Captured (Vampire King Book 2) (2 page)

“Brie?”
Samuel’s voice held unease.

“I’m
right behind you.”

It
was hard to see. Thick clouds of dingy smoke blocked out the two moons’ light.
Black ashes sprinkled down on us like rain. I breathed pieces into my mouth
that made me choke. We hurried to rescue Leeta, racing through the smoky
streets and bumping into people who screamed and shrieked for their loved ones.
All sought escape and yearned to survive. Frightened children clutched their
crying mothers with panicked grips. Animals scattered to safety—from striped
horses that trotted away after owners, to silver wombats that burst out of the
attics of homes. So many faces, young and old, but I never saw Leeta within
this mass of hysteria. Dread filled me. I feared for her and Samuel with each
step.

Brie? Are you okay?
Samuel’s voice peered into my
mind. Ash coated his blond-and-black hair as he sprinted in front of me.

I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.
I trailed behind him, unable to
keep up with his inhuman speed. Sweat dripped down my face and drenched my
auburn hair. Dark pieces of ash dropped and stuck to my wet skin. There was no
way that I could maintain his speed. Samuel was a vampire prince. He could
outrun me with no problem, but instead, he kept no more than four feet between
us.

Just check on her. I’ll be okay.

No!
His voice boomed in my mind like
a mallet slamming against a metal wall. I held my hands to my forehead to
soothe the ache that formed near my temples.

I won’t be able to find her if
I’m worried about you.
His voice sounded smoother, as if he’d realized he was too loud and was trying
to calm himself down. He rounded the street corner. Panting, I followed and
waved away smoke with each step. My feet already throbbed from exhaustion. My
legs and chest burned.

Dear Ambi!
It was even worse as we neared
Leeta’s hotel. Fire captured almost every business.
Everything will be destroyed by dawn.

“I
caught her scent!” Samuel halted in the middle of the pebbled street, raised
his nose in the air, and headed to the front of Leeta’s hotel. It looked like a
gigantic bonfire. A few seconds later, I arrived next to him. The inferno
decorated every inch of the building. What was left of the foundation glowed
violent shades of orange and yellow.

“She’s
still inside.” He scanned the area as if seeking a safe opening.

The
little hope I held on to evaporated into nothing.
If she’s inside then it may be too late.
I prayed to the vampire
god Ambi that Samuel didn’t sense my worries.

“Can
you hear her heart beating?” I clasped my hand on his warm fingers as they
shuddered in mine.

“I
think I hear something, but I’m not sure.” He frantically searched, his face
moving from side to side. “What am I going to do? I can’t lose her.”

Leeta
had been a maid for Samuel’s mother Queen Regina most of her life. His mother
was a domina like me, except she birthed over sixty vampire children for the
King and therefore was heightened to queen status. But before she received the
title, Queen Regina delivered Samuel. And immediately after his birth, she gave
him to Leeta. There was no other choice. The King killed prince babies. They
were the only vampires strong enough to overthrow him. With the newborn baby in
her arms, Leeta fled the castle, hid in the town of Freemont, and raised Samuel
in the very hotel that was presently burning to the ground.

Births
were a sore spot for many who lived on the castle’s grounds. Any baby boy who
wasn’t a prince served in The Quiet King’s army for twenty years.

Baby
girls became princesses if the King deemed them pretty. He could not see and
was deaf, and mute, but he made decisions by analyzing the girl’s faces with
his fingers and communicating his choices by speaking them in our minds. He
read all of our thoughts and knew when we complied with his wishes. When the
girls grew, the King married them off to leaders with vampires in their
territories. There, the princesses were expected to add halflings to the
foreign population. Baby girls he considered ugly remained as servants in the
castle.

However,
the King murdered all boys born with black marks, trailing up the side of their
legs. I was told by an old domina the marks signaled the sign of a prince, one
strong enough to conquer the King. Whenever a delivery nurse or guard spotted
the birthmark on an infant’s leg, the King ordered the little prince’s death.
One night after four princes were delivered, the King’s voice had boomed in all
of our heads with rage, “Kill them!”

