The Vampire Wish: The Complete Series (Dark World)

by Michelle Madow

  Except that the antidote Camelia had injected me with had removed the vampire blood from my system. When I’d staked Laila, it had been as a human.

  I had no idea what had happened, but I knew one thing—I wasn’t letting go of this stake.

  Geneva was fast in casting her spell, and the oncoming vampires crashed into the barrier she’d erected around us. Their fangs were out and ready, their eyes savage as they tried to claw their way through.

  “Why are they attacking?” I asked, glancing over at the witch. “I thought the vampires here didn’t feed on humans?”

  Geneva just crossed her arms, glaring at me and saying nothing.

  This certainly wasn’t the first time she’d looked at me with disdain or irritation—the witch clearly thought she was better than humans—but something about the way she was looking at me now was different.

  She was staring at me with pure, undisguised hate.

  “Answer me!” I yelled, somehow keeping my focus on both her and the mob of surrounding vampires, which was getting larger by the second. “I command you to answer my question.”

  “I can’t say with certainty.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, refusing to look at me.

  Great.

  I studied the crowd, relieved when a statuesque vampire who appeared in control of herself made her way through. She wore the same thing as the others—a flowing, comfortable looking garment of all white—and her hair was in a braided crown that made her look like an ancient goddess.

  She pushed past the rabid vampires, and it wasn’t long until she reached us.

  “The vampires here are not accustomed to being around humans,” the mystery woman said, her cool gaze on me as she spoke. “You’d best tell Geneva to add a scent barrier to the boundary as well.”

  “Do as she said,” I told Geneva. “Add a scent barrier to the boundary.”

  She must have obeyed, because a second later, the vampires stopped hissing and pounding against the boundary.

  “Go,” the woman told the vampires, her strong voice carrying through the courtyard. “Don’t you all have chores to attend to before the sun rises?”

  They lowered their eyes and shuffled away, picking up the various cleaning objects and baskets they’d discarded in the frenzy. Some of the objects had been destroyed—trampled on—and their owners hurried away with them, ducking their heads in shame.

  It was only once they’d returned to their work that I felt it was okay to speak.

  “The two of you know each other?” My gaze went back and forth between Geneva and the mystery woman. I eventually settled on focusing on the mystery woman, since Geneva seemed intent to look anywhere but at me.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d done to the witch, but whatever it was had clearly pissed her off.

  “Geneva was a great asset to the vampires during the Great War,” the woman said, clasping her hands together as she spoke. “The Haven, of course, stayed out of the fighting, but we fostered trust between the vampire kingdoms so they could work together to defeat our common enemy. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves, since I don’t believe we’ve been officially introduced. I’m Mary—the leader of the Haven.”

  “You’re an original vampire?” I asked, instantly wary. I hadn’t thought of it while deciding to come here—I’d only had a few seconds to decide where to go at all—but an original vampire might not take too kindly to the fact that I’d just killed Laila.

  “I am.” She nodded. “And you are…?”

  “Sorry.” I pulled my stake back, realizing that not only had I not yet introduced myself, but that I was pointing a stake at her chest. “I’m Annika.”

  “You’re a Nephilim,” Mary said simply.

  “What?” I’d heard Camelia say that word—Nephilim—after I’d killed Laila, but I’d been so consumed with trying to escape that I hadn’t given it much thought.

  “Your eyes have rings of gold around their pupils,” she said. “The mark of the Nephilim.”

  “They don’t,” I said. “My eyes are brown.”

  I’d always wanted prettier eyes—green or blue—but I knew more than anyone that my eyes were a dull shade of chocolate brown.

  “You must have come to your powers recently, then.” Mary glanced at the stake in my hand, wariness crossing her features.

  “She did.” Geneva focused intently on Mary as she spoke. “She came into her powers when she killed Queen Laila.”

  Annika

  Crap. There went any hope of keeping it secret from Mary that I’d killed one of her fellow original vampires.

  “Stop.” I glared at Geneva, wanting nothing more than to jam this stake through her heart. But of course, I held back. Geneva and I might not be the best of friends, but she’d helped me get this far—and I had no interest in committing cold-blooded murder. At least, not again. “I can speak for myself.”

  Geneva narrowed her eyes at me, full of absolute loathing.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d done to her between last time we’d spoken and now, but something between us had clearly changed. I’d have to work it out with her later. For now, she had to obey my command, since I controlled her ring.

  “It’s true, then.” Mary said it to me as a statement, not a question. “You killed Queen Laila.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” I said, begging her to believe me. “Well, I did mean to, but she didn’t give me much of a choice. It was her or me. I had to do it. Otherwise, I was as good as dead.”

  Geneva clenched her fists by her side, her lips pressed together. She looked like she was dying to contradict me.

  I couldn’t blame her. Because while what I’d said hadn’t been a lie, I had gone to the Vale with the goal of killing the vampire queen.

  “It seems we have much to discuss,” Mary said after a few seconds of silence. “Come. Let’s go to my cabin, where we can speak privately.”

  She turned around and led the way.

