Vampire Kingdom 1: The Trade

by Leigh Walker

  “Victoria.” He took my hands in his. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I don’t know what would happen to you or your blood if you were turned. And I don’t want my mother to lay a finger on you, in any event. I couldn’t bear it. To smuggle you out of here then to erase her memories of you—they were a small price to pay.”

  We stared at each other. “It seems as though I cause an awful lot of trouble.”

  “You are well worth it.”

  “I appreciate that, but…” I motioned to the sacrifices’ building. “You’ve got plenty of pretty girls lining up to take my place. Why bring me back here if I only make waves?”

  “Because I need you.” He laced his fingers through mine. My heart thudded in my chest, and chills ran up and down my whole body as he leaned forward, his gaze diving into mine. “You give me strength. And I’ve no interest in the sacrifices. They have never held my attention, even for a moment.”

  “But maybe you should give them a chance.” I shrugged, trying to lighten the intensity that hung between us. “You know, meet a nice human sacrifice, settle down…”

  His eyes darkened. “Please don’t say things like that.”

  I looked around the garden, which was so beautiful and lush it almost seemed fake. “I almost killed you when I first met you, and each time I come through, I don’t remember you. I don’t know why you seem so insistent.”

  He squeezed my hands. “Yes, you do.”

  I let out a deep shuddery breath. “Do I?”

  “I have feelings, Victoria, strong ones. Do not discount them. And fate is also at work. Only fate seems to operate on such tenuous logic and questionable judgment, yet stands correct time and time again.”

  Thinking of the danger all around us, and also my mother and Iz, I said, “Fate’s no friend of mine.”

  He pulled me closer. “In my experience, when you feel that way, it’s advisable to wait it out.”

  “I’m still waiting.”

  He tapped his finger under my chin. “Give it some more time. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

  I was a bit breathless from being so close to him. “Do you say this to me every time I’m here? For the past nine years?”

  “Yes.” His gaze burned with intensity as he leaned over me. “It usually seems to work.”

  Time stopped for a moment as he brushed the stray hairs from my face. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Memorizing your face. Again.”

  He leaned closer, and I could feel his cool breath on my cheek. Reflexively, instinctively, I put my palms on his broad, strong chest. Then I started to memorize his face—the prominent cheekbones, the aquiline nose, and his eyes, a dark brown that seemed depthless, fringed by thick black lashes.

  “Your face is my favorite view in all the world.” He leaned closer still, his full lips dangerously close to mine.

  My heart stopped. I had never kissed a boy before—at least, not that I remembered. My whole body felt hot, lit up from within. The prince leaned closer then hesitated. But I couldn’t wait anymore. I put my lips on his. Pleasure rippled through me along with feelings of peace and rightness. Heaven. Dominic was gentle, his kiss tentative, letting me take the lead. But I could feel the longing behind it.

  Even more strongly than his, I could feel mine.

  I leaned into the kiss, my mouth opening for his. His chest rose and fell quickly beneath my palms. I wanted more, I wanted him, I wanted something I could not even name. I reached up, putting my arms around his neck. He moaned, pulling me closer, his lips crushed to mine. He secured his hands around my lower back, pulling me even closer.

  There was a cough behind us. “Um, it is broad daylight, you know. Not the best time for snogging your brains out in the garden.”

  We broke apart, both breathing hard, to find Anthony smiling at us from the castle steps.

  “Yes, I’m aware that it’s broad daylight.” Dominic glowered at him. “I am also aware that the sky is blue and that you are a pain the ass.”

  Anthony snickered. “Language, Your Highness, language.”

  “What do you want, Anthony? Besides a swift kick or perhaps a sharpened stake launched in your direction?”

  “I want you, Your Highness.” Anthony snickered. “But not like Victoria does. Your father needs you in the council meeting, and your mother is wondering why there’s a blood slave blubbering that your fiancée has treated her with such contempt.”

  The prince cursed.

