The Vampire Games: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance (10 page)

T
here was
commotion in the crowd, and it had nothing to do with Prince Phillip and me for once.

Someone new had arrived.

The footman at the door had long since stopped introducing new members of society, so guards had to rush up the path to greet this newcomer. I was too short to see over everyone’s heads. I couldn’t tell what was happening.

I clutched Phillip’s arm. “What’s going on?”

He wrapped a protective arm around me.

“Breathe,” he said again. “And don’t attack.”

Don’t attack?

The crowd parted as the newcomers made their way onto the dance floor. I didn’t have to wonder what was happening for much longer.

“Hello, Prince,” said the vampire at the lead.

It was Lord Hector.

The coyote-faced vampire was surrounded by a group of men wearing the livery of Shadow Keep. I didn’t see weapons on any of them, but that didn’t mean their presence wasn’t threatening.

For one, none of them were dressed for a party.

They looked to be dressed like an army.

Phillip was calm beside me. If I hadn’t known him so well, I wouldn’t have had any clue he was tense. But that stiffness was there, lurking under the surface. “Lord Hector. I didn’t realize you were coming.”

“How could I resist? It’s a lovely party you have here.” Hector looked around, gaze placid. “I thought, why should I miss this when I have so many friends who would enjoy it?”

He grabbed one of the people who had come into Dawn Hold with him. I hadn’t noticed them before because Hector was in vivid colors, reds made bold by the blues everyone in Dawn Hold wore, and everyone he was with was in black and stood behind him. But he dragged one man forward, obviously human, and waited for the man to roll his sleeve up before Hector raised the man’s wrist to his mouth.

The man didn’t react as Hector bit down. He didn’t look like he was seeing much of anything around him.

No wonder Phillip had told me not to attack.

I took a step forward, but my prince’s arm barred me, holding me back. All I could do was glare helplessly as Hector drained blood from a human being. Someone just like me, who had come from an ordinary life on the surface to be purchased like cattle.

“I thought I told you blood servants weren’t in use in Dawn Hold,” Phillip said mildly.

“Yes, well.” Hector let go, and the man stepped back. Hector’s mouth was barely red. “There will be a lot more humans to drink from soon, so you might change your mind. It’s always better to build your servant lines when you have the opportunity, don’t you think?”

Phillip frowned. “I don’t follow.”

Hector stepped closer. The party had stopped its eavesdropping and gone back to whatever they were doing. It didn’t seem to be unusual for Phillip and Hector to grandstand, confronting each other in public ways, so nobody was interested in what the two of them were doing this time.

It was only because I stood so close to Phillip that I could hear what Hector said over the music.

“Nightfall Keep isn’t inclined to wait for the Games to decide things,” Hector said. “We’re going into the feeder communities to close them down. Half of the people will be Created, and the other half Harvested. The first part bolsters our numbers. The second nourishes our residents, past and present. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t do it before. Free-range pets are a nuisance, aren’t they?”

Phillip’s face remained rigid under the mask. “That’s not legal, nor is it moral.”

Hector shrugged. “Who’s going to stop me? A Hold that doesn’t drink blood and isn’t strong enough to fight back, hmm? Pretty clear who the victor will be, I think.”

“You’re talking about war,” Phillip said.

“I’m talking about what we should have done generations ago,” Hector said.

I clenched my fists, mostly to keep from saying anything. Mouthing off wouldn’t help right now, not when Hector was talking about something so important, but that didn’t settle the fire burning through me.

My parents were still up there. My school friends. Everyone I had ever known and loved.

Something about the gesture caught Hector’s eye. He turned toward me, and I forced myself to relax.

“Speaking of victors,” he said, face blooming into an ugly smile. “You’ve done well with this one. I was impressed how well she held her own against a vampire. I feel like your limitations will knock her out before long, so maybe her education should be taken in a…new direction.”