  Geneva kept the boundary up around us as we followed Mary, which stopped the vampires from trying to attack again. In fact, they barely glanced at us as they went about their chores.

  The way they calmly performed their tasks in their all white outfits was similar to how I imagined a commune.

  Or a cult.

  But as I followed Mary down the open hall, I was barely able to take in the exotic scenery of the Indian mountainside retreat. Because everything that had happened this morning at the Vale was finally starting to set in.

  I’d killed not just Laila, but three of her guards.

  I’d seen death before, yes. And I’d certainly fantasized about killing the vampires who had killed my family.

  But seeing death and doing the killing were two completely different things.

  I’d taken lives this morning. Four of them.

  That was something I was going to have to live with forever.

  It wasn’t Laila I felt guilty about. After all, the vampire queen had founded the kingdom that had killed so many innocent humans and turned so many unwilling humans into vampires.

  Killing her had saved so many future lives.

  No—it wasn’t Laila’s death that plagued my mind. It was the guards.

  I was glad that my guard Tess hadn’t been one of the guards who had dragged me to the throne room—I never would have been able to hurt her—but I knew nothing about the guards who did. Many of the vampires in the Vale had been turned against their will, like Jacen had been. They didn’t want to be what they were. Yes, they’d likely killed before, but all vampires of the Vale had control of their bloodlust. They were killed otherwise—vampires who couldn’t control their bloodlust were considered too much of a liability to live in the Vale.

  The guards I’d killed probably had wives who loved them—perhaps they even had families. By dragging me to the throne room to face the royal vampires, they were only doing their job. They didn’t deserve to die for that.

  But if I hadn’t killed them, they would have killed me first.


  No matter what, I couldn’t let myself forget that.

  “We’re here,” Mary said as we approached a modern cabin. It was small and simple, surrounded by many other identical cabins.

  “This is yours?” I asked. She’d said she was taking me to her cabin, but I’d expected the leader of the Haven to have a mansion—not a cabin the same size as all the others in the kingdom.

  “It is.” She nodded. “Here in the Haven, we believe in peace and equality. I’m not entitled to any more personal living space than anyone else.”

  “Does everyone here live alone?” I asked.

  “No.” She smiled. “There are other, larger cabins on the other side of the community for citizens who choose to share their housing. The space is, of course, divided equally in accordance to the number of individuals inside the residence.”

  She was leading the way up the steps when something turned the corner of the cabin—a tiger.

  Its eyes locked on mine, and I froze. It was huge—larger than I’d ever imagined a tiger could be—and it watched me with fierce intelligence. I couldn’t move, afraid that one single motion would send it pouncing.

  I’d heard about the Haven’s legendary tiger shifters, but it was completely different seeing one in person.

  “There’s no need to fear the tigers,” Mary said, as calm as ever. “They protect us. As long as you adhere to the Haven’s law against violence while on our land, the tigers will protect you as well.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to ignore the way my hands itched for my stake. “Good to know.”

  The tiger yawned, and while the motion was harmless, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was an excuse for it to show off its massive teeth.

  Mary stepped up to the front door, pressed her finger against a panel, and it clicked open. “Come inside,” she said, holding the door open for Geneva and me. “As I said before, we have much to discuss.”

  I scurried past the tiger, keeping my eyes on it the entire time, and followed her inside.

  Jacen

  The throne room had erupted into chaos.

  Karina had gracefully stepped out of a side entrance soon after Annika and Geneva had disappeared. Camelia knelt down next to the pile of ashes, as if praying for Laila to rise. The three fallen guards lay dead beside her.

  A few more guards had entered the room soon after Annika and Geneva had flashed out—the same guards who had been sent to Annika’s quarters to find the sapphire ring. They’d informed me of what I already knew—the ring wasn’t there.

  Now the guards stared at Camelia hovering over the pile of ash, while others talked amongst themselves.

  My mind whirred with everything that had just happened, but I still caught snippets of their conversations.

  “She can’t truly be dead.”

  “The human killed the queen and three of the strongest guards.”

  “The queen will rise from the ashes.”

  “Death is coming to the Vale—we need to get out while we still can.”

  I couldn’t say what was right and what was wrong. But I knew one thing—what had just happened couldn’t get out to the public. If it did, everything would be a bigger mess than it already was.

  “No one is to go anywhere.” My voice boomed throughout the room, and I threw some compulsion into my tone, wanting to make sure they obeyed me. “You’re all to stay in this room until I issue a further command.”

  The guards all straightened to attention, their eyes on me.

  There wasn’t much I liked about being a vampire—I hated pretty much every part of it. But compulsion definitely had its benefits.

  Now, everyone was looking to me for instructions on what to do next. But my thoughts were consumed with only one thing.

  Annika was alive.

  I’d been beating myself up about her death since her corpse had been presented to me earlier this month. Now, I’d found out that not only was she alive, but she’d been here, in the palace—parading around as Princess Ana of the Seventh Kingdom.

  I’d noticed that Princess Ana had mannerisms similar to Annika’s, and I’d known there was something familiar about her when I’d kissed her. But I’d thought I was searching for reminders of the girl I’d lost before having a chance to explore what existed between us. I’d even thought it might be a sign that I was meant to choose Princess Ana to be my bride.

