Captured: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Academy Bully Romance (Royals of Sanguine Vampire Academy Book 1)

by Sofia Daniel

  Smatterings of applause filled the dining hall. I kept my gaze on the professor. If I turned to look at any of the latecomers strolling into the vampire side of the room, I would throw up.

  “As we depart for the Yule break, I wish to leave you with a parting thought. Work as though you will live a millennium, train as though hunters are at your door, and open your hearts to those unions that will further the vampire race!” The professor raised his glass to a roomful of cheers and applause.

  I straightened at the thought of a holiday and placed my glass of grapefruit juice to my lips. If the vampires were leaving, then I had a time to work out how to persuade the Stryx Brothers to enable my escape.

  The professor stood. “Frumosi, please meet at the entrance hall at lunch to bid goodbye to your classmates who will be leaving for Yule.”

  A knocker took away my half-eaten breakfast and replaced it with a slice of Christmas pudding and cream. Another set of knockers walked around the vampire side of the room, holding trays laden with shot glasses, although I couldn’t tell what they would have contained apart from blood. I kept my head down, quashing the part of me who yearned to rush over to the Stryx table and demand to know why Raphael thought I had been a mistake.

  When the gong sounded for the end of breakfast, I strode out the dining room with my head in the air. Raphael didn’t catch up with me to explain, and Dante didn’t follow me out to berate me about having left the suite he shared with his brothers a stinking mess. Nero only spoke to me during life or death situations, so I wasn’t expecting him to grab my arm.

  “Alicia,” said a voice from behind.

  I paused. Zarah hurried toward me, and my heart sank. What would she blame me for, now?

  “Juno spoke to me before the ball and offered me a place in her noble house.”

  My brows rose. “Is there something about herself she’s kept hidden from the world? I thought the whole point of us frumosi was to populate the vampire world with day-walkers.”

  She huffed a laugh. “Her little brother will be looking for a mate when he’s older.”

  “How old is he now?”

  After a pause, she bit down on her lip and muttered, “Eight.”

  “Huh?”

  A flush stained her cheeks. “I saw the offer for what it was. She wants me for herself.”

  “And what do you want?”

  Zarah glanced over her shoulder, turned to me, and whispered, “I want to escape.”

  Stomach hardening with doubt, I raised my gaze to the ceiling and exhaled a long, calming breath. This newfound desire for escape had to be a trap. Commander Shanks hadn’t caught me doing anything untoward, so the vampires were using Zarah to catch me out. “Why now?”

  “Vampires killed my aunt,” she whispered. “Why would I want to spend the rest of my life with them? I’d rather take my chances with the hunters.”

  “But you always knew that.” I folded my arms across my chest. Wasn’t it a little convenient that Zarah was approaching me just before Yule break when the frumosi had the best chance of escape? “What’s brought about this change?”

  “All this time, I thought doing what they wanted protected me, but I ended up getting drained for the flimsiest of reasons. I’m not standing for it any longer.”

  My stomach tightened. That still didn’t explain why Zarah had changed her mind or why she would discuss escape within earshot of the vampires. Feigning nonchalance, I raised a shoulder. If she approached me during the Yule break, I would take her request more seriously. “Good luck.”

  Her face dropped. “I thought you knew—”

  “Sorry. If I had a way out, don’t you think I would have used it by now?”

  Since we had no classes, I left Zarah to her strange machinations and headed back toward Frumosi Tower, passing windows that overlooked the courtyard garden. Two statues stood locked in an eternal embrace. I pursed my lips. What did vampires know about love apart from how to fake it enough to get their fix of blood?

  A door on my left cracked open, and an arm yanked me out of the hallway. It threw me down a stairwell with such speed, I hit every piece of stone on the way down. I lay on the ground, an aching mess, mentally checking my bones for breaks. The clack of high heels approached, and I squinted into the semi-darkness.

  Micalla stood over me, her face twisted with fury. The light seeping in from the top of the stairs gave her silver hair a ghostly glow. “Because of the stunt you pulled last night, I’m betrothed to Lord Lilin.”

