The Vampire Fate (Dark World: The Vampire Wish Book 4)

by Michelle Madow

  I needed to know if there was a way I could fix the mess between us.

  “Take me to see the prince.”

  I followed Mary and Shivani out of the residential area and back to the main square. It was daytime, and while the canopy of trees provided shade from the sun, the only people still out were the occasional witches or shifters. The vampires were probably in their cabins, sleeping.

  They led me into the main building. Unlike the simple cabins I’d seen so far, the common areas of the Haven were beautifully decorated with bright, uplifting colors and fabrics. Even the floors and walls were bursting with multitudes of colors. I felt like I’d entered the set of an elaborate Bollywood film.

  “At the Haven, we believe wealth and beauty should be shared—not privately owned,” Mary explained as we walked. “While not working or sleeping, our citizens spend the majority of their time in the common areas.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “You should see it during the night hours when everyone’s awake,” Shivani said. “There’s always much to do and learn, as we believe in constant growth of the spirit and mind. Our citizens fill the palace with their peaceful spirits and positive energy.”

  I nodded and smiled, although my stomach flipped with the knowledge that each step we took was one step closer to Jacen.

  We turned down a few halls, getting further and further away from the main area. Finally, Shivani stopped in front of an elaborate door surrounded by twisting columns.

  “We’re here,” she told me, and then she reached for the door, pulling it open.

  Annika

  The meeting room looked like an Indian tearoom designed for a maharaja and his courtesans. Jacen waited inside, and he stood when we entered.

  “Annika,” he said, taking a sharp breath inward when his eyes met mine.

  He was wearing the same jeans and black shirt that he’d been wearing that morning. But unlike this morning, he wasn’t watching me with disdain.

  He was looking at me like he’d waited for years to see me again.

  My heart fluttered at the possibility that all wasn’t lost between us.

  “Jacen.” My cheeks heated as I said his name. The moment felt so personal, and I shifted in place, highly aware of Mary and Shivani standing there watching.

  Were they going to stay here the entire time?

  “We’ll leave you to it,” Shivani said, nodding at each of us. “Remember—while we won’t be in the room with you, and we won’t be able to hear you, there are cameras watching you. One wrong move and I’ll transport here with the tigers before either of you can blink.”

  “Understood.” Jacen’s eyes remained locked on mine, and the hairs rose on my arms at the intensity of his gaze. “Although I assure you that there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “It’s always better to be safe than sorry,” Mary said, and then she and Shivani exited the room.

  The door closed, and Jacen and I were left alone.

  My instinct pulled me toward him, urging me to do only one thing—trust him.

  But I stood there, unmoving, unsure where to begin. Because this was the first time I’d spoken to him as me—as Annika—since we’d fought the wolves together outside the Vale. So much had changed since then. I was a completely different person than I was then—a completely different species.

  “I’m so sorry,” I blurted out, desperate for him to believe me. “I should have trusted you from the beginning, when you risked everything to help me escape. I wish I had. Everything would have been so different if I had. I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you?” he asked, his expression hard and unreadable. “Since finding out you were alive, I’ve been thinking about it constantly, and I just don’t get it. So please, Annika. Help me understand what happened.”

  He was willing to listen. Good. At least that was a start.

  “Can we sit?” I asked, since telling him everything meant we would be here for a while.

  “Of course.” He sat on the nearest bench—it was covered in colorful pillows that hardly matched the mood of this dark conversation. He sat straight and alert, clearly on guard around me.

  His distrust in me hurt, but at the same time, I couldn’t blame him.

  I situated myself in the bench across from him. Between us was a coffee table with a pitcher and some snacks on it. Neither of us moved for the food or drink. I laid my stake down next to me—it was the only thing I had to protect myself, and even though I trusted Jacen, I didn’t intend on letting the weapon leave my side.

  “You lied to me,” he started. “I thought I was bad for pretending to be human when I was a vampire. I felt like I’d taken advantage of you—the poor, innocent human who’d been left weak and alone and was just trying to have a fun night out with her friends. Meanwhile, you were getting the last laugh, since you weren’t exactly human, either. Was this all some giant plan of yours? I mean, since you’re a Nephilim, you must had known I was a vampire the moment we met. Right?”

  “I didn’t know,” I told him. “I didn’t find out I was Nephilim until this morning. Before then, I was a human. At least, I felt like a human. My powers were only activated once I killed Laila.”

  He tilted his head, as if out of everything he’d expected me to say, it certainly hadn’t been that. “How am I supposed to believe you?” he asked. “You’ve already lied to me about so much.”

  “I’ll tell you everything from the beginning,” I said. “If you’re willing to listen.”

  He crossed his arms and watched me expectantly, as if daring me to continue.

  I swallowed, preparing myself to begin. This was it—Jacen’s trust hinged on me telling him every last bit of the truth.

  I refused to mess this up.