He reached out to hold my chin in place like he wanted to
inspect
me, but two things happened at once: I flinched back, stepping out of his reach, and Phillip grabbed Hector’s wrist and held him in place.

“Maybe you should go enjoy the party.” Phillip had lost any pretense at calm. He forced the words out through gritted teeth, and, honestly, I felt the same way.

Hector grinned, jerking his arm out of Phillip’s grip. It was the most genuine emotion I’d seen from him yet. “Oh, but I am enjoying it. I’ve been pondering what reason Prince Phillip might have for buying a feisty slave for sixty crowns when he’s showed no interest in the Games before. Yet here you are now, at his ball, wearing a dress that matches him—and I feel like such a fool for not realizing it before.”

“Hector,” Phillip said warningly.

“Fated,” Hector whispered.

The word slithered through me.

I had never heard it before—at least, not in this context—and I didn’t understand what he meant.

It obviously had a lot of meaning, though.

Rage came over Phillip. He glowed with it.

“What’s your name, slave?” Hector asked. “I’d like to know when I take you into my fief with all your family.”

I clenched my fists and stepped forward, ignoring when Phillip put his free hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Bianka,” I said. “My name is
Bianka
, and you’ll never call me slave again. I’ll make sure you remember that.”

Hector laughed. “Oh, I
like
this one, Phillip. Maybe I’ll Create all her relatives. I suspect some of this has to be genetic. Maybe I’ll be Fated to one just as pretty?”

“You’re not welcome in my party anymore,” Phillip growled. “Leave here. Now.”

“Of course,” Hector said. “No sense in overstaying my welcome. You’ll have plenty of chances to entertain me in the future. I look forward to your next fight…
Bianka
.”

P
hillip escorted
me back to my room. We didn’t speak on the way.

But he dismissed the guards as soon as we reached the rooms where he’d been keeping me.

I felt over-dressed in that gauzy blue gown, matched by a prince in a shimmering suit. I wasn’t exactly Cinderella turning back into a pauper at midnight, but I was definitely feeling more like a fighter than a princess.

Someone who wanted to fight Hector.

Kill him.

Before he could hurt my family.

“What’s the government like in this place?” I asked, pacing the length of the room. My heels clicked on the hard floor. “You’re a prince and there’s a king, right? Someone who’s going to enforce the law?”

“My father is dead,” Phillip said.

The air went out of me. I stopped moving, swaying on the spot. “Oh…
Phillip
.”

He lifted a hand to silence me.

“It happened a long time ago,” he said. “I’m too young to take over the monarchy, so a regent currently runs all of the fiefs.”

“Then we’ll tell the regent what Lord Hector plans to do,” I said.

“Lord Hector
is
the regent,” Phillip said.

I slammed my fists onto the back of the couch. “There must be something to be done about him! He can’t have absolute power to attack innocents on the surface! How long before you can be crowned and accept power?”

“When I reach maturity, in the way that vampires do. It’s not a matter of time. It’s a matter of arriving at adulthood,” Phillip said. He wasn’t looking at me again, just as he hadn’t looked at me before, when we’d been in that first hidden room together. “As I am a prince of the old monarchy, that only happens once I take a Fated Mate.”

Fated
. That was what Lord Hector had said.

I couldn’t seem to breathe, and I didn’t think it was the tightness of the dress anymore.

“Tell me what that means,” I said.

He shook his head silently.

I rounded the couch, crossing the space between us. I gripped his jacket in both hands.

“Tell me, Phillip!” I pleaded.

His expression was inscrutable behind the mask. “Part of vampire mythology is the concept of Fated Mates. My line, the royal line of Dawn Hold, believes that we all have soulmates waiting to find us. We are Fated to be with them. When the time comes, we will find them, and we will be seized by a certain…need.”

Shivers rolled down my spine.

“Oh,” I said.