  I shuffled back, groaning with every movement. “That wasn’t anything to do with me.”

  “Oh, my family is dead!” she screeched in a parody of a baby’s voice. “Boys, save me!”

  My jaw clenched, and both hands balled to fists. How dare she make fun of my loss?

  Micalla bared her teeth. “Then you fuck Raphael, even when I told you to stay away.”

  “I thought it was Dante you want—”

  “Shut up,” she roared.

  Palpitations reverberated in my heart. Micalla had lost her mind and jumbled all the facts to suit her malice. I scrambled to my feet and raised both palms. “Listen—”

  She rushed at me, grabbed my right wrist with one hand, and my neck with another. “Worthless bitch. You’ll die slowly for what you did to me.”

  “Micalla,” I rasped through a crushed windpipe. She tightened her grip and snarled.

  I swung my left arm and slammed my sunstone-powered palm into the side of her face.

  Chapter 21

  The stench of burning flesh seared my nostrils, and Micalla’s scream rang in my ear. I would have gagged if it wasn’t for her iron fist already crushing my throat. My gaze darted around the darkened chamber, lit only by wall sconces, for something, anything to help me out of this predicament. But her hand tightened around my windpipe, cutting off even more of my oxygen. My sunstone-infused palm stuck to the side of her face, and every attempt she made to jerk her head hurt my arm.

  “Let go of me, you cow!” she screeched.

  Pulse thrashing in my eardrums, I struggled for air. My mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. I wanted to yell for help. For someone to hear her screams, but she remained wild-eyed, one side of her face burning at my hands and trying to kill me as slowly as I was killing her.

  Fangs protruded from her clenched teeth. “You fucking whore. I smell Raphael all over you. Is that how you got the boys to kill Kush?”

  My eyes bulged, and I tried to shake my head, but her grip around my throat wouldn’t loosen.

  The edges of my vision turned black, and the wall sconces faded into fiery blurs. This was it. After a term of defying vampires. I would die at the hands of Micalla Fucking Mantis.

  Just as my vision dimmed, a dark blur knocked her aside, forcing her to let go. I fell and landed hard on my hands and knees, rasping for breath. This was worse than the first time she’d tried to strangle me. Until now, I hadn’t realized how easy she’d gone on me when we had first met. That had just been a warning. A display of strength, but today, her killing intent was clear. The only reason I was still alive was that she wanted to prolong my death.

  “Let go of me,” Micalla screeched from the other side of the chamber.

  “Tut, tut.” Dante’s voice echoed off the stone walls. “That’s not how we deal with wayward frumosi.”

  “You killed Kush!”

  “Me?” Amusement laced his voice. “I wouldn’t stoop so low.”

  “But I would,” said Raphael’s voice.

  My head jerked up, and both Micalla and I let out identical gasps. Hadn’t he still been recovering in the infirmary when the onion woman had found Pigtails’ ashes?

  Micalla scrambled to her feet. “But you were—”

  “Injured?” Raphael chuckled. “A perfect alibi.”

  I leaned my back against the wall, trying to calm my breaths. The last thing I wanted was for one of them to notice that I was conscious and listening to the confession. Based on what the onio
n woman had told me, Raphael had probably tricked Pigtails into meeting him and then locked her in a room with a window using the help of the knockers. That’s how the onion woman had been able to collect the girl’s ashes and his tie pin.

  The baggie was safe in that airing cupboard with the incriminating hair-pin, but I wouldn’t be able to use it if the boys thought I’d learned too much.

  “Why would you kill a friend to protect a frumosi whore?”

  “Kush impersonated me!” Raphael snarled. “Because of her, Alicia used her strange power to burn through my insides.”

  “You’re sick,” she whispered.

  My breaths came in ragged gasps. Pigtails had locked me in a chamber with a newly made werewolf that would have torn me apart. Just for trying to protect Zarah from her greedy fangs. It had been a relief to discover she wouldn’t make another attempt on my life.

  “I’m telling Professor Proust,” she spat.

  Dante grabbed her from behind and held her in a headlock. “You’ll do no such thing.”

  “Y-you would dare threaten me?”