“We’ll
figure out a way to save her.” I released his hand and leaned forward to see if
there were areas not on fire.

The
hotel’s foundation crackled and collapsed with a boom. I jerked back in horror.
Tears fell from Samuel’s golden eyes as he continued to scan the blaze. I
spotted an opening on the building’s side. Smoke drifted out of a damaged hole.
There was no fire around it, just black burnt wood.

Without
thinking, I dashed toward it. “Maybe I could call her name or—”

“No!”
Samuel’s hands seized my arms and dragged me back a few feet. “I’ll go in.”

“Be
careful.”

“Don’t
worry about me. You stay safe.” He stormed off. “Scream if you need me!”

“I’ll
be okay.”

In
a blurry flash, he rushed to the opening and dived into the smoky blackness.
Something crashed inside the hotel. I hurried to where Samuel had disappeared,
crossed my fingers, and forced myself not to pace or bite my nails.

Please be okay. Please be okay.

I’m fine,
he whispered inside my mind.

I
cried out with relief. Usually I hated when he entered my head. We’d argued all
day about him invading my thoughts. But this time I was relieved.
He can stay in my head all he wants.

I’ll be inside more than that
later.
His voice
delivered warmth to my core.

Focus.
My eyes widened.
Do you see Leeta?

I have her,
he replied with relief.
I’m coming out right now.

Inflamed
slabs of wood hurtled down the hotel’s side entrance. I gasped as Samuel rushed
out in the opposite direction. A smoldering breeze of ash swarmed behind him.
He carried Leeta in his arms. Blood painted her skin. Her pale blue eyes went
to me. Her chest slowly rose and fell as though she were struggling to breathe.
Dark smudges lined her wrinkled face. Last time I’d seen her, she had long gray
hair. Now blood and scorched skin corroded half of her scalp. Her few remaining
gray strands dangled on the other side of her face. I sprinted to them as
Samuel laid Leeta on the ground.

“She
can’t move her legs and she’s having a hard time speaking,” Samuel said between
rapid breaths.

I
extended my arm. “Cut my wrist so I can give her my blood.”

My blood has to help. Please let
it help.

Samuel
pushed his fangs out. Sharp ivory tips peeked from his lips. Without
hesitation, he grabbed my hand and pierced my wrist. A lusty swirl of desire
sparked at the bite, spread up my arm, sank within my chest, and hit me directly
in the bundle of nerves between my thighs. I moaned as dark red blood seeped
out of the wound. Samuel’s nostrils flared. His golden eyes glowed. I didn’t
know if it was due to my blood or arousal, but our priorities in that moment
shifted in seconds from urgent survival to lust.

“Focus,”
I whispered as a low rumble pulsed from his chest.

He
formed his fingers into tight fists and closed his eyes. The scent of my blood
lingered between us. Hunger creased every edge of his chiseled face, but he did
not move.

“Focus
on healing Leeta.” I struggled to not lick my lips.
What is wrong with us?
Destruction flooded the area. A woman that
Samuel loved like his mother balanced on the edge of life and death. And here
we were, aroused, with sex and bloodlust on our minds.

His bite is becoming too
addictive. I’ll have to wean myself away when we separate.

Growling,
Samuel placed my wrist to Leeta’s mouth and directed his golden eyes to me.
Leeta clamped both of her hands onto my wrist and greedily drank.

Separate?
His voice scraped against my
mind. I flinched as his sandpaper words cut through me.
We agreed that I would leave you alone in Freemont.
His voice
rubbed against me harder.
The town is
destroyed. You’ll stay with me.

“Stop,”
I said through clenched teeth. “You’re hurting me. I’ll have a headache if you
don’t relax your thoughts.”

“I’m
sorry.” His voice disappeared from my head. He looked away.

