The Vampire King’s Virgin (The Vampire King Series #4)

by T. S. Ryder

But then the trumpets sounded, and Teresa was forced to concentrate on the more immediate danger.

  Teresa knew the Firuzian was quick, but only now did she realize just how slow she was in comparison. He danced around her like a venomous butterfly, his sword darting out to cut her every so often until the bare parts of her arms and legs were covered in tiny lacerations and the crowd was laughing at her.

  The thing about dance moves, though, was that you dance with a rhythm.

  Teresa simply allowed the Firuzian cut her without striking back to give herself a chance to catch his pattern. She looked ridiculous doing so, but being the ‘fat kid’ all her life had taught her how to tune her self-consciousness about such things out along with any negative comments she’d receive from others.

  She learned two things about the Firuzian. The first was that he, like she, clearly had his orders, and his were to humiliate her as much as possible before he finally struck in earnest. The second was that, while she was right about his moves having a pattern to them, she had underestimated its complexity. Rather than following a single rhythm sequence, the Firuzian employed an intricate pattern of separate sequences he repeated at uneven intervals, and never in the same order. The smartest course of action in this situation was to memorize one sequence and play it against him, and Teresa used the one where he would prance about left and right before hopping over to her back and cutting her forearm. Sometimes he’d cut right, sometimes left... but he always did it from the same spot behind her back, standing roughly a foot away.

  The next time he landed there, Teresa had her daggers ready, and as his gilded sword sliced through her skin, she turned around from the opposite side.

  The blades of her daggers landed on the Firuzian’s cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” Teresa whispered in the Common Tongue and cut down.

  The razor-sharp blades went clean through the thin flesh.

  The Firuzian let out a blood-curdling scream and fell to the ground.

  The crowd in the rafters went wild.

  And Teresa was left standing, feeling more like a monster than the victor.

  Shortly after, she was back in her cell, but she barely had any recollection of how she got there. When the food was brought in, she ate mechanically, out of pure habit, still dulled by the experience. As though through a fog, she registered Lady Esplyn making an appearance, but the only thing she remembered was that her mistress did not look happy at all. Some hours later, guards arrived to escort her to the bathhouse, where she was thoroughly washed and dressed in a red flowing garment and had a pleasure-collar closed around her neck before the guards appeared again and led her away.

  It was not until she reached her final destination – a large, luxurious room somewhere in the guest wing of the Imperial Palace – that she regained her focus, and even that was only because of the man sitting before her.

  She had a closet narrower than his shoulders, Teresa thought to herself as she watched her patron, who observed her with a steady, pensive gaze from his seat in a padded chair. The hard shadows cast from the candles that illuminated the room danced on the harsh slopes of his face, making him look positively sinister and his eyes glow brightly like an animal’s.

  “Come here,” he told her. His voice was raspy and rough, but to her surprise, there was no command in his tone. As she closed the gap between them, he straightened his back, and Teresa once again found herself marveling at the size of him. “Kneel,” he said, and she did. Once down, she reached for his belt buckle, but he stopped her, grabbing her wrists. His palms were rough with callouses, and his hold was firm, but he took care not to hurt her.

  Teresa was confused. What did he want from her, if not what he had paid for?

  Gently, he laid her hands on his knees and then reached for the pleasure-collar. “I’ve heard these collars make bed-slaves enjoy whatever their patrons do to them,” he mused aloud, running his long, thick fingers across the metal weave of the collar.

  “They make a slave’s body respond in a fashion stimulating to those who paid to have use of it, yes,” she replied candidly, caring little for whatever punishment such brazen insolence would earn her.

  And, indeed, the man looked angry, but his eyes remained on the collar. “And all the while your mind knows exactly what’s going on, doesn’t it?” he asked, understanding the hidden meaning of her words, and Teresa nodded. “As if rape itself is not vile enough,” he all but growled and snatched the pleasure-collar off her neck. “You will never be forced to wear one of these again,” he said and threw the collar away. “Not as long as I live.”

