Microsoft Word - Jacks-Marcy-The-Werewolf-Love-Slave-and-the-Vampire-Prince.doc (15 page)

gear broken out.

That and sentencing.

With the dark clothing, red sashes, heavy gold jewels, and the  crowns that the queen mother and king wore, Vlad felt like a servant  about to be tried for stealing from the kitchens.

Vlad kept his back straight and approached his brother. It was a  strange thing to fear, hate, and love the man all at the same time. He  hoped none of those emotions showed on his face.

“That’s far enough,” King Markus said when Vlad was about five  feet away.

He froze in place. Was he not allowed to come any farther?  Markus might be mad at him, but they were still brothers.

“Kneel,” Markus commanded, and he pulled the sword with a

The Werewolf Love Slave and the Vampire Prince
          
105

long metallic swipe from his hip.

Vlad did as he was commanded, and before Markus could

command him to lower his unworthy eyes from Markus’s face, Vlad

did it of his own free will.

He didn’t want to look into the angry disappointment on the faces of his two brothers and mother. The only one who gave him an inch of sympathy was Ivan, but Vlad didn’t want any of it.

He was being taught a lesson here. A lesson that, just because he was the brother of the king, did not mean he was of any importance.  Certainly not enough to run away like he did.

Markus lifted the blade of his sword to Vlad’s neck, and his heart

sped up as the sharp metal came dangerously close to his carotid

artery.

He couldn’t help himself. He trembled, and he despised that  weakness. Despite what had happened with Andrew and what was  soon to happen with Boris, it seemed Vlad still wanted to live.

“You, coward brother of mine,” Markus said, his lips turned up in  a sneer, “are only still a member of my royal house because you  require the title of prince for the honorable Lord Dragunov to wed  you and bed you. So you shall keep your title, and your life, but you  are no longer a brother of mine and are to no longer be addressed as  Your Highness.”

Sharp stings sliced across both sides of his neck, and when  Markus pulled the blade away, Vlad's eyes widened at the sight of  blood.

He slit my throat! He just killed me! Vlad thought, reaching his hand up to prevent any more blood loss.

There was no warm gushing there, however. The cuts Vlad felt were shallow, meant to frighten rather than kill.

“Bring the garlic!” Markus bellowed.

Vlad’s arms were grabbed and he was pushed down onto the crunching gravel beneath him. He saw the garlic being held in the gloved hands of one of the approaching guards.

106
                         
Marcy Jacks

Dominic. He had a paper mask over his mouth and nose to keep from accidentally inhaling the poison, but Vlad could see plainly see his eyes. He too held a look of sympathy as he approached Vlad with what amounted to acid for vampires.

“Get that away from me! No!” Vlad screamed, and when he kicked and bit at the guards who held his arms down, two more came and pressed down on his legs, while a third grabbed him by the ears and stretched out his neck, exposing the wounds and keeping him still.

“Lord Dragunov wishes to use you as a feeder for his guests when  the joining is complete. Now, with you scarred, everyone who feeds  from you will see the dishonor upon your neck,” Markus said, then  nodded to Dominic, who stood over Vlad’s captive body and leaned  down with the garlic bulbs.

He pulled off several layers of the garlic and carefully placed  them on the ground, away from himself and the other guards. Peeling  away the top layers like that exposed the more putrid and powerful  insides.

Vlad could smell it now, and it burned the inside of his nose.

They were going to scar him. The garlic would make sure that the wounds on his neck would never heal properly, and wounds of that nature on a vampire’s neck was as good as being forced to wear the dunce cap in class for the rest of your life.

Vlad wouldn’t mind that so much, if the garlic was also not a severe poison, capable of killing him if he was exposed to too much of it.

Dominic held the now-smaller bulbs in his hand, and he brought them down on the open wounds on Vlad’s neck, and, God, he wished he was stronger, but he wasn’t. Vlad screamed.

The Werewolf Love Slave and the Vampire Prince
          
107

Chapter Fourteen

The garlic had been rubbed over the wounds, and then a scarf had been delivered, and then the bulbs and the scarf were tied around his neck. Vlad had been forced to walk back to the house with them on.

Walk, not run. He was to keep a steady pace behind his brother.

If he tried to run back to the house, where he knew there would be clean water and salve waiting for him, he was quickly caught and returned to the gates where he was to start over. If Vlad attempted to remove the scarf, then he was returned to the gates and expected to start walking all over again.

Markus and their mother conversed with each other pleasantly, as though Vlad weren’t wearing the most horribly painful thing around his already wounded neck. Several times, Ravinia needlessly stopped to run her delicate fingers over the rose petals or sniff at the large gerberas.

All in all, after Vlad was able to check a clock, he discovered that it took nearly an hour to walk across a path that only stretched along for about five minutes.

It felt like it had been so much longer than that.

When they did get back inside, Vlad was rushed back to his room where the garlic bulbs were carefully removed from his skin. Welts the size of small apples were left in place, and they burned to the touch. They were unbearably painful just being there, but when one of the guards who had been assigned to care for him―it seemed Vlad was no longer worthy of even having a real healer come to him―gave the lightest of touches to one of the angry red welts, Vlad screamed again as the fires consumed him.

108
                         
Marcy Jacks

He had never experienced it before, but if someone were to flick a lighter, and then place the small open flame over the flesh of his neck, he imagined it would feel much the same as the pain he was experiencing right now.

Ice packs were brought in, along with clean, fresh, and cold water, salves, and bandages. The swelling was mostly down, but he had long since lost his voice.

