Captive of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 2)

by Bella Klaus

  “Could you turn off the lights, please?” I murmured.

  The light seeping through my eyelids dimmed, making me sigh with relief. Tomorrow, I would find a way out of here and contact Beatrice to let her know I was safe. I’d also call Kain to tell him to stop searching for Valentine because he had found me. As my consciousness drifted to the next level of relaxation, the sensation of smoke curled around my skin like the softest of caresses.

  I opened my eyes to find Valentine standing at my bedside, staring down at me with those eerie red eyes.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. When he didn’t answer, I bolted upright and fumbled for the bedside lamp. “Don’t play innocent. You and I both know you’re capable of speech.”

  Bright light flared, illuminating his dull skin. Valentine continued staring down at me as though he hadn’t been caught acting like a stalker.

  “Don’t you need to sleep?” I snapped.

  In the blink of an eye, the right side of the mattress dipped. Cold radiated down one side of my body, and I turned to find Valentine lying next to me with the same eerie stare.

  “No.” I pushed myself out of bed and folded the dressing gown closed.

  He sat up with a frown, and I could swear his dead features flickered with annoyance.

  “Alright.” I raised both palms. “When I implied you should sleep, I meant on the sofa.” I pointed at the living area for emphasis, but Valentine didn’t move his head. “Never mind.”

  I gathered up a pillow and walked around the bed, picking up a blanket that had been folded on the stool. If Valentine wanted the bed, he could have it. That sofa was large and comfortable-looking enough for me. I walked down the podium steps and across the parquet floor to the nearest sofa.

  Casting the four-poster bed one last glance, I placed the pillow on the sofa and settled down for the night with my eyes firmly shut. Valentine kept his smoky magic to himself, and after ten minutes or so, I drifted off to sleep.

  After a dreamless sleep, I awoke to a darkened room, wishing that the events of the past few days had been the result of not cleansing the crystals of my dream weavers. Valentine sweeping back into my life, discovering that I was a fire wielder, and then turning him into a preternatural vampire with my blood was more of a horror story than a nightmare, but it was all real.

  I inhaled a deep breath and stretched out my senses. The air was still with only the slightest hint of the presence of a vampire, and a dim light shone on the far right of the room that must have come from the bedside light. I pushed myself up against the sofa’s armrest and glanced around. To my left was the darkened kitchen with its pale units, six-seater dining table, and a row of large refrigerators, and to my right, the four-poster bed that stood on its podium.

  “Valentine,” I said under my breath.

  I edged toward the podium with a hand on my chest and stopped at the bottom of its steps.

  “Valentine?” I whispered.

  I thought he would appear at my side in an instant or poke his head out from the curtains and glare out at me through red eyes. He did none of those things, and I wondered if he had left the penthouse to slumber in a coffin or some other sunlight-proof enclosure.

  My gaze darted to the far-left of the penthouse, beyond the living area and the kitchen, to the tall blinds. How much would I bet that they were magicked shut? This entire apartment was a sunlight-free zone.

  When he didn’t respond to my next call, I descended the steps, making as much noise as I could to let him know I was coming. The curtains around the four-poster were drawn tight as though they were the second line of defense in case someone managed to open the blinds.

  Valentine lay exactly where I had left him, looking as gray and as unmoving and as dead as I’d first seen him in the mausoleum, except with silk sheets pulled up to his neck.

  “Are you awake?” I cringed as the words came out of my mouth. He was a bloody corpse.

  When Valentine didn’t respond, I edged closer. “Hey?”

  He didn’t even twitch.

  I swallowed. Maybe he was really dead this time, and had only risen from the grave to save me from his brothers and transport me to this safe house. It kind of made sense in a twisted way. I placed a knee on the mattress and waited a few heartbeats to see if he would respond. When he didn’t, I climbed onto the bed and crawled toward him.

  Right now, I felt like the girl in a human horror movie. The one too stupid to live who stuck around to investigate the eerie noises when she should have been sprinting the hell out of the haunted house. But I could trust Valentine. He might have abducted me and followed me around the penthouse, but he wouldn’t hurt me if I got close.

  “Valentine?” I hissed.

  Still no answer.

  I reached for the silk sheet, trying to keep my fingers from trembling. There was one thing I needed to know. Had his resurrection restored his body, or was he walking around with those awful wounds? Shallow breaths whistled through my nostrils as I curled my fingers around the sheet and slipped it down Valentine’s broad, muscular body.

  A deep cut sliced through his collarbone, radiating the sharp white power of angelic magic. I stifled a cry, my eyes filling at the sight of the deep wound. This had to have come from Lazarus’ reaper scythe. The wound was clean, reminding me of how a butcher might cleave a piece of meat. I tore my gaze away and placed both hands on my thighs, wishing I hadn’t looked.

  “Valentine,” I moaned. “What did they do to you?”

  I paused, trying to decide if I should pull up the covers and leave him. I still didn’t know the mechanics of preternatural vampirism. Did they regenerate when they were reborn? After they fed? There was no way these beings could infiltrate the Supernatural World and do the bidding of Kresnik if they looked like textbook zombies.