  Anthony arched an eyebrow, looking at Dominic then me. “A bit testy, isn’t he?”

  Again, the prince cursed, quite colorfully.

  “You can’t deal with your parents unless you let go of Victoria.” Anthony sighed. “And deal with them you must.”

  Dominic turned to me, his eyes burning but not in the vampire way. It was something much more human than that, a bright, sharp emotion that I could feel straight inside my chest. “Stay in your chambers until I can calm the queen down,” he said softly.

  The prince released me, and I felt so cold. He bowed and was gone, his long stride taking him back into the castle before I was ready to see him go.

  “You don’t have to cry about it, Tor.” Anthony shook his head. “It really is a bit pathetic, the way you two act.”

  I whipped my head around to face him. “You try having a relationship in fits and spurts for the past nine years.”

  “Oh, I know what it’s like trying to have a friendship like that.” He shrugged. “No one ever said it was going to be easy. But things that are worth it usually aren’t. You told me that yourself.”

  “Did I?”

  He smirked. “I wish you could remember. You’re quite magnificent once you get going.”

  20

  Down Down Down

  Anthony brought me back to my room. I paced before the fire, his words playing over in my mind. No one ever said it was going to be easy. Good thing, because it surely wasn’t.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the prince and, more specifically, our kiss. It was my first—at least, the first that I could remember. But I had been able to tell, when Dominic’s arms were around me, our lips pressed together, that it hadn’t been our first time. My body knew exactly what to do. We’d fit together perfectly, like we’d been that close a hundred times before.

  The memory was delicious but also almost painful. It made me yearn for him. People—the prince himself, Anthony, Mistress Olivia—had been talking about our relationship since I’d come here. I’d had an inkling of my feelings. I’d seemed to have a preference, an affinity, a desire to be near Dominic. But the kiss told me more. It told me how much I longed for him, how very heavy and unwieldy my desire was.

  Maybe it was simple—maybe my hormones were finally kicking in. My best friend, Katie, had been so boy crazy our junior year that it had almost ended our friendship. All she’d talked about for months was Carlton Craney, his blue eyes, and his lacrosse-hardened muscles. She’d driven me insane with her obsessing. But I suddenly wished my friend were with me. First, I would apologize to her. Then I would ask her to listen to me obsess about Dominic.

  But since Katie wasn’t with me, I was grateful to be banished to my room, away from the others. My head swam with too much information. My heart expanded with emotion—feelings that knew more of me than I knew of them.

  I considered my position as I marked my steps on the stone floor. When I kissed the prince, my body had tested the theory that my mind had been grappling with since I’d come to the kingdom. The verdict was in: I had feelings for him, deep ones, the kind that didn’t care that the prince was a vampire from another time. The realization was cold comfort.

  My life had changed in the past year. I’d lost my family and my home. And now I knew that somehow, I’d been repeating the worst year of my life over and over. Even more confusing was that deep down, part of me—a traitorous part—felt…joyous.

  I put my face in my hands.

  I knew it was because of Do
minic. Just his name in my head had my blood rushing. I could still feel the ghost of his hands on my lower back. Though I had no memories of our time together, I believed in whatever was between us. I’d felt it for myself. It was alive, its own entity, completely indifferent to my doubts and questions. It simply was.

  It was something. I still had something. Which meant that I still had something left to lose.

  Dominic had said that what brought us together again and again was fate. But I meant what I’d said—fate was no friend of mine. It had taken my family and was withholding my memories of the prince. Fate had brought me to a land where vampires reigned, and my blood played some role in a plot I barely understood. I was stuck here in a loop of fate’s making.

  The prince knew more than he was telling me. As the author of the letters, he’d pushed my buttons with far more cunning than Alexandra ever could. He’d promised to elaborate about “the things I’d lost” at a better time. I was still holding onto hope that somehow, he knew something about my family. Something other than the truth.

