Captured (Vampire King Book 2) (5 page)

I
released an exasperated breath. “And all of those times we were…having sex.
People say crazy things they don’t mean in the heat of passion.”

“Not
me,” Samuel grumbled and stomped ahead of me.

“Well,
that’s because you’re a vampire prince.” I twirled my hand in the air. A
rumbling sound emitted from his chest. Leeta coughed in Samuel’s arms. We both
stopped walking and gazed at the woman.

“Samuel?”
Leeta’s voice came out in a low whisper with a scratchy undertone. “What’s
happening to me? I…don’t feel sick, but…so cold.”

Her
eyes opened, exposing copper pupils instead of their usual grey. I flinched.
Only vampires had metallic-colored eyes.

“You’re
okay. Go back to sleep.” Samuel rocked her in his arms. Leeta’s eyes fluttered
for a minute and then closed.

I
tapped his shoulder and then touched my forehead so he would know to read my
thoughts.
Did you see that? Her eyes are
like a vampire’s.

Yes
, Samuel answered in my mind. I
got in front of him and put my hands to Leeta’s lips, slowly opening them.

Be careful
, Samuel warned.

I
separated Leeta’s cool mouth and jerked back. Tiny fangs lengthened from her
top lip.
Is she a vampire, or something
else?
Shock rocked my body. I almost stumbled back.
What’s going on? What did my blood do?

Chapter Three

Don’t say anything to Ty and
Victoria about Leeta’s eyes or fangs,
Samuel
ordered inside my head.
I need time to
figure this out
.

Okay
was the first thought I could
coherently manage as I trailed behind him and stuffed my shaking hands into my
pockets.
What are we going to do? Is this
even possible?
Leeta’s fangs flashed in my mind a million times. Ian had
said her blood was changing into something else, that she was no longer human.

Then what is she? Is my blood
responsible for that?

Samuel
averted his gaze, opened an iron door, and gestured for me to stay with him. We
entered a room full of shadows that danced along the walls. Lit candles stood
in each corner. Dark black liquid soaked the cement, but it wasn’t puddled like
the tunnels. I recognized this as the place Ty and Samuel had brought me two
weeks ago when they were helping me escape. Tiny things squirmed in the liquid
as Samuel led me to another metal door and rotated the foot-wide circular wheel
in the center.

The
door clicked open. A chilly wind brushed past me as we entered a massive room.
Polished silver metal represented the walls and floor. The ground shined so
much I almost snatched off my grimy shoes to not dirty it. A burnt wood
fragrance drifted from the campfire in the center of the space. Ty and Victoria
surrounded it. Victoria lounged between Ty’s legs as he kept her body close to
him in a snug embrace. Their silver eyes went to Samuel and then strayed to me.

“You
run off for days to take the domina to her home, only to bring her right back?”
Ty laughed. Four iron doors stood on the wall behind them. I wondered where
they led.

They’re our bedrooms.
Samuel’s voice surfaced in my
head.
Stay near the campfire and wait for
me please. I want to study Leeta’s fangs some more and then I’ll be right out
to take you to my bathtub.

“Hello,
you two.” A forced grin covered Samuel’s face as he carried Leeta past the
campfire and rushed toward one of the iron doors. “I’ll be right back. Keep
Brie company for me until I return, please.”

“Sure.”
Ty pointed to me. “See, Victoria, I told you that girl would be the one to
snatch him away.”

“So
it seems.” Victoria sighed and wrenched out several blue bills with the Quiet
King’s face on the front. “Here’s your fifty pocks. I can’t believe you won. I
thought it was a sucker’s bet. Samuel has been with so many women I figured he
would never settle down. I mean even a few were dominas, but—”

Ty
covered his wife’s mouth with a pale hand. Her brunette curls fell over his
arm.
Many women?
Rage rose within me
and I really didn’t understand why. Samuel and I weren’t even together and
surely he had the right to sleep with anyone he wanted to before me.
But many?
Of course, he’d been with
many. What woman wouldn’t want to make love to a man with a gorgeous face who
was encased in satin skin and hard muscles that bulged with his every movement?

