Vampire Princess

by Rosemary A Johns

  I’d taken on Drake, and I hadn’t won; I’d bastard lost.

  We were playing a dangerous game.

  2

  I flung Gwyn onto the giant nest in the corner of the cave, which I’d been given as both bedroom and cell.

  Gwyn fell with a startled yip amongst the feathers that floated like violet snow around him.

  Princess and prisoner, I’d stood atop a mountain of feathers once, looking down at a valley of bones.

  And now?

  I saw from atop the mountain, ghost wings itching at my shoulder blades.

  What was I?

  I’d demanded the truth from Rebel once, but he’d bled only secrets and lies.

  No wings or fangs, but I still had an angelic and vampiric heritage that had marked me freak for twenty-one years lived amongst humans.

  A monster.

  Was I shut away because the angels feared a monster princess?

  Then I was back in the quiet warmth of my room. Glass crystals throbbed and vibrated with the beat of my pulse, lining the walls and lighting us in the bleed of their glow.

  In the heart of Angel World, we were underground; plants tangled over the walls. Stone ledges jutted out, piled with suede bound cushions, and Welsh oak cupboards grew from niches. At the back rose stalactite fangs; leather straps crisscrossed between them.

  I didn’t need to be bondage kinky to figure out they were for a bitch’s Wings: her blokes.

  When I’d been hunted through Hackney by Drake, I’d taken the piss that he was a harem boy. Yet the women here called the men they owned Wings.

  Drake wouldn’t tell me the name of the Glory who owned him. But he’d called her a monster.

  I dove more gently after Gwyn, trapping him underneath me in the mound of feathers.

  Gwyn’s skin smelled fresh: morning after the rain. He squirmed. A flash of snowy hair and cheeky face. No wings, however, only stumps; the Broken were wingless.

  When I trapped Gwyn between my knees, pressing on his ribs, he stilled. I licked across his nipple, teasing the small bud with my teeth, until he arched.

  Then he giggled.

  I huffed, as a feather tickled my nose: it reminded me of Drake. And that’ll kill the tingles between your legs.

  Let me read your feathery ass some realness, Miss Huntress of cutie pie elves, what slays the tingles is getting slayed.

  Here in Angel World? Harem pants Commander will put you in your grave.

  Drake can’t touch me, not while they’re on this screwed up princess gig, J.

  One deluded cocktail served to the bitch in the princess mask.

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘J’ is the sassy bitch voice in my head. He’s been there ever since I can remember: both devil and angel rolled into one.

  Who the hell knows what he is. But he’s as real as anything else in my messed-up life.

  Drake’s stepped-up these last weeks. Without him? I’d have been one crazy bitch.

  You’re already in cuckoo land, girl.

  You’re the one that raised me.

  Then I should know. Listen, Drake’s playing a game.

  Cool down, drama queen.

  You need to fortify the walls about my fabulousness and make sure no one finds me.

  Because a war’s coming.

  If Drake discovers I exist…? You’ll wish he’d only ganked you.

  I tensed, stroking down Gwyn’s arm. The glass shards on the walls pulsated.

  In the oak cupboard, there was a pile of sixty-two feathers: one for each day I’d been doing time in this gold cage. It was the only way I’d been able to track my captivity.

  Each day, I’d worked on building mazes in my mind around J, so the angels wouldn’t find him.

  What would happen if they did?

  I’ve been putting in the downtime; I have skills.

  You have crazy skills. But you can only trust Rebel, and his Irish arse is still trapped in a birdcage prison.

  Have you forgotten his pretty in punk deliciousness already, Violet-cakes?

  Except, I hadn’t forgotten my angel Custodian.

  I could feel the bond between us, pulling at me. Pain, despair, and longing. It ghosted across my skin; whispered at night.

  Did Rebel think of me too?

  Yet he was also my betrayer.

  I shook my head.

  Bounce, J. Cutie elf deliciousness needs my attention.

  I caught Gwyn’s lower lip between my teeth, and he whimpered. When I wrenched his head back by his hair, he struggled. I let his lip go, grinning against his mouth; I surged with vibrating excitement.