  I stopped before the fire and stared at it. At some point, I’d suspended my disbelief about my situation. That my mother and sister were dead, that I had anxiety attacks and a caseworker, that I had somehow traveled through time and landed in a world filled with vampires. That I had feelings, strong ones, for a certain vampire prince.

  But I knew something else. My attachment to the prince was dangerous. If this is all I have left, what did I actually have? My life back home was far from perfect, but in the kingdom, I was lost in Dominic’s world. It was a world I didn’t understand and didn’t belong to. Why has fate been so cruel yet again?

  I’d known that the prince was dangerous.

  I hadn’t expected that my feelings for him might be even more so.

  Anthony lay sprawled across my bed. The midafternoon sunlight streamed through my window, turning his hair a flaming red. He tossed a grape into the air and caught it in his mouth. “I don’t know what you got so upset about, anyway. Alexandra said you made her cry. Why’d you go after her? She’s nothing but a child! The blood slaves are a bunch of lousing wenches, Tor. They’re not worth the effort.”

  “They were lousing, all right.” I grabbed several crackers from the tray Mistress Olivia had prepared before Anthony could eat them all. “And I know it isn’t personal, but it’s kind of hard to take when it’s directed at you.”

  “Eh, whatever. They’ve nothing to do but pine for the prince all day, every day. You might have a little sympathy for them.”

  “Alexandra called me a puff pastry on legs.” I frowned. “She made it hard to sympathize!”

  He laughed. “Very well, but I hope the queen understands. Dom’s with her now. He finished with the council meeting, and she intercepted him before he could come here. Hence you have me—your redheaded best friend, otherwise known as your muscular, devastatingly handsome, witty vampire bodyguard—at your service for the rest of the afternoon.”

  I blinked at him. “Your ego knows no bounds.”

  “The ladies love a good ego.” He winked at me. “Now then. D’you want to go and try something?”

  I perked up. Being alone in my room had been nice at first, but time had started to drag. “Like what?”

  “We started doing an experiment the last time you were here. Do you remember anything about it?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Anthony’s eyes sparkled. “That’s okay. I can fill in the blanks. Want to start it up again?”

  “What sort of experiment is it?”

  He sat up, grinning. “It has to do with your…capabilities.”

  Nervous excitement buzzed through me. “Is it dangerous?”

  “Nah.” Anthony held out his hand for me. “C’mon. We’ve got to keep up the forward progress. Let’s go and see how old Fitz is doing.”

  “Fitz?” I asked as I followed him out the door and down the hall.

  But Anthony just put his finger to his lips to shush me. We went down one corridor then another, a maze of gray stone. Finally, we reached a stairwell lit by gas lanterns. I peered down it, into the darkness below.

  “I’m not…feeling this,” I whispered.

  “Aw, come on.” Anthony waved me off. “You’re with a very capable vampire. Nothing’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

  Heart skittering in my chest, I followed him into the dark stairwell. I was not a fan of castle basements, not that I ever remembered visiting one before. The air became noticeably damper as we descended. I wrapped my arms across my chest as Anthony hummed to himself.

  “W-What’s down here?” I asked. “Besides this Fitz fellow?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. Some prisoners, a few guards, a couple of tombs.”

  “Tombs?”

  He shrugged. “We can visit them, if you like.”

  “Um, no, thank you.”

  “Probably the right idea—nothing to see but some vampire dust and a few rats’ nests.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Sounds delightful. Maybe next time.”

  We reached the bottom of the stairs. Although it was still daytime, it was pitch-black below the castle. The only light was from the flickering lanterns.

  Anthony opened a large wooden door at the base of the stairwell then hesitated. “Just remember something, okay?”

  “What?” My voice sounded shrill.

  “Fitz is a bit testy to begin with. Just don’t let him scare you off, okay? And for the love of all things holy, don’t let him get ahold of you again!”

  “Again?”

  But Anthony didn’t answer me as he slipped through the door. Cursing, and against my better judgment, I followed him into the darkness beyond.