“My
wife, she says the damnedest things. Ignore her.” Ty shrugged as he took his
hand away from her mouth.

“Don’t
worry. We’re not together.” I held up my hand. “It doesn’t matter who Samuel
has been with in the past or will be with in the future.”

“But
still, I didn’t mean to say that.” Victoria tossed her curls over her shoulders
and scooted closer to Ty. She ruffled his hair a little with her fingers. “And
I’m very happy for Samuel.”

I
cleared my throat. “We’re only friends.”

“Sure.”
Victoria smirked. “He never brings anybody back to his lair.”

“This
was an emergency,” I insisted and sat down by the fire, scratching my hair.
Gunk enveloped my fingers.
I need a bath.

Don’t worry. You’ll bathe soon
. Samuel’s voice drifted in my
brain. He was still behind the door he’d escaped behind.
I’ve slept with many dominas and other women, but none I’ve called my
queen.

I don’t care. Get out of my head.
I formed my
hands into fists.
Can I just formulate
thoughts in my mind without you trampling through them?

No. Not when they’re wrong
assumptions about me
,
he replied.

I
gritted my teeth and closed my eyes for a few seconds, attempting to calm my
nerves. The whole situation was beginning to be too much—Royal Guards setting a
town on fire, starving sewer creatures threatening us, a human transforming
into something with fangs, and the domina-seducing prince who was crowding my
brain and studying my every thought.

Tomorrow we should separate
.

I
needed to begin my new life away from Samuel and the Quiet King’s blasted city.
Samuel didn’t reply with a thought. Instead, a thunderous howl exploded from
the room he was in. I edged closer to the campfire and hugged myself. Ty and
Victoria focused their silver gazes on me.

“Did
he bond with you?” Ty asked, breaking the silence. “Are you no longer
untouched?”

I
was sure my cheeks had turned rosy red as heat surged to them.

“You
have to excuse my husband. He has no tact.” Victoria leaned her head on Ty’s
shoulders. “He was a Royal Guard for many years. He even helped poor Leeta
escape when Samuel was a baby.”

My
mouth gaped open. “Really?”

“Of
course.” Ty bobbed his head. “Samuel was the hundredth prince baby that I’d
seen born. I spotted his marks during the delivery and knew I had to report it
to the King, but something inside of me finally clicked.”

Victoria
sat up, picked up a metal stick, and poked the fire logs. The wood brightened
into fiery embers. Smoke rose, filling the air with a scorched wood perfume. Ty
closed his eyes. “I’d finally had enough. When Samuel’s mother pleaded with me
to help her maid Leeta and Samuel escape, I didn’t even have to think. I just
did it.”

I
held out my hands to the fire, warming them.

“Was
that Leeta in Samuel’s arms when he rushed in?” Victoria asked.

I
nodded and to get her off the topic of Leeta, I asked, “Were you also a Royal
Guard?”

“No.”
She laughed. “I was management—organized the mating schedules for what nights
the King and a particular domina would lay together. I even determined the
official day color the dominas were required to wear.”

“Why
do the castles make all dominas wear one official color each day and even the
same, exact robes?” I asked.

“To
keep all of you in one place,” Victoria reluctantly replied.

“Like
horses?” I muttered.

“Exactly.
If you all are wearing the same outfit and color, we can herd you around from
one area of the Royal Court to another and keep track of you by counting every
half hour,” Victoria confessed.

“I
figured that.”

“Domina,..
you never answered my question.” Ty seized a small four-foot log and slung it
on the fire. The flames blazed high. More smoke floated from the burning wood
and flowed up through several small vents in the ceiling.

Won’t the smoke signal that
people are in the sewer?