“I’ll
figure out what I will do later.”

He
sighed.

“For
now, we need to focus.” I gazed down at Leeta as her drinking changed from
tender sipping to ravenous gulps. My domina blood held healing properties for
humans. Hopefully, I could repair enough of Leeta’s injuries to give us time to
take her to a healer. She pulled harder with her mouth. Her demanding tugs drew
my blood to her at a fleeting pace.

“Ow!”
My wrist ached. I swayed back a little.

“Enough,
Leeta!” Samuel yanked my hand away from her mouth. “Too much of Brie’s blood
will make you sick.”

She
whimpered with blood-smudged lips. In seconds, new pale skin emerged from the
scarred flesh and burns on her face. Silky gray strands sprouted from her
scorched scalp, lengthened until her hair fell down to the ground and glimmered
in the fire’s light. Slowly the gray hair transformed to brown. She exhaled and
inhaled while focusing her eyes on me.

Oh my goddess.

“Is
she supposed to heal this quickly?”
I
blinked a few times to make sure I’d actually witnessed it. Panic flooded my
chest. I touched her face, slipping my hands down her perfect, soft cheek.
“I’ve never had another human drink my blood.”

“It
should take hours for the domina blood to begin to work.” Samuel held a shocked
expression. He directed his eyes to the wound around my wrist. “Minor scrapes
are cured in hours. Really bad injuries take days to heal.”

“Not
seconds?”

“Never.”
Samuel glided his finger against the bite marks on my wrist.

“They
came for you.” Leeta’s voice grabbed my attention. I turned to her as she
coughed over and over. Clearing her throat, she whispered, “Brie, they came for
you.”

“She
must be delirious.” Samuel’s blond-and-black striped eyebrows furrowed. “We
can’t give her any more blood. Something is wrong.”

Shivering,
Leeta snatched my shirt collar and yanked me to her. I fell into her heaving
chest. Samuel hissed.

I
held my hand up to quiet him. “Who came for me?”

“Hundreds…so
many guards,” Leeta said, “They tracked your scent to the room you slept in.”

“Hundreds?”
Samuel snarled. “Why would there be hundreds of Royal Guards searching for one
domina?”

“They…set
fire to the town. One yelled…that they found your scent, Brie. Then they ran
off toward the north.” Leeta’s eyes closed. She released my shirt and collapsed
to the ground with parted lips.

“This
is all because of me?” My bottom lip quivered. I scanned the destruction.
Freemont’s citizens still raced away, towing young ones and any of their
belongings that they could hold. Houses crashed into themselves and exploded
into sparks of fiery red. A lump of sorrow sank down in my gut.

People died and lost their homes
because of me?

“Leeta
is delusional. She’s traumatized from the fire,” Samuel explained, but his face
possessed that tense look he got when he was worried.

“What
if she’s telling the truth?”

“She’s
not.” Samuel lifted her up in his arms and rose.

“But
if she is?”

“Then
I’ll kill them all.” His fangs lengthened below his bottom lip. “For now we
should hide, just in case. Leeta said they tracked your scent and went to the
north. That makes sense. I’d taken you north first, before you found out, and
we had to turn around and go south to Zumaya. This gives us maybe a week before
they approach Zumaya. We’ll have to hide.”

“Where?”
Stunned, I stood.

“In
the sewers.” Samuel walked off.

I
caught up with him and gazed at the town’s damage with new eyes. “Have you ever
seen guards set a town on fire when they searched for an escaped domina?”

“No.
Leeta has to be delusional, because if this is the truth, then you’re in danger
and I don’t want that.” Samuel led us out of Freemont’s border where the fire
had begun to lazily die down. What were once probably well-established
restaurants, hotels, and homes were now piles of burning wood and streams of
smoke that floated from charred heaps.

“I’ve
never seen more than two or three guards search for a domina,” Samuel said.
“Especially one that was untouched.”