  21

  The Vanishment

  Anthony whistled, but I held my breath as we headed down the hallway, which was lined with closed doors. What’s behind them? Rats’ nests and vampire tombs? I pulled on the sleeves of my dress, trying to cover myself more, shivering with a mixture of chills and fear. I was no longer excited to meet this Fitz fellow.

  “Ah, here we are.” Anthony stopped outside an unmarked door on the right then jangled some keys out of his pocket.

  “Aren’t you going to knock first?” I asked.

  “Er, no. Fitz doesn’t respond well to interruptions.”

  I ducked in front of the door before he could open it. “Barging in’s an interruption, don’t you think?”

  “Of course.” Anthony smiled at me tightly. “I’ll knock first, my lady. As you wish.”

  I still blocked him. “What is Fitz, anyway?”

  Anthony smirked at me. “He’s a vampire, of course.” Before I could protest, he knocked loudly on the door. “Fitz, my good fellow! You’ve got company.”

  “Go away,” Fitz rasped.

  Anthony winked at me as he opened the door. “He doesn’t mean it.”

  “The bloody hell I don’t!” Fitz roared.

  “Come on, then.” Anthony ushered me inside the dim room and closed the door behind us. “Fitzy’s all chained up, aren’t you?”

  “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you?” a figure hunched over in the corner asked. I vaguely made out the vampire, who was chained to a bench. “Since you’re the bloke who did it and all. I should’ve staked you when I had the chance, you filthy ginger!”

  “Aw, come, now. You don’t mean that.” Anthony smiled.

  “The bloody hell I don’t.” The wizened-looking vampire leaned forward, and his cloak fell back from his face. His pale skin was thick and wrinkled. His large eyes bulged out of his face above his hooked nose, making him look like a feisty old condor—a feisty old blood-sucking condor.

  He frowned at us. “I see you brought your witch friend back. Just my luck.”

  I bowed my head in greeting. “I’m no witch, Mr. Fitz.”

  “Oh it’s mister now, is it? The last time you were here, you didn’t bother with such manners—just did your voodoo on me.”

  I peered at
the vampire. “What do you mean, ‘voodoo’?”

  “Oh, you’re a right loon. Trying to pretend that you’re a normal girl, with that siren’s song in your blood. Then you go and turn on me like that.” He inhaled deeply then sighed. “It still calls to me. You’re the worst of the worst, I reckon. Taking advantage of a poor old vampire.”

  Anthony snorted. “Please save the boo-hooing for someone who cares. Like maybe all those cats you drained?”

  “Cats?” I frowned. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  He jerked his thumb at the prisoner. “Old Fitzy here has a thing for cats. He lured the villagers’ pets away from them, drained them all dry, then left them in a pile in the middle of the square.” Turning to the vampire, he pointed at him. “You’re the loon. I’ve never tasted anything as disgusting as a cat. And not only did you steal the poor villagers’ pets, you also left a funeral pyre of them—flaunting your ways—in direct violation of the rules. So if Lady Victoria and I want to use you as a voodoo doll, we shall. And we won’t feel bad about it at all. Now, sit up straight.”

  “What if I refuse?” Fitz raised a hairless eyebrow.

  “Then I’ll make you uncomfortable until you change your mind.” Anthony cracked his knuckles.

  Fitz glared around his cell. “Who would have thought a couple of lousy cats would’ve landed me in here?”

  “It wasn’t just ‘a couple’ of cats—you terrorized the neighborhoods for a quite a while before you got caught. We’ve had a rat problem ever since.”

  The wizened vampire shrugged. “It was worth it. I’ve always loved me some cat blood.”

  I stared at Fitz then Anthony. “Don’t we have somewhere else to be?”

  Anthony chuckled. “Not just yet, my lady. It’s time to practice. Now do me a favor, Victoria, and walk around the room. Swish your gown, shake your hair, and get your scent out into the cell.”

  Fitz cursed. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”