The vents go into an intricate
tunnel that leads outside of Capitol City.
Samuel’s voice invaded my mind again and seemed
uneasy, as if he were worried about something.

Victoria
waved both of her hands. “Domina! Are you still with us?”

“Yes.”
I looked at Ty. “What was the question you wanted answered?”

“Are
you still untouched, domina?” A smirk plastered on Ty’s face.

“No.”
Samuel’s voice echoed within the room as he shut the door. A click sounded from
the door behind him.

“Her
name is not domina anymore. It’s Brie and she has been touched.” He strolled my
way. “Many many times.”

Warmth
swirled within me. My lower insides clenched in response. Samuel licked his
lips, no doubt knowing the memories that were in my mind—his fangs piercing my
flesh, his fingers taunting my nipples, his tongue circling my thighs as I
begged for him to inch further.

“Okay.”
Victoria laughed. “Many times, huh?”

Blushing,
I wiped my forehead, attempting to give myself something to do while Ty and
Victoria stared at me.

“Is
Leeta okay?” Victoria raised her brunette eyebrows.

“Sure.
Why do you ask?” Samuel extended his hand out to me and gestured for me to go
with him. “Come, let me show you where the bathtub is located.”

Victoria
hissed. She shot up to her feet in a blur. Her fangs sprang out. Her warm,
friendly face shifted to a terror-driven one within seconds.

“You
are hiding something, Samuel.” Victoria pointed one finger at him. “What’s
wrong with Leeta? I tried to be patient as you snuck her in here without us
seeing her or saying hello.”

“Calm
down.” Ty positioned himself between them. “I’m sure Samuel and his queen will
explain.”

I
waved my hands. “I’m not his queen.”

“Samuel’s
a prince,” Ty explained. “He ingested your domina blood. Whether you both like
it or not, our prince is now ripening into a king, and since you’re the domina
that did it, you’re his first queen.”

“There
won’t be others,” I blurted out as fury exploded at my temples. Everyone
twisted their faces to me. My heartbeat sped up. Slowly breathing in and out, I
tried to calm myself. A foreign emotion coursed through my body.
Goodness, am I jealous?
I twisted my
shirt in my fingers and didn’t even glance at Samuel. I’m sure he beamed.

“Brie
is right,” Samuel said. “There won’t be any other queens, just her.”

I
battled with myself to not flash a deliriously happy grin. Samuel and I could
not happen. I’d just escaped a vampire king. The last thing I needed to do was
be with another vampire, a sexy one or not. This was not the life I wanted. In
fact, it would be better if I stayed away from vampires from now on, especially
with hundreds of guards searching for me. Samuel fixed his gaze on me.

Get out of my head.
I narrowed my eyes.

“What’s
wrong with Leeta?” Victoria sneered. “Samuel, why did you put her in our sick
room? I heard you lock the door behind you.”

Samuel’s
lips lowered into a frown as he explained how we discovered the fire in
Freemont and saved Leeta. He told them about me giving her my blood, but didn’t
mention her new fangs and eye color, or even that a hundred Royal Guards had
set Freemont on fire while looking for me.

“Okay,
so Leeta is recovering, but you ran in here with her and you locked her in the
room. Why?” Ty wrapped one arm around Victoria and gently tugged her toward
him.

“Leeta
is having a bad reaction to Brie’s blood. I want her behind locked doors until
after I clean up.” Samuel led me around them. “Don’t go in there until we’re
done washing up.”

“What
type of reaction?” Victoria bared her fangs. “Are you putting my husband and me
in danger?”

“Of
course not.” Samuel’s voice boomed through the room. “Just give Brie and me
time to wash up and eat, then I’ll take you both in there to check out Leeta.”

“You
have an hour,” Victoria declared.

“And
if I take longer?” Samuel turned around and faced her. His fangs burst out.
Black claws as dark and sharp as an obsidian blade erupted from his fingertips.
Gasping, I jerked back in shock.
Claws?