“Since my father died, Fated Mates have become somewhat of a joke throughout society. A punch line. Nobody believes anymore. And I’m not sure that I’m any different. I’ve lived a long time without coming across someone I feel Fated toward in the way that the king was Fated to be with his queen—my mother, who died in childbirth.”

“Wait,” I said. “Vampire childbirth?”

“Vampires can bear children together. I was never human, Bianka. I have always been like this.” He gazed intently at me through the mask.

I swallowed hard. “And…how old are you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” His hands cupped mine on his chest. There was no beating heart underneath, and there never had been. “I have never felt Fated, and I won’t be king until I do. Until then, Lord Hector rules as regent.”

He might not have had a heart, but mine was pounding.

“Phillip…” I licked my lips, took a deep breath. “Why did you buy me?”

He didn’t respond.

“Phillip,
please
.”

“Bianka,” he whispered.

I reached up with trembling fingers to untie his mask. I pulled it off of his face, and raw emotion waited for me on the other side.

I saw the truth of it.

Fated
.

Phillip spun away from me as though I had slapped him. He stormed to the staircase, climbed the steps, and vanished into his rooms.

T
he day
of the next Game came too quickly.

I didn’t see Phillip before then.

Immersing myself in training didn’t help me shake the memory of his face when I’d removed that mask. Nor did it make him materialize to watch me work, which filled me with unexpected sadness. I practiced alone, fighting invisible enemies, and prepared myself for what was to come.

“A decisive fight,” Marc told me the day before. “Whoever wins this next battle is going to be offered Creation.”

My heart flip-flopped. “Already? It will only be my third time in the Coliseum.”

“We entered the Games late,” he said. He turned on a TV set into the wall of the training room. It was on the channel that showed the current results of the Games—nothing but scores and battles to the death, all the time. “The season’s been going for months. Look at the card. Alisyn’s ranked as high as they get, which is why surviving against her meant you got to continue. She’s beat a dozen others before facing you.”

I hugged my arms around myself, analyzing the tree of competitors on the wall. The Games had seasons, just like football. It was perverse. Previous winners were listed on the left, and there were dozens before my name started appearing.

My name was alongside Marc’s. He had been in the Coliseum twice, too.

We hadn’t talked about what that was like yet, and I didn’t really want to.

“They also only want humans to fight a few Games before Creating them,” Marc said. There was no sign of bruising from the time that Phillip had attacked him. “Fights with vampires are more interesting.”

“Becoming a vampire doesn’t mean we enter society?” I asked. “Get to, I don’t know, attend vampire parties and kick back and drink blood whenever we feel like it?”

“Alisyn’s not part of society even though she’s a vampire,” Marc said. “It’s not like she fights for fun.”

So winning the Games as a human didn’t mean freedom. It just meant I wouldn’t get drained dry. I’d get to keep fighting until I died instead.

There was no victory in the Coliseum. Not really.

“What have you gotten me into, Phillip?” I whispered at the screen.

“Did you say something?” Marc asked.

I cleared my throat. “I was just wondering who I’m fighting next. I don’t recognize that name. Melinda? Who’s that?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. You’ll find out tonight.” He tried to sound upbeat about that and failed. His shoulders sagged, and he let out a sigh that sounded as exhausted as I felt. “I fight in the morning.”

I took his hand and squeezed it. Hard. “I didn’t want this for you, Marc,” I said. “This isn’t why I tried to save you.”

Marc’s lips and cheeks had gone colorless. “Our plans don’t matter here.
Nothing
matters except the Games, and it’s useless to think anything else. This is the life we have to deal with.”

On impulse, I pulled him into a tight hug. He smelled different than he used to. Less like sunshine and grass, and more like the cold, dark places.

He clutched me just as tightly.

“I’m going to win for you, Bianka,” he murmured against my neck.

My eyes burned. “I’m going to win so we can go home.”

He jerked back suddenly. For a moment, I thought it was because I’d offended him somehow. Then I realized he was looking over my shoulder, and I turned to see that Phillip had entered the room. He had been watching our embrace with an unreadable expression.