  “I have no choice,” replied Dante. “You know my secret, now Raphael’s, and you tried to kill what was ours.”

  I held my breath. Dante had a secret? That would explain the strange power Micalla held over him. I kept as still as a corpse in my corner of the wall, listening for anything I could use against the brothers.

  “Alicia?” Micalla sneered. “There are hundreds where she came from.”

  Raphael strolled forward, holding a stake. “But none with that combination of beauty and magical prowess.”

  My stomach dropped. Now was probably the time to step forward and confess that I’d used sunstone to attack them, but my legs shook so hard, they wouldn’t cooperate. And my jaws were clamped shut. Raphael stood in front of Micalla, stake raised.

  Micalla flinched against Dante. “Blood oath!”

  I kept my breaths shallow, still pretending to be unconscious.

  Raphael sighed and lowered the stake. “She’s right. We can’t personally act against her, or the oath will burn us from the inside-out.”

  What oath? I wanted to scream. I longed for them to discuss the secret that had given Micalla so much power over the Stryx Brothers. If I could get just a crumb of information, I could add it to the baggie of ashes in my quest to escape.

  Micalla sagged but adjusted her posture. “Thank the gods someone is thinking straight. Now, if you let me snap Alicia’s neck, you’ll have a secret to hold against me, and we’ll be even.”

  My neck muscles spasmed. It was a lie. Micalla hadn’t cared about Raphael killing Pigtails, so whatever she held about them had to be even more damning… But what could it be, and did it matter? A blood oath prevented the brothers from killing her. They could easily step aside and let her finish strangling me so she would continue keeping their secret.

  Nero stepped out from the shadows. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that promises made under extreme duress were worthless?”

  I sucked in a breath through my nostrils. If anyone could kill Micalla, it would be Nero… If he wasn’t under the same oath.

  “What are you talking about?” she snapped. Dante grabbed one arm, and Raphael grabbed the other. Micalla squirmed in their grip. “Let go of me or Lord Strix will know that Dante—”

  Raphael clamped a hand over her mouth, muffling her words, and I ground my teeth with frustration. What could be so bad that they wouldn’t even let her utter the words?

  Nero turned to where I pretended to be unconscious. “Alicia.”

  My muscles stiffened, and my heartbeat doubled.

  “Stand up,” he said, already sounding bored with my pretense. “We know you’ve been listening to this entire discussion. Come here before I drag you to your feet.”

  Swallowing hard, I pulled myself up. “W-what do you want?”

  “Raph, give her the stake.”

  “What?” Micalla and I both said at the same time.

  “You’re going to kill this bitch.”

  “Why me?” Backing into the wall, I wrapped my arms around my middle. I wanted to discover their secret, not protect it.

  Nero stepped toward me, an impatient frown marring his beautiful face. The light of the wall sconces brought out the blue highlights in his dreadlocks. But this was no time to ogle at his masculine beauty. I had to get out of this chamber, away from these murdering, scheming vampires.

  I edged away from him, but Nero rushed forward and wrapped a hand around my bicep. “The three of us are under blood oaths not to harm a hair on her silver head, isn’t that right?”

  Micalla shook her head. “Alicia wouldn’t—”

  “I can’t.” The words tumbled out of my mouth.

  Nero’s frown morphed into a malicious grin that made my heart flip-flop. “You forget something, Alicia. We have a blood oath of our own. My protection in exchange for an unnamed future favor.”

  My mouth fell open. I’d thought he had wanted a blow job, not full-blown murder. Just before I was about to back away, an invisible force jerked my arm toward Raphael, who held the stake.

  “You feel that?” Nero wrapped an arm around my waist. With a dark chuckle, he said, “That’s the magic of the blood oath at work. My brothers and I protected you from her murderous hands, and now it’s time for you to repay the favor by killing Micalla.”

  “That’s not what we agreed.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. “You said you wanted sex.”

  Dante and Nero’s mocking laughter made me want to vomit. All that sex talk around the time of the oath had been a smokescreen to hide his true intentions. I was just a fucking pawn.

