didn’t know what was happening. Didn’t know that her father had declared war. She just didn’t know.

Because he was starting to care too much for her, he had realized, and couldn’t bother her with her asshole of a father’s recent doings.

And that was why when she gently led him back to lay on the bed and placed her head on his chest, he let her.

It was why when she lulled him back to sleep with her soothing touch and head on his chest, he let her. And soon, he was slipping into a dreamless sleep.

***

“How much longer do I have to wait?”

“Just a minute now.”

“You said that seven minutes ago. How long exactly does it take to make the goddamned thing?”

The witch’s head turned and her eyes narrowed on him. “This goddamned thing is what had you driving two hours to meet me at a shady-as-hell location.” She turned back to face the iron table-the iron bracelet on top of it-then swiveled to face him again. “And it’s called a protection bracelet, thank you very much.”

“A protection bracelet?” Bran asked from his perch on the wooden table a few feet behind her, incredulous. “Protection from what?”

“Protection from your mate’s extraordinary charms,” she drawled.

Bran lifted a brow at that, but said nothing more.

He couldn’t argue with her on that. He actually did need protection from his mate’s charms and not because they wanted to harm him, but for a totally different reason.

What he was doing was so wrong, it could be considered as betrayal. He tried not to think too much of it, but it was impossible when he was right there doing something that would put a sort of barrier between him and his mate.

The need to claim her as his was getting stronger by the day and harder to ignore, and every single time she kissed him, every single time she looked at him like she wanted more-because he knew that his mouth wasn’t doing it completely for her; he had eyes-the need to claim her ratcheted up even more and he had to physically stop himself most of the times by leaving the room, the house, as far away from her as he could get.

It wasn’t with a clear mind that Bran had decided to reach out to the witch, asking her if there was anything that could be done for him. She’d told him that a certain lycan had complained about the same situation and she’d made a bracelet for him that quelled the mating urge to a manageable level.

After an hour’s hesitation, Bran had asked her to make the same bracelet for him.

Since the vampires and witches still weren’t on good terms, they’d decided to meet at a hidden location-one where they wouldn’t be sighted by anyone.

“Here,” the witch announced, turning with the bracelet clutched in her hand. “It’s ready.”

He collected the bracelet from her outstretched hand and slipped it around the top of his bicep, noting how it fitted perfectly.

Running his hand across the surface of it, he couldn’t help but think about how wrong what he was doing it. How much of a betrayal the bracelet meant and what it could do to Maria if she ever found out about it.

But he had his reasons, and even though they wouldn’t make sense to other people, were perfectly reasonable to him and that was the only thing that mattered.