  Taken aback by his words and actions, Teresa rose, her hand reaching for her now bare throat. “Who are you to make such claims?” she asked.

  He stood up then, the light finally catching his face, and Teresa uttered a little gasp as a pair of gold and green eyes, slit in the middle with a vertical iris, locked onto hers.

  “I,” he said, “am your new master.”

  Chapter Four

  Kenner could not blame the woman for the confusion and fear she felt. She had proved to be a skilled, intelligent fighter today, but also not the kind of person who could hurt another without having it affect her. Splendid as it had been to watch her fight with the Firuzian, he had not missed the tragically vacant look on her face after the fight was over or the mechanical way she bowed and left the Pit. And her former mistress clearly hadn’t warned her of this new change in her life, most likely out of spite. The woman was furious when the Emperor made it clear pleasing the Kinai with a tribute took precedence over her wishes, but she did not hold enough power to fight him on this.

  Thus, that afternoon, money and papers had exchanged hands, and this voluptuous beauty now belonged to him.

  He resented having to keep himself as her master, even if just nominally, but there was no such thing as manumission in the Skatian laws, so the only way she could have her freedom was to remain Kenner’s slave on paper, and to get as far away from the Empire as possible.

  “What is your name?” he asked, but she only seemed more confused at the question.

  “They call me Hele,” she replied, clearly going with the safe answer.

  “Yes, but what’s your name?” he repeated.

  Her eyes narrowed a bit suspiciously, but eventually, he got his answer. “Teresa,” she told him. “My name is Teresa.”

  “Teresa,” he repeated, committing her name to memory. “I am Kenner,” he told her. “I’m supposing from your reaction to me that you haven’t been introduced to the Kinai,” he mused, taking his seat again, and gestured to the chair across from his, a small, ornate table between them. Teresa threw him another wary look but sat down.

  “I’ve never heard of the Kinai,” she told him.

  “I’m not surprised,” he admitted. “We are... a private folk. But this is what you need to know. In our homeland, we hold no slaves, do not indulge in blood sport, have no caste system, and grant positions based on merit rather than bloodline or gender. I must take – and keep – you there against your will, but otherwise, you are free to organize your life as you see fit. If you prove yourself useful, you’ll easily find gainful employ, but I’ll support you until then, however long it takes. I understand if trusting me doesn’t come easily to you, but I fear you have no choice in this matter. You either make Kinai your home, or you’ll just be captured and re-sold again.”

  She looked down to her lap, where her hands rested, thinking his words through, and he let her. All things considered, she was taking this remarkably well. “Why don’t you just take me back to my home?” she asked, raising her head, her large, russet eyes meeting his again. “Since it seems like freeing me is the reason you bought me.”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid that simply isn’t possible,” he told her, honest in his regret. “A passage fee for the Portal is more than I can afford, especially now.”

  Teresa looked defeated. “No... that would simply be too much to ask for,” she said, with a sigh of b
itter resignation. “But I suppose it’s for the best. I have no idea how I’d get to Earth from the Crossroads.”

  It was Kenner’s turn to be confused. “Earth?” he asked, repeating the only word she had said that was not of the Common Tongue.

  “My planet,” she explained. “I was... I’m sure you have them on Elamaren, but I don’t know the word for the profession. ‘An officer of the law’, we call it. We investigate crimes, locate and apprehend criminals and make sure the laws of the land are obeyed.” Kenner nodded in understanding, but said nothing, allowing her to tell him her tale. “I had just started my second year when my partner and I were called in to look into what we thought was someone’s bad idea of a joke. See, all this – life on other planets, spaceships, sentient races other than our own – it’s fiction on our planet, nothing more. But it turned out that the person who called us to investigate the strange lights and incredibly fast aerial vehicles on the edge of our city wasn't joking.”