  “Everything I told you when I was Annika was true,” I told him. “But after we were caught trying to leave the Vale, everything changed. Because the vampires didn’t kill me. They brought me to the dungeons, and Camelia came to me with a deal—if I went to the Crystal Cavern and got her Geneva’s sapphire ring, she’d have me turned me into a vampire. She even made a blood oath on it. I couldn’t say no—since being kidnapped to a Vale, all I wanted was a way to protect myself so I wouldn’t be a victim to the supernaturals ever again. You knew that—I’d told you that—but you’d refused to turn me. Camelia was giving me that chance. I didn’t know if I’d ever get the opportunity again, so I took it.”

  “But you never gave her the ring.” He glanced at the object in question, which was currently displayed on my finger. It was bright and gaudy—so unlike anything I would ever buy for myself. “You kept it for yourself. Why?”

  “When I was inside the Crystal Cavern, it caved in.” I shrugged, as if it had been no big deal.

  In reality, it had been terrifying.

  Concern flashed across his features, but he regained control of himself a moment later, the emotion replaced with guarded coldness. “It caved in randomly?” he asked. “Or did you do something to make it cave in? So Camelia would think you were dead and you could keep the ring for yourself?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose.” I couldn’t help but feel shocked at his accusation. But then again, after all my lies, I supposed it wasn’t fair to blame him for assuming everything I’d done had been part of a giant scheme. “Although, maybe I caused it unknowingly…”

  I hadn’t thought about it much before—I’d had so much else to worry about. But now that Jacen asked, certain things started to click into place and I realized that yes, I might have done something to trigger the cave in.

  “There were bats in the cave.” I shivered at the memory of them flying down from the ceiling and coming for me. “They started attacking me. I wasn’t supposed to touch anything but the ring—Camelia had warned me as much before I’d entered the cave—but I wasn’t about to let myself be bitten to death by bats, either. So I reached for the nearest weapon—a sword—and used it to attack them back. After I struck the fi
rst one, they flew back up to where they’d come from, and the cavern caved in.”

  “You were lucky to survive.” Pain flared in his silver eyes when he looked at me—as if the thought of my death hurt him. But I had to be imagining it. Because he hated me for lying to him.

  Right?

  Of course, the flicker of emotion was gone before I could analyze it further.

  “The cave in blocked the only exit,” I explained. “The main area with the artifacts was okay. It must have been some kind of spell put on the cave by whoever created it.”

  Which would be the angels, if the story Mary had told me was true.

  “You used the ring to escape,” he assumed.

  I nodded and pulled the ring closer to my side, since he was right.

  “You should have had Geneva take you as far away from the Vale as possible and never looked back,” he said. “That was your chance to find safety and leave everything in the Vale behind. But you didn’t. Why?”

  “Because my family is gone.” I swallowed away the lump that formed in my throat every time I thought about them. “I had nothing left to go back to. Even if I did, how could I possibly return to a normal life after everything I’d been to? I couldn’t. But with Geneva’s ring, I could help so many people. I had to try.”

  “You could have died trying,” he said, a shadow flashing over his eyes. “You still might, now that people know you’re a Nephilim. You’re going to be hunted forever.”

  Darkness descended upon my mind, because he was right. Being a Nephilim gave me strength, but what good was that strength when so many supernaturals surely wanted me dead?

  I shook the thought away. Worrying about it now would only lead me to spiral deeper and deeper into the hopelessness of it all. I had to focus on my goal—getting Jacen to believe the truth.

  “I’d already been hunted—when the vampires took me to the Vale,” I said. “You don’t know what life is like as a blood slave there. I do. The fact that I’d been chosen by Camelia to get the ring was pure luck. I couldn’t let the ring go to waste. I had to do what I could do help the other blood slaves—to try to free them. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d just saved myself and left them there.”

  “So why didn’t you come straight to me?” he asked. “I’d risked my life trying to get you out of the Vale, and you knew I’d been turned against my will. I would have helped you. I thought I’d done enough to prove that.”

  “I was going to come to you,” I said. “But then Geneva looked into the Omniscient Crystal. She showed me how Camelia had used transformation potion on Tanya to make her look like me, and had her killed to fake my death. And then she showed me how you reacted to my death…”

  Understanding flashed over his eyes, and from there, I told him everything about my time as Princess Ana, up to the moment I’d come to the Haven.

  Annika

  “We’ve been on the same side the entire time,” Jacen said once I’d gotten him up to speed. “We were just being too dense to realize it.”

  “Good thing I ended up being Nephilim.” I gave him a small smile, but it hardly did anything to lighten the mood. “Otherwise, I’d be dead right now, and you never would have known the truth.”

  “I wasn’t going to let you die in that throne room,” he said. “You know that, right?”

  He watched me so closely that I felt dizzy from the intensity.

  How had I ever believed that Jacen didn’t care about me?

  “I’d hoped so,” I said, winding my fingers around each other as I spoke. “But you didn’t exactly jump up to my rescue in there, either.”

  “You proved you didn’t need rescue.” He glanced at the stake next to me. “And I knew that as long as they didn’t have the ring, they wouldn’t kill you. They wouldn’t risk killing Geneva. But if they’d gotten that ring…” He clenched his fists, and his expression hardened, as if imagining what he would have done. “I would have done anything to keep you safe.”