“You’re dismissed, Marc,” Phillip said.

It was strange to hear the name of a human coming from a vampire’s mouth. Phillip called me by name all the time, but I didn’t think I’d ever heard a vampire regard any other human with respect. Even when his tone was cold, it was still kind of nice. But any alternative to “blood bag” would have seemed nice after all this time.

Marc took my hand again for a moment, eyes filled with pain. “Bianka…”

“I’ll see you after the Games,” I said.

And he left, escorted by vampire guards.

I was alone with Phillip.

My whole body felt heavy, as though I were being buried alive by fear of the competition to come. Seeing the vampire prince—
my
prince, my lord, my owner—didn’t help.

It was impossible to forget what we’d discussed after the Society party.

“I should get to the fight soon,” I said when Phillip was silent for too long.

He brought a hand out from behind his back. My heart fragmented into a thousand pieces when I realized what he was cupping between his fingers.

A sunflower.

All thoughts of the Games to come fled from my mind.

“Oh, Phillip,” I breathed.

He held it back, keeping it out of my reach. “I need to speak to you. And I need you to listen to me.”

I swallowed hard around the knot in my throat and nodded.

“Fated,” Phillip said.

The word I feared so much.

He swiped his free hand through the air, as though to banish the idea of Fated Mates.

“Forget I told you anything about that. Forget what Hector said. Nobody believes that’s real, and I’m not sure I do, either. But ever since I saw you on the surface…” He choked on the words, bright-blue eyes burning with emotions that I couldn’t name. “Alisyn told me that you want to ask for the alternative prize—that you want to be released rather than Created. You can’t do that.”

My hands crept up until they covered my mouth, holding back the words I didn’t know how to say. But I couldn’t remain silent after that. “I have to. My family…”

“The adults have chosen their fate, and there’s little one girl will be able to do for everyone else,” Phillip said. “You can choose to be with me.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Choose me, Bianka. Choose to be Created.
Stay with me
.”

He extended the sunflower toward me.

I wanted to take it. I’d never wanted to take anything so badly in my entire life, and the desire hurt.

It wasn’t just that Phillip was handsome—although he was—or that he had saved my life—which he had. It was that there was something between us that I didn’t have words to describe. Fated? Maybe. I wasn’t prepared to wrap my mind around that thought. But there was
something
. Something that made my fingers itch for that sunflower, and to touch Phillip, and to fold my body against his to smell the sweet, masculine musk that came from his cold skin.

But I couldn’t have Phillip and still save my family.

I needed to save my parents. Everyone else I had gone to school with.

Marc.

Responsibility and destiny warred within me, and it was more than I could bear.

Phillip strode toward me, sunflower cradled to his breast. “You don’t have to agree with me,” he said, voice tight with emotion. “You don’t have to
feel
like I do, either. But I think if you give me a chance…you could learn to love me as I love you, Bianka.”

I gasped, gazing up at him in helpless wonder.

The vampire prince bent down and pressed his lips to mine.

It wasn’t the first kiss of my life. I had never dated anyone seriously, but I’d kissed a couple of times at school dances and enjoyed it.

Nothing I’d done before felt like that kiss.

My body responded. I leaned into him, allowing my hands to creep up to his, closing around his fingers so that we cradled the sunflower together. The silk of the petals brushed our palms. His chilly lips slid against mine in gentle strokes, as sweet with me as every other vampire had been brutal.

Every confusing, unnamable feeling I’d ever had about Phillip formed into a solid
yes
.

But
.

But Phillip was a vampire.

More than that, he was a vampire who wanted me to become a vampire to stay with him.

I didn’t want to let go, but I did.

When I stepped back, he allowed me to do so.

“I can’t,” I said—the two most difficult words of my entire life.

I tore myself away from Phillip. For the first time since we’d met, I was the one who ran from the room to end the conversation.