Whether it was due to an infection in his throat or because of all

the screaming he had done, Vlad couldn’t be sure.

Morning had come, and the majority of vampires in the house  were now in their beds. Vlad could not sleep, the pain too great, and  so he sat on his bed, his hand gently covering the bandage over his  throbbing neck. He willed away the pain, but it flared and raged  regardless.

All he could think of was Andrew.

The bolt on his door turned, and in his surprise Vlad shot to his feet. He was expecting no visitors.

Ivan peeked his head in. His lips quirked, as though he were about give Vlad a small smile, but then he must have thought better of it and simply entered the room. Vlad could still see the human guards stationed outside his door, keeping watch to make sure the prince did not attempt to flee again.

The tray of food Ivan carried in his hands was the thing that caught Vlad’s attention.

A sandwich on thick, white bread with fresh lettuce and tomato,

sliced apples, and a piece of chocolate cake with a glass of milk.  There was no blood for Vlad to drink, but it must have been too

difficult for Ivan to sneak any from storage and getting a feeder into  his bedroom was currently out of the question. Vlad could drink from  Ivan, but if his brother offered, he would be forced to decline.

No one dared drink from the vein of a royal, and if Markus so much as suspected Ivan had allowed Vlad to bite him, then he would be locked away for treason.

The Werewolf Love Slave and the Vampire Prince
          
109

“For you,” Ivan said quietly, as though not wanting to insult Vlad  with the sound of another voice since he could not speak. “I have  heard that you were not given any dinner.”

Indeed. Vlad and Andrew had attempted their escape so early in  the night that Vlad had not eaten anything since yesterday.

He could hold back no longer. To hell with table manners. Vlad  ran to the tray and devoured everything he could as quickly as he  could. Even after he became much too full and his throat inflamed

with pain, he continued to eat and drink. He barely tasted the

chocolate cake as he inhaled it and drank down his milk.

When everything was gone, Ivan took the empty glass from him, went into the adjoining bathroom, rinsed it out and filled it with clean water. He returned and gave the glass back to Vlad.

All Vlad could do was sip on it, his eyes already watering at the small kindness he received after so many hours of contempt and

torture.

Ivan held out his arm and pulled Vlad into a comforting embrace that he sank into gratefully.

There was so much he wanted to say to his brother, yet could not because of his injuries. He wanted to tell him that he was sorry he attempted to leave, that he was sorry he’d failed to escape. Sorry for everything.

Ivan must be having a good day. No strange sightings of apparitions that frightened him and made him scream, because for the first time in what seemed like the whole of their lives, Ivan was

comforting Vlad, instead of the other way around.

“It’s all right. I will stay with you until the night falls,” he said,

petting Vlad’s hair, as though he were a small child.

“Everything will be all right.”

* * * *

Andrew growled at the sight of the huge mansion. He was in wolf

110
                         
Marcy Jacks

form, every hair on his back standing on end, and he crouched under  the leaves of a heavy shrub as watched the goings-on on the bright  lawn. His long claws dug into the earth as he fantasized about just  running out there and charging into the house.

He couldn’t do that without being seen. The fact that there were  human guards walking around could only mean that the royal family  was still inside, and that they hadn’t all packed up their things and left

yet.

The thought occurred to him that, just because the king and his guards hadn’t left, didn’t mean that Boris hadn’t taken Vlad away to  Russia already.

More than ever he wanted to get inside of that house and find his mate, but a pair of teeth grabbing him around the scruff, and then, shaking him, brought him back to the present.

Easy. We attack now, and we lose our surprise
, James said through their shared link. Then he spoke to the entire group.
 
Everyone shift back. We need to make a plan.

The group of alphas did as they were told, all becoming tall and hairless and completely naked as they changed back into their human forms. Most of the alphas were present. Nick, Morgan, Eli, and  Markus, who’d gotten a real kick out of the fact that he and the king of vampires shared the same name.

The little dumbass.

Isaac was the only one to still wear clothing. He’d only been able to keep up with the running wolves by riding on his cool-looking  ATV. He’d had to park it about a mile or so back to keep anyone patrolling from hearing the rumble of the engine, and then he really had to run in order to keep up with them. No one was about to risk that that loud machine would be heard by one of the guards.

Andrew was kind of impressed with the way the human had managed to keep pace with them, and for a whole mile, too. Granted, his face was as red as a stop light, but that was beside the point.

“Okay, Andrew, you were actually in that house. What can you

The Werewolf Love Slave and the Vampire Prince
          
111

tell us about it?” James asked, and all the other alphas circled around  to hear what he had to say.

Andrew swallowed, trying to remember any little detail that could  be useful. He’d only been in that house for a couple of hours, and he  had been sneaking around a little when Vlad had been with his  brother. His memory of the place was good, but he hardly knew of  every nook and cranny.

He told them every detail he could remember, entrances, facts,  rooms, everything.

Nick tilted his head a little in confusion. “If the house isn’t theirs

yet, then why have windows installed to darken during the day? I  thought the original owner was a human?”

Andrew never thought of it before, nor did he much care. “Maybe  the king paid the guy to install them. What does it matter?”

“Might matter a lot,” Isaac said. “The vampires had the original  owners install tinted windows, not metal plates to cover the windows,  bars, or anything else that would keep us out. Do you know if those  windows are shatterproof?”

“We could break into the room where your mate is and be out of  there before the whole house wakes up,” Morgan said, eyes  brightening as he too looked at Andrew for the answer.