  After several moments, I took a deep breath and urged myself to continue. If coming back to life had restored Valentine’s heart, then bringing him back to life was a mere matter of setting him on fire with my phoenix flames and waiting for the ashes to do their work.

  I reached for the sheet and pulled it down over the swell of his muscled chest. Another deep slash ran across his left pec, exposing the meat of his sinews. I clapped a hand over my mouth to suppress a gasp but still managed to inhale the scent of brimstone.

  A quick glance at the raised scar of rough stitches down his breastbone told me that the incisions they had made on his body before he had risen hadn’t healed. It also meant that his heart was in another location and we needed to retrieve it before I attempted to burn him.

  Without taking another look at his wounds or trying to find new ones from his recent battle, I pulled the sheet back up to his neck and exhaled a ragged breath. Could Valentine feel pain in this condition? Had he suffered to keep me safe? I curled my hands into fists and lowered my head, trying to hold back tears. At least now I knew exactly what I needed to do to fix things.

  One, find where Valentine’s brothers had stored his heart.

  Two, get rid of the magic-absorbing firestone particles in my blood.

  Three, unite Valentine’s body parts and set him alight with my phoenix flames.

  Four, wait for him to arise from his ashes.

  To do this, I would need the help of someone who had access to the princes and the palace, and could move between Logris and London without being harassed. Someone who cared more for Valentine than ridding the world of another preternatural. Someone like Kain.

  I scrambled off the bed with a newfound determination thrumming through my veins. Between Kain and me, we would save Valentine from this terrible fate.

  Judging by how refreshed I was after such a tumultuous night, I guess I’d had a satisfying night’s sleep. It had to be daytime. Maybe Valentine was like the vampires of True Blood and needed to sleep during the day. I descended the stairs, looking for a closet. If I could find something to wear and a pair of boots vaguely in my size, I might be able to sneak through the mansion without breaking my neck
.

  Ignoring my rumbling stomach, I opened the door next to the bathroom, finding a walk-in closet twice the size of the one in the Notting Hill villa. Open closets covered all four of its walls and a chest of drawers stood in the middle of the room with two his-and-hers upholstered benches on either side.

  On its left side were rails and shelves of women’s clothes, and along its right walls were men’s. Two floor-to-ceiling shelves contained nothing but gorgeous heeled shoes, but I ran my gaze along the expanse and found a pair of Timberlands in my exact size. I pulled open the drawers, looking for something protective to wear and found a pair of jeans. After slipping them on, I changed into a long-sleeve shirt and a thick hoodie, then I found a pair of woolen socks and put on the boots.

  Now dressed, I walked out of the closet and across the penthouse to the kitchen, where Kain’s wallet sat on the counter, along with my mobile still attached to the charger.

  I bit down on my lip and frowned. The wallet, I could understand—Valentine had probably swept it up while abducting me from Beatrice’s apartment—but I hadn’t seen my mobile since Sunday after calling Aunt Arianna when the wards trapped us within the villa. Had he returned there to pick up my things?

  Valentine would probably track me down as soon as the sun set, but I needed a few hours to let everyone know I was alright. Beatrice would be sick with worry, and I’d promised Kain that I would call him with an update.

  I turned on the handset to find the battery charged but zero bars on the signal display. The wards of the house were probably stopping the signals from coming inside.

  Taking a final glance at the closed curtains of the four-poster bed, I slipped both the phone and the wallet into the pocket of my hoodie and walked toward the door we had entered the night before.

  If Kain had found me a healer, I might be able to fix Valentine before he even noticed I was gone.

  Chapter Six

  “Right then.” I stood at the door, examining the powerful seal of magic humming along its frame. From its gentle familiarity, it appeared to have been cast by a wizard or a witch and had none of the cracking edges I would associate with demon magic or any of the sharp edges I would associate with angels.

  I trailed my hands around the door, feeling for the weakest spot in its magic. As soon as my fingers brushed a patch that vibrated slower than the others, I inhaled a deep breath and pushed my power into the weak spot. The magic crackled and popped, making me step back several paces. Then the door clicked, and it swung open, letting in a gust of frigid, dust-infused air.

  “Bloody hell,” I muttered under my breath.

  After spending such a pleasant night in this warm apartment, I’d forgotten how cold it was outside. A shudder ran down my spine as I stepped into the hallway. Whatever I was about to brave was a hundred times better than being flown through the cold night air in one of Beatrice’s thin gowns.

  I continued down the hallway toward what felt like the middle building within its U-shape and followed the direction of the pale light. Salmon-colored plaster walls crumbled at both sides, and my feet creaked against the floorboards. They might have been old, but at least they were even.

  About halfway down the passage, I reached the top of the collapsed stairs and stared out at a small section of thirty-foot windows flooding this part of the building with light. A breath caught in the back of my throat, and I fumbled for my phone. Back when this house was in use, it would have been magnificent.

  I glanced down at my phone and checked for a signal. Two bars. Good sense told me to wait until after I had cleared the building’s grounds and was safe inside an Uber before using the phone, but I couldn’t leave my best friend hanging any longer.

  As I continued down the hallway, toward the building’s other wing, I tapped the phone icon and called Beatrice’s number.