  She looked sad. “I don’t know who took me exactly. They hit my partner and me with a small cloud of gas that made us lose consciousness, and I didn’t wake until I was in a cage at the Crossroads. It was... a maddening experience. No one understood me... I understood no one... they hit me to force me to do as they wished... and my partner was already gone. I don’t know if he died or was sold before I made it to the slavers’ block, but... honestly? I don’t know which I should hope for. He was a good man. He didn’t deserve this.”

  “Neither did you,” Kenner told her, hoping to give her some comfort. It was not something he was good at – fighting, leadership, strategy, those were his strong suits. When it came to emotions, he always felt like a bumbling oaf.

  But what a tragedy, what stress Teresa and her partner had been forced to endure. He tried to imagine himself so utterly lost, his entire world turned upside-down, completely out of any sort of control over his own destiny, and found himself amazed by Teresa’s inner strength. To survive such profound duress and adapt as well as she had showed an indomitable spirit.

  “You speak the Common Tongue very well,” he complimented her, feeling the need to lift the conversation and make her feel better about herself. Her eyes were still sad, but she offered him half a smile and nodded. “I’ve always learned languages with ease,” she told him. “But Lady Esplyn favored my physical talents.”

  “Of which you have an abundance, it would seem,” Kenner said, cursing the Skatian bitch for forcing Teresa into the Pit when she could’ve used her sharp mind instead. It would’ve made her no less a slave – and perhaps prevented them from ever meeting – but her life would’ve been incomparably easier if she had been trained as a clerk or a tutor rather than as a fighter.

  Teresa shrugged. “Military training,” she told him. “I had no family other than my parents, and when they died, I had just reached the age of maturity. I had nowhere to go and no way to fend for myself, and the military in my homeland was recruiting, so...” Hearing this only made Kenner’s opinion of her grow more. She was a survivor, this one, resilient and well-versed in making do with what she had.

  She will fit perfectly among the Kinai, he thought, with no small amount of pride.

  “That is good,” he told her, “We are very much a military-minded nation.” Teresa cocked an eyebrow quizzically, allowing him the first glimpse into her sense of humor.

  “A private, yet military-minded nation...” she mused. “Many would call that a historical oddity.”

  Kenner barked a hearty laugh, his head falling back, which seemed to help relax her a bit more. “I doubt many nations have our particular peculiarities,” he said. “But those are something you cannot know until you are one of us.” With that, he stood up, and Teresa followed suit, probably out of habit. “Something tells me it won’t be long before that happens, though,” he told her, with his best attempt at a reassuring smile. “You should rest now,” he said, gesturing to the bed. “We leave before dawn, and the voyage to Kinai is long.”

  A flash of worry crossed Teresa’s face. “And you will sleep...?”

  Kenner brushed his knuckles against her soft cheek. “Elsewhere,” he told her. “Don’t worry. The next time you bed someone, it will be because you want to.” The idea of her giving herself to another man woke something ferocious and possessive inside of him, something that made him want to snatch her and take her far away from the rest of the world, but he knew that was the beast in him talking, and he was too old and too well-disciplined to allow its wild passions to influence him. For Teresa to have the freedom to choose whom she shared her opulent body with was more important than whether or not she would choose him.

  “Lady Esplyn kept everything you once used,” he told her as he walked to the door. “But I have provided fitting garments for travel, and we’ll see about finding you more once we land in Kinai. They’re in the bedside cabinet.” He opened the door and turned to her once again. “Sleep well, Teresa.” He smiled before forcing himself to finally leave and find a sofa to spend the night on.

  Chapter Five

  Teresa thought she would be much too nervous to sleep, but the push and pull off the emotional turmoil she had survived that day seemed to have been far more exhausting than she thought, and she clonked out pretty much as soon as her head touched the pillow. She did not even bother to check what kind of clothes Kenner had found for her or whether or not they fit her, leaving it all for the morning. This would be her first time sleeping in a proper bed since her abduction, and she wanted to make the most of it.