  Instead of white hair, I saw flame red. Instead of crimson silk harem trousers, I saw scarlet leather bondage…

  ‘Rebel,’ I breathed.

  ‘Your Broken,’ Gwyn blinked at me, confused, his voice a lilting Welsh. ‘Your toy.’

  I snogged Gwyn harder than I’d intended, before licking across the pale outline of his lips.

  I was a princess, my angelic side hissed, swelling and submerging the vampiric, strengthened after all these weeks in their world, why shouldn’t I take this…toy?

  Yet the black murmured, oily through the cracks, aren’t you the queen’s captive too?

  A slave, Broken, toy…?

  ‘Gwyn,’ I replied, ‘my Gwyn.’

  He smiled softly, ‘Your Gwyn.’

  I yanked his head to the side. ‘I hunted you.’

  I nipped at his shoulder, marking him.

  ‘You saved me.’ He melted into my hold, trusting in his submission.

  The bloke was a wallad. When was I safe?

  ‘You miss him.’ Tentative, Gwyn rubbed his hand in circles on my lower back, as if the touch was forbidden. ‘This…Rebel…who we know as Zachriel, the one they keep in the dark? I hear stories about him, innit? When water’s taken to him… There was never nothing more awful than the Lowest Levels, see. An Addict can be a toy if—’

  ‘Allow it. I can’t even free myself.’

  And what if he hates me now, after I abandoned him to the dark…?

  All at once, the exhaustion of the hunt caught up with me.

  A twinge shot electric-hot through my back, my feet ached in my leather boots, and my guts growled.

  I pushed myself off Gwyn with a sigh. ‘Sorry, bro, stomach Hulk calling, and you don’t want to see him when he’s angry.’

  I crawled over to a wooden platter that I knew Gwyn would’ve laid out on the ledge.

  Angel World knew how to train their slaves.

  A pyramid of dark chocolate slices: I breathed in the rich scent, soaring on the smoothness.

  I’d have to chat to Drake about what five a day meant again.

  A bitch couldn’t live on chocolate alone, although I’d give it a hell of a try.

  I popped in one slice and sucked, as the chocolate melted.

  Gwyn waded through my feathery nest and knelt next to me, watching with avid interest, whilst I swallowed.

  ‘Here,’ I took another slice, before cupping the back of Gwyn’s head and tonguing at his lips, slipping the chocolate into his mouth.

  I reckoned he’d spit it out.

  Human food? A weakness, when angels lived on sunlight alone.

  He groaned at the sensation, however, his throat bobbing as he swallowed and his eyelids fluttered. ‘Lush,’ he whispered. ‘It’s like…flying. Even though they took my wings, see?’

  I froze. My skin static-tingled.

  Angels had stolen his wings?

  ‘I know some other bastard Fallen — vampire fanatics — who chopped off their followers’ wings.’ My eyes blazed. ‘I burnt the Pure. You get me, bro?’

  Righteous flames surged through me, sizzling along my arms. I grinned, flexing my fingers; the sparks danced ice-cold on my palms.

  Gwyn’s eyes widened. ‘There’s a fine sight! Would you burn those who chopped off my wings, Feathers?’

  I hated the haunted hope in his desperate gaze, as he clutched his hands in hi
s lap, wringing the baggy trousers.

  Just as I loved my intimate nickname Feathers on his lips.

  The fire died.

  I knelt back on my heels. ‘Pull back on the Guy Fawkes; I’m not a pyro. I only came here to find my sister.’

  Jade: the teenage girl I’d adopted as my sister from the streets. Who’d disappeared on the day Rebel had broken into my life. Who Drake had threatened to kill and who he swore was somewhere here in Angel World, along with the other disappeared kids of Hackney.

  The sister I’d promised to save.

  A flash of devastated disappointment, before Gwyn hurriedly glanced down at the chamber’s floor, his shoulders hunched. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, please don’t tell—'

  I stroked his cheek, and he flinched.

  He’d never flinched from me before.

  I stiffened, but forced myself to nudge the platter towards him. ‘Eat. You’re one meal away from a Bob Geldof appeal, cave elf.’

  He fidgeted. ‘I’m the Broken, we’re not allowed… It’s the way here in Eyrie.’ He peeked up at me, his hair cascading over his eyes. ‘Snowdonia, isn’t it.’