  Raphael placed the stake in my hand. “She won’t stop trying to get at you until you’re either dead or in a situation worse than death. You know that.”

  “Come any closer to me, you freak, and I’ll kill you!” Micalla screeched.

  My throat dried, and palpitations reverberated through my chest. Raphael was right, but I wasn’t prepared to murder someone at their command. And I tried to pull out of Nero’s grip around my waist, but he was too strong. “N-no.”

  “Don’t be shy,” Dante said in mocking tones. “This won’t be the first time you tried to kill a vampire.”

  The magic of the oath pulled my arm up in an overhead grip and forced it down with inhuman strength. Momentum did the rest of the work, and gravity plunged the stake into her chest.

  Micalla’s eyes widened, and she inhaled a noisy breath. One of her hands grabbed for my throat, and I let go of the stake and stepped out of reach. Embers burned where the stake met her flesh, turning red and spreading through her torso as though she was made of candle wicks. Screeching, gasping breaths wheezed out from her lungs, and she flailed toward me, arms outstretched.

  “Alicia Stephens, I curse you with my last breath, you murdering, thieving whore!”

  Whimpers reverberated in my aching throat, and I wrapped my arms around my chest. The scent of seared flesh filled my sinuses, my throat, my beleaguered lungs. It seeped into my hair, my clothes, my skin. I clapped both hands over my mouth.

  Micalla’s torso hollowed, and she let out one last scream before her spine, and the rest of her flesh burned away, and her shoulders, arms, and head snapped off and fell to the ground.

  I opened my mouth in a silent scream and skittered away from the burning pieces of Micalla. Those bastards had tricked me into doing their dirty work.

  Raphael wrapped his arms around me and rubbed his large, warm hand over my back. “This time, when I tell you to wash off the scent, do a better job. If anyone smells Micalla’s burned remains on you, not even we will be able to protect you from the wrath of Lady Mantis.”

  My head snapped up. What he’d said earlier in his bedroom about scents had been a warning, not an insult. With a sharp nod, I rushed to the stairs.

  Dante cleared his throat. “Not that way, unless you want to attract the attention of every passing vampire with a working olfactory nerv
e.” He pointed at a dark spot behind me. “Take the knocker staircase to the top floor and follow the passageway left to Frumosi Tower. Get cleaned up and get your uniform burned.”

  “Right,” I rasped.

  This time, instead of crying in the shower, I would stand under the hot spray, use an entire bottle of shampoo, a whole bar of soap, and would scrub hard and go through everything I knew about the Stryx Brothers.

  Somewhere in that conversation was the clue to controlling them. If only I could remember what everyone had said.

  Chapter 22

  Leaving the sanctuary of the darkened, stone staircase and inhaling beeswax-scented air only exacerbated the scent of Micalla’s burnt flesh. It stuck to my sinuses, clung to my clothes, and fine particles of her ashes irritated my scalp and burrowed under my uniform. She was dead. Burned from the inside-out. On the command of that asshole who used me as a cat’s paw.

  I stumbled through the hallway, passing door upon classroom door, hoping to reach the sanctuary of Frumosi Tower before a vampire caught my scent. A wave of nausea crashed to the back of my throat, making me gag. I clenched my jaws, clamped my lips shut, and ran as fast as I could with a swollen throat blocking my airways.

  By the time I reached Frumosi Tower and burst through the doors of my room, a spasm seized my guts. And then another and another until I fell onto my knees in front of the toilet bowl and hurled the contents of my stomach.

  Retching, spitting, and spewing, I managed to utter a single word. “Bastards!”

  Tears streamed through my eyes. Snot poured out of my nostrils, as every muscle in my torso worked harder than it had during my purge. Raphael had used innocent knockers to kill Pigtails. He had probably worked out a way to override their conditioning not to harm vampires. How had the human trapped within their prison of sanguinary servitude coped with having murdered someone?

  “F-fucking vampires!”

  Another spasm rocked my stomach, and I cursed out loud. The Stryx Brothers had wanted to kill Micalla all along. She held a secret about Dante that was so terrible, they had taken blood oaths to buy her silence and oaths never to harm or kill her.