  Then I’d chalked it up to my imagination. After all, I’d seen Annika’s corpse. She was dead. No amount of wishful thinking was going to get her back.

  Except that she wasn’t dead. She’d lied to me and deceived me.

  I understood her lying to everyone else in the court, but we’d been alone together numerous times. She’d had multiple chances to tell me the truth.

  But she hadn’t.

  And I had no idea why not.

  “Your Highness?” One of the larger guards stepped forward, his eyes on me. “What would you like us to do?”

  “Stay where you are,” I said, and I walked down the steps to stand next to Camelia, who was still kneeling by the ashes. “How is Laila dead?” I asked the witch. “The queen herself said that only a Nephilim can kill an original vampire. The Nephilim are extinct. Yet, here we are.” I motioned to Laila’s ashes to show what I meant.

  Camelia stood and faced me, her eyes wide with shock. “Annika is a Nephilim,” she said, her voice smaller than I’d ever heard it before.

  “She’s not,” I said, since I knew Annika. “She’s human.”

  I thought back to the time I’d spent with her in the village—when I’d passed myself off as a human blood slave as an escape from life in the palace. Annika was definitely a human. Firstly, her blood smelled human. Secondly, and most importantly, she’d told me about how much she hated being human. Being human made her feel helpless. In fact, she’d wanted to be a vampire, so she could have the strength to fight back against anyone who tried to hurt her.

  “She wasn’t a human,” Camelia said, her expression hard with conviction. “Right after she killed Laila, I looked into her eyes and saw the mark of the Nephilim.”

  That triggered a memory—something I’d read in the numerous encyclopedic volumes within the palace library. There wasn’t much written about the Nephilim—the children of angels were extremely secretive, and vampires didn’t know much about their race. But there was one big thing that all supernaturals knew about the Nephilim—they all had marks around their eyes. Golden rings around their pupils.

  In the last moment before flashing out of the Vale, Annika had looked straight at me.

  Her eyes had the marks. They’d never had them before, but they had them then.

  “How is this possible?” I asked. “The Nephilim are extinct.”

  “They’re supposed to be.” Camelia glanced again at the spot where Annika had been standing before disappearing. “But Annika was very much alive, and as long as she remains that way, she’s a threat to all supernaturals on Earth. She commanded Geneva to take her to the Haven. We must storm the Haven at once so we can kill Annika and acquire Geneva’s sapphire ring.”

  “No.” The word escaped my lips before I could think to stop it.

  “Why not?” Camelia narrowed her eyes at me, tilting her head in question. “You don’t still care about the girl, do you?” Her voice was controlled and threatening.

  “Absolutely not.” I straightened, knowing that I needed to play this right if I wanted to keep Annika as safe as possible. Because while I didn’t know much about her—apparently much less than I’d ever thought, given that she was Nephilim and not human—I couldn’t bear the thought of having her killed.

  She was good. I knew it from the conversations I’d had with her as Annika and as Princess Ana. She wanted the same things that I did—rights for the humans of the Vale, and rights for humans to be able to have a choice on being turned.

  Not only that, but there was an undeniable connection between us.

  She cared about me, just as I cared for her. She m
ight have lied about a lot, but I believed her feelings were real. If they hadn’t been…

  I shook it off, not wanting to let myself think that way.

  I just needed to find out the truth, and I couldn’t do that if she were killed. I also couldn’t do that if the Vale thought I was on her side. If they thought I cared about a Nephilim, I would surely be hunted down and killed.

  I needed to play my cards right if I wanted us to both make it out of this alive.

  “The Haven is a safe haven,” I reminded not just Camelia, but everyone else in the room. “Violence is not allowed on their lands. If anyone tries to attack Annika while she’s in the Haven, the tiger shifters will pounce and kill them. And with the growing threat of the wolves outside our borders, the loss of any more of our men is the last thing we need.”

  The guards remained silent during this entire conversation—as expected, my compulsion had a strong hold on them.

  “But will the Haven protect the Nephilim?” Camelia asked. “The Nephilim never cared that the Haven wanted peace—they believed all supernaturals should die. The citizens of the Haven didn’t fight in the Great War, but they were a major influence in creating peace between the supernatural kingdoms so we could successfully band together to defeat the Nephilim. The Haven didn’t want the Nephilim hunting supernaturals any more than we did. There’s no saying what they’ll do to a Nephilim who transports straight into their territory.”

  “There’s only one way for me to find out,” I said.

  “And what way is that?” Camelia asked.

  “By going there myself.”

  Jacen

  “Alone?” Camelia looked at me like I was crazy. “That would be callous. You’ll need backup.”

  “If I’m going to the Haven to lure Annika to leave of her own free will, sending backup would be callous,” I countered, using her own language against her. “Annika already doesn’t trust the Vale. If I came with backup, it would only put her more on guard than she already is.”

  “I don’t think you realize how dangerous the Nephilim truly are,” Camelia said. “Or did you already forget how easily she killed our queen and three of our strongest guards?”