  She answered in one ring. “Mera?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  “Where did you go?” she asked in a voice choked with tears. “When I finally got into your room, the window was broken and it looked like a cyclone had hit. I called the police, but they just said to wait twenty-four hours before filing a missing persons report.”

  “I sort of fell out of the window,” I said.

  “How can a person fall out unless they were pulled out?” she asked. “And why didn’t you call me until now?”

  I bit down on my lip. These were all excellent questions, and questions I would ask her if our positions were reversed. We had received little training on dealing with humans, as the academy expected its students to either stay in Logris or settle into one of the many supernatural cities around the world.

  Istabelle’s sole guidance about handling humans centered around keeping our existence secret unless I wanted the worst to happen to my human confidant.

  “It took a while to get my phone up and running.” Saying those lame words made me cringe.

  Beatrice deserved more than transparent lies, but she also deserved more than a horde of enforcers descending on her apartment and wiping the last three years of her memories.

  She made an incredulous squawk, making my insides burn with shame. I wanted to tell her but who would believe me without evidence?

  If Beatrice got caught by the enforcers, everything she had experienced since knowing me would vanish. That would include all her professional training and experiences, her friendships and loves and the death of her father. I loved Beatrice too much to put her at risk and leave her mentally scarred and always wondering what happened during her lost three years.

  “My phone is running low on juice,” I lied. “Can I call you later?”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “With Valentine.” I gulped. “After last night, I really needed to see him.”

  “Is he any better?”

  “Stable,” I said. “But still bad.”

  She exhaled a long breath. “When are you coming back?”

  I paused for several moments. The Valentine problem would resolve itself the moment I mustered enough power to burn his body to ash, but the Supernatural Council would still want me dead for wielding fire. I doubted that ridding myself of the firestone and coming into my full power would make me too powerful to cross—they’d managed to kill Kresnik, and he had been the most diabolical supernatural who had ever lived.

  “Mera?” For the first time since I’d known her, Beatrice sounded unsure.

  “Things are up in the air right now,” I said, meaning every word. “It’s best that I stay at Valentine’s side, but if my situation doesn’t improve, I may have to leave town.”

  She fell silent for several heartbeats before murmuring, “Is this situation you’re skirting around domestic violence?”

  “No,” I blurted. “Valentine would never hurt me.”

  “I saw a dark man in the garden—”

  “That was someone else,” I said.

  “Alright,” Beatrice replied, sounding skeptical.

  “Sorry. I’ve got to go.”

  “Who’s Kain?” she asked.

  “What?” I blurted.

  “The young guy with the attitude problem. He drove up early this morning and rang every bell until someone let him in.”

  I gulped. “Did he say anything?”

  “Apparently, you picked up his wallet,” she drawled. “He wants it back.”

  “He—” I stopped myself before I could blurt out that Kain gave me the bloody wallet. What he wanted was a phone call relaying information on my progress. He probably thought I’d run away without fulfilling my promise to help Valentine. “I’ll call him.”

  “You know you can speak to me about anything,” she said. “There was a girl at work who got involved with the wrong crowd. There’s always a way out.”

  My heart sank and a rush of emotion thickened my throat. “Please don’t worry about me, and I’m sorry for being secretive.”

  “Are you trapped?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m alright.” />
  A loud bang echoed from below, making every fine hair on the back of my neck rise. Either my talking had awoken Valentine or he’d arranged for back-up security in case I escaped.

  “Sorry,” I whispered into the handset. “Something just fell.”

  Before Beatrice could ask another question, I slipped the phone into my pocket and sped past the broken staircase, down the rest of the hallway, and to the door at the other end of the building. This had to be the wing that had suffered fire damage. I pressed my palms to the door, expecting to feel a pulse of magic, but it swung open with a loud creak.

  The scent of charred wood reached me first, followed by the sharp odor of burned chemicals. I zipped up my hoodie and pulled its high collar over my mouth and nose, muffling the smell. As expected from having seen the exterior of the wing last night, the hallway beyond the door was covered in soot and its ceiling was so destroyed that sunlight streamed in through gaps as wide as three feet.

  As far as burned-out derelicts went, it was in surprisingly okay condition. The floorboards straight ahead looked like they’d been replaced around the same time as the boards within the main part of the building, letting me walk over them without the fear of falling through them to the other floor.

  Ignoring the row of charred doors on my left, I continued down to a heavy looking fire door topped with a weighted door closer. This had to lead to a staircase. Flecks of white paint crumbled off its exterior but most of its surface was burned.

  When I pushed the door, it yielded half an inch but got stuck, reminding me of how wood expanded in the damp weather and shrank when it was dry. Putting my weight on it helped a little, but it only budged another inch before getting caught.

  A frustrated breath heaved out of my lungs. Right now, I had two options. One, I could back up several paces and run to the door, using my speed and momentum to force it open. Or two, I could return to the penthouse and see if there was another exit.

  I gulped. What if there was nothing but a void beyond that door, and I fell to my death? That couldn’t be right. Someone needed to have renovated the penthouse and supplied it with food. If I stood here fretting about things that might not exist, I would never reach a healer and never restore Valentine to life.