by Megan Duncan
Chapter 12
“You should learn to mask your desires as the future princess,” Dmitry whispered slyly in my ear. His breath crept across my skin like a warm embrace. I attempted to hide my smile as my heart began to pound in my chest.
Dmitry wrapped himself around me like a snake. He lovingly tortured me, allowing his emotions to surround me. I could feel his excitement for the evening, his delight in teasing me and his strong desire to dance with me. There was a hint of something more, but just as my senses started to grasp and understand it, he pulled away.
“I hide them perfectly well. You just know me too well,” I raised my nose at him while maintaining a smile and tried to give my best impersonation of a dissatisfied princess.
“Oh dear, Claire,” Dmitry said as his face drew into a more solemn expression. It began losing all the happiness he so willingly showed. “I feel like I could know you a hundred years, and you would never cease to surprise me.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I didn’t want to sound so disappointed, but my emotions were taking over.
Dmitry raised his hand and hesitated for only an instant before placing it on my cheek. “It is not a bad thing.” He looked searchingly into my eyes, without blinking and I felt completely exposed and open. “Dance with me?”
I took his hand as he led me into the middle of the dance floor. The wave of emotions was even stronger there and I fed off it as if it were blood. Our bodies hummed with the beat of the music and passion of the dance. With every turn and spin, I merged deeper into my animal within and yielded to the vampire I was becoming.
Dmitry smiled brilliantly as he twirled me in his arms. A ribbon of great desire rippled from him, yet he remained a perfect gentleman, unlike many of the vampire men who danced around us. His chivalry made my yearning for him grow.
As a slower song began to play, Dmitry drew me away from the dance floor and onto a small chair. The look of concern on his face brought me quickly back to reality and out of the trance I had fallen into. “What’s the matter?”
“When was the last time you fed?”
I tried to think and my mind was still clouded from the tremendous emotions of so many vampires. “I can sense your hunger, Claire. Stay here and I will get you something.” He squeezed my hand for a moment and flashed through the crowd as if it were an empty room.
I relaxed back into the chair, unconcerned about posture and watched the vampires around the room. Nearly half were dancing, but there were many couples seated around the room. Others were gathered into smaller groups and spoke with typical expressionless faces. I realized then why vampires didn’t express their feelings through