  Once Kenner came to wake her, though, she wasted equally little time preparing for the trip. She threw away the garments she had worn the night before with disgust, and put on the thick woolen coat and trousers she found in the bedside cabinet along with fur-lined boots and hat, wondering what kind of travel demanded such clothes. When she dressed, she joined Kenner, who was waiting for her in the common room of the suit his Squadron had used during their stay at the Imperial Palace.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she asked.

  “Waiting for us outside,” he told her, and she followed him out. The sun was not up yet, but Wallaria was still a city built of stone located in a desert, and by the time they reached the Central Square, she was sweating.

  The Darkwing Squadron was there, a collection of twelve men and women built and dressed much like Kenner was, as was the Emperor of Skatia and his entourage, who had come to see their guests off. Teresa was not happy to see Lady Esplyn among them and fought the urge to duck away behind Kenner and hide from the daggers her former mistress shot at her from her beautiful eyes. But when she looked the other way, she noticed one of the Kinai women was looking at her with the same unbridled rage, which threw Teresa off for a moment, until she remembered one very important fact.

  She was a free woman now, or as free as she could be. She had to hide from no one. So she straightened her back, lifted her chin and concentrated on the positive potential of her new future.

  “Arul,” Kenner called out to one of his men. He ordered him to take care of Teresa while he spoke to the Emperor and did away with the diplomatic part of their departure. Teresa recognized him as the man who had sat with Kenner at the Imperial Loge in the Pit, and though she was nervous, she warmed up to his friendliness and cheery personality. He showed her to a... well. It was a wooden crate, there was no way around that fact, but it was padded with woolen blankets and large enough for her to comfortably fit in.

  “You can sit up, or lie down, whichever suits you better. You’ll also find a skin of water, and a pouch with some bread and cured meat,” he told her. “There is a panel in the back you can use to close the window if you’re too cold.” The ‘window’ was actually a rectangular opening in the front of the crate through which Teresa could see outside if she sat down. It all seemed beyond strange to her – there were no vehicles of any sort to be seen anywhere on the Square; how the hell would they travel to Kinai? – but she had already decided to put her trust in Kenner, so sh
e stepped inside the crate and sat down while Arul closed her in, using a set of leather straps to secure all the panels in their place.

  Kenner soon joined his Squadron as well and gave orders for...

  ...wait, did she hear that correctly?

  Did he say ‘flight’?

  The Darkwing squadron lined up at the far edge of the Central Square and, one by one, ran as fast as their feet would carry them to the opposite side. Teresa watched them, at first bewildered – and then stunned, with eyes wide open, as they changed shape mid-run, sprouting tails and wings, their hands and feet transforming into powerful front and hind limbs armed with enormous, razor-sharp claws, their necks and heads elongating as their bodies seemed to absorb their strange armor, and then growing, growing, growing as they took off from the ground with a feral roars that shook the roofs of Wallaria.

  Dragons…

  The Kinai... they were DRAGONS!

  As his Squadron glided in the air above them, pirouetting and looping circles on the currents, Kenner knelt to meet Teresa’s eyes. “Magnificent, aren’t they?” he said, pride clear in his voice. She was too busy staring slack-jawed to reply. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll carry your crate myself.” And then he too melted from one form into another, using the now free space of the Square to shapeshift in less of a rush.

  And if Teresa had thought him fascinating in his humanoid form, he was nothing short of spectacular as a dragon.

  He was covered in large, dark scales everywhere save for his leathery wings, which were so large they seemed to make up two-thirds of his size. From his brow, over his head, along his spine and all the way to the tip of his tail ran a set of crests he was apparently able to lift and retract at will. And his eyes... his eyes now made complete sense, she realized. They were exactly the same as they were on him as a man, but bigger, so much bigger, mesmerizing in their brilliance. His claws scraped along the stone cobbling of the Square as he slowly walked towards her crate, and his gigantic mouth was full of terrifying, serrated teeth. Teresa gulped, and her heart pounded wildly from sudden fear that this beast would decide to make a snack of her, but the dragon just blinked at her, as if to let her know everything would be alright and, with a powerful swoosh of its magnificent wings, rose up from the ground.