  “Even though I lied to you?” I asked.

  “I knew there had to be some kind of explanation,” he said. “And I was right.”

  “You were.” I smiled for real this time, feeling at ease around him for the first time since I’d come in here. “Thank you for hearing me out.”

  “I didn’t have an option,” he said. “Curiosity gets the worst of me sometimes, and when it came to you, I needed to know the truth. But there’s still one thing you haven’t told me.”

  “Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

  “You never told me about how you came to work with the wolves.”

  “What?” I asked. “I wasn’t working with the wolves.”

  “Someone in the palace was,” he said. “It was the only way the wolves could have gotten through the boundary to stage that attack.”

  “If someone was working with them, it wasn’t me,” I said. “The only times I’d ever seen the wolves was when we fought them in the forest and when they attacked the town. Both of those times, they were trying to kill me. I swear I wasn’t working with them. I’ll even make a blood oath if that’s what it takes for you to believe me.”

  “I believe you.” He held a hand up in a stop motion, and my heart warmed at his trust—it was something I’d wanted for longer than I’d realized. “But if you weren’t working with the wolves, then why did that one stop before attacking you?” he asked. “And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about—I know you do. The wolf was about to attack you in the courtyard, and then it stopped. Why?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” I shrugged. “When it happened, I thought it smelled that I was a human. You know wolves can do that—they smelled past my vampire disguise when we were in the forest, too. And none of the humans in the square were attacked. The wolves only went for the vampires.”

  “Except that you’re not human,” he said. “You’re Nephilim.”

  “Remember—at the time of the attack, I was human,” I said. “My Nephilim blood only activated once I killed Laila.”

  From there, I told him everything I’d learned since coming to the Haven—from the details of being Nephilim, all the way up to Rosella telling me about my destiny.

  “It all makes sense,” he said. “Except for one thing.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “When we were in the attic of the Tavern, you resisted my compulsion.”

  “You tried to compel me?” I sat back, surprised—and a little annoyed that he’d tried to mess with my mind like that.

  “Yes.” He nodded. “When I told you to forget we’d ever met.”

  “Wow,” I said, the annoyance only growing. “So you were going to compel me to forget your existence?”

  “For your own good,” he said. “Or at least, I thought so at the time.”

  “Still.” I huffed and crossed my arms. “I deserved a choice in the matter.”

  “And I deserved to know your true identity while you were in the palace,” he said. “So let’s call this even, all right?”

  “Fine.” I sat back in agreement. It wasn’t like I had to worry about him trying to compel me again, since compulsion didn’t work on Nephilim. And he was right—I’d lied to him enough times that I could call this even.

  “I assumed you were wearing wormwood—it was the only way you could have resisted my compulsion,” he said. “But you swore you weren’t. And at that time, your Nephilim powers weren’t activated. So why didn’t it affect you?”

  “I don’t know anything more than I told you right now,” I said. “I promise. But maybe Mary has the answer.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But first, you mentioned a paper Rosella gave you with numbers. It sounded important. Can I see it?”

  I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  He glanced at it and smiled. “These are coordinates,” he said, looking up from the paper. “Do you have a phone on you that I can use to look up their location?”

  �
�No,” I said. “The guards took it from me before bringing me to the throne room. Didn’t you bring one?”

  “I did,” he said. “But I have pretty good reasons to suspect that it’s being tracked.”

  “Why would it be tracked?” I asked.

  “You see, to come here without the royal vampires of the Vale suspecting me, I had to make a deal with them…”

  From there, he told me everything that had happened to him from the time I’d flashed out of the throne room to now, sparing no details.

  “So no matter what happens, I need you to promise that you’ll never give me that ring,” he finished, his eyes serious. “Can you do that?”

  “I promise.” I rested my hand on top of the ring, cursing it for bringing so many problems into my life. “But your family’s expecting you to eventually return. When you don’t, they’ll know you’re not on their side anymore. What are we supposed to do from here?”

  “We’re going to ask Mary to borrow her phone so we can look up those coordinates,” he said. “Figuring out their exact location is imperative to your quest.”

  He stood up with the paper in hand, ready to leave the room.

  “Wait,” I said, since there was still one big thing I needed to ask him.

  “What?” He tilted his head, watching me curiously.

  “I’m supposed to ask one person to join me on my quest.” I twisted my fingers around themselves, nervous. We still had a lot to work out between us, but I took a deep breath and focused on him, figuring it was best to get out with it. “Will you be my person?”

  “Yes.” He smiled, and with that one smile I knew—Jacen and I were a team. “I will.”

  Annika

  “Tromso, Norway,” Jacen announced, looking up from Mary’s phone. “Well, a bit northwest of Tromso. That’s the closest city to the coordinates.”

  We were still in the tearoom—Mary had been happy to join us when we’d invited her back inside. She hadn’t known the answer to the compulsion question—her best guess was that my dormant Nephilim blood had protected me—but she did let us use her phone.