  The Welsh mountains… Although hidden from hikers by a mental magic I hadn’t figured out yet.

  Someone powerful was pulling the strings.

  Gwyn sneaked a glance at the chocolate, his tongue swiping across his lips.

  ‘Go for it, bro.’

  He snaked out his hand, and another chocolate disappeared into his mouth with the same sound as he’d made earlier when I’d been snogging him.

  Playing at Eve now?

  He’s starving, hooker, look how thin he is. You reckon there’s light down in slave land?

  Aren’t you just Miss Halo, even if you grind your hoochie ass on the poor and needy.

  You can’t have Rebel, so it’s Build Yourself a New Human Addict Day?

  Mind your own. I need—

  The Broken to be yours. Someone else bound to you. Another problem to fix.

  Because the big one…that you’re trapped here…is too dangerous to face.

  Remember, you’ll have to finish whatever you start because that’s how the game is played, Feathery-puss.

  Hissing in frustration, I pushed up onto my knees. When I swept the platter off the ledge, the chocolates scattered like dark tears across the cavern.

  Gwyn jumped, but instead of shrinking back, leaned against me. ‘Drake told me you were a chocoholic.’ He peeped up at me, worriedly. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’

  I bit back a laugh.

  Chocoholic?

  Only Rebel knew that. How had Drake discovered it?

  Torture?

  When I shuddered, the glass crystals thrummed.

  Or had Rebel confessed, so I’d have comforts? But why did Drake want me to have them? What was his game?

  When Rebel had kidnapped me and held me prisoner, I’d been stripped naked, bound to a bed, and then had been threatened by his adopted family of witches. It’d been a freakshow of punk rebellion, giggles, and chains.

  Here? I was a princess. A guest of my own mum. Showered in chocolates, glimmering dresses, and fake hunts to fill my days. But I was more a prisoner than I’d ever been shackled to Rebel’s bed.

  The crystals slowed their beat, along with my heart. Gwyn’s fingers spectred across my hair.

  A shaft of slanted sunlight streamed through a crack in the wall, refracted rainbow by the crystals; there was more than one way to feed a starved Broken.

  What would Drake have done to Gwyn if he’d won him?

  I twisted Gwyn, until the stump of his wing bathed in the stream of sun; he arched, gasping.

  Rebel was down in the dark, whilst I played in the light.

  My eyes burned, but I blinked away the tears.

  ‘Princess,’ I glanced up at the deep voice, respectful and low from the doorway.

  Another Broken, in matching crimson trousers and bare-chested, with a short afro and smooth dark skin that was patterned in livid welts, stooped in the doorway as if to hide his height. He cast an assessing gaze at Gwyn; it was protective, like I was the same fiend as whoever had purpled him in stripes.

  Then again, I was, wasn’t I?

  I didn’t miss the scowl, which the Broken quickly hid by ducking his head, at the way my hands rested on Gwyn’s shoulders.

  It was dark, dangerous, and possessive.

  Gwyn squirmed away from me. ‘Dillon, you mustn’t—'

  ‘The Queen summons you,’ Dillon announced.

  I shoved myself up, stalking to Dillon. ‘Finally remembered she has a daughter? Shame I don’t do summoned.’

  Dillon blinked, before looking over my head at Gwyn, who simply shrugged. ‘The whole of Angel World—’

  ‘She keeps me here like some grounded kid, and then it’s a formal call to Buckingham Palace? Do one, bro.’

  I’d spent my life dreaming of the day I’d discover my mum.

  But now…?

  I shook, half enraged and half terrified.

  I didn’t know which was my vampiric, and which my angelic side, but both howled at the danger.

  Because if I was a bastard, my mother was a bitch.

  Regretting condemning the one punk you could trust to the dark?

  The pretty boy betrayed me.

  In the game of Angels vs Vampires, we’ve all betrayed each other. But the bondage angel loves you.

  And without Rebel…?

  You won’t survive your mummy’s twisted sports.

  Yeah, twisted and sports. Two words no one wants to hear together.

  The Matriarch’s a skank set to lead you to hell, and I can’t follow you down that rosy path.

  Can’t or won’t?

  Both.

  Don’t leave, J…

  I’m inside you. Just don’t lose yourself.

  This is my home now.

  Then your home will kill you.

  I backed away, but Dillon prowled after me. ‘I’m sorry, orders.’

  Gwyn leapt up. ‘Stop, Dill, please…’

  ‘Actually,’ Dillon’s smile turned the corners of his thick lips, ‘I’m not sorry, princess.’

  His wrestler arms pinned my arms, slamming me into the spiky crystals.

  I hollered, as my back sliced, thrashing in Dillon’s sweaty hold. His skin slid against mine, one hand grappling towards my neck. I twisted, kneeing him in the balls.

  Dillon growled, his breath catching. ‘Typical Glory,’ he muttered.

  But he didn’t loosen his hold. Instead, he heaved me closer, forcing my cheek against the heat of his furnace chest. Suddenly, his fingers dug into the base of my neck, and I screamed.

  Blinding shards of ice-cold tore through my mind, ripping me apart.

  Nothing existed but the pain.

  Hands dropping me. Collapsing. Falling.

  As my eyes closed, I was swept away by violet.

  3

  Blurry-ghosted, when you walk through life without a mum, her shade walks at your shoulder: the birthdays, school events, and Christmases when you’re alone, but yet the vision you’ve created hovers.

  Mum would want me to work harder…

  I bet I’m like mum …

  Mum would’ve saved me…

  Yet just like the angels who I called out to, until J stopped me, and who didn’t protect me in Jerusalem Children’s Home, it wasn’t the bastard truth.

  Because even though angels were real — even though my mum was — everything else had been nothing but shadowed longing.

  And the reality could kill me.

  Fuzzy violet birds swooped in elegant figures of eight through shafts of light like they were ice-skating in the cold white.

  I blinked.

  My back and arse were numb; the stone ground froze my skin through my dress. I blearily focused on the big bastard birds: not birds, female angels.

  The Glories.

  What the hell would these slave-owning, harem-bitches do to me, the monster in the palace?
r />   The angels swarmed, buzzing with chatter in the quartz throne room, which arched with encrusted parades. Their wings beat through the slashes in the back of their dresses, which were subtle variations in shades of violet.

  Levels of Perfection.

  And I was anything but perfect.

  My breath ghosted in panicked puffs; I rubbed at my prickling arms.

  Then an angel with jet braids, ebony skin, and leather corset and skirt in ringed lilac straps, broke off from the gang.

  And dived.

  I eeped, bottom shuffling backwards.

  My neck still pulsed from where Dillon had pressed, and my arms were stiff.

  How had Dillon had the balls to attack me, whilst Drake played the pussy?

  I squirmed onto my front, shoving myself clumsily to my knees.

  Sniggers.

  Blokes in indigo trousers, like Drake’s, knelt to the right of the throne room: Wings who were owned by the circling Glories. The Wings’ heads were bowed, even as they cast furtive glances at me and sniggered.

  Why were they kneeling, whilst the women flew?

  Yet other blokes in gold trousers leaned casually on the other side of the cavern against an iridescent wall. They didn’t laugh. Instead, their gazes were hard and assessing.

  Looks like golden pants were the alpha pricks. But where was the top boy: their boss?

  Turf war in this shielded avian world in Wales they called Angel World? A rival gang? How the hell had I landed myself in the West Side Story Angel Edition?

  I scowled. ‘Don’t disrespect me, bitches, or I’ll go Hackney style on your arses.’

  I grinned at the Glories’ shocked gasps, before pushing myself to my feet.

  Only to be tumbled arse over tit by the bitch with the braids, who landed on my guts, pinning me down like landed prey.

  I snarled.

  Time to violet-up.

  I battled to summon flames to my fingertips — the violet fire I’d learnt was summoned by J or my sense of righteousness — but both remained stubbornly silent.

  I was alone.

  ‘By my feathers, who dances with the dark to laugh at my daughter?’ The Matriarch’s soft voice managed to boom around the throne room, cowing the angels to nothing but the rustle of wings. ‘Or lay rough and tumble without a mother’s permission?’

  Braids leapt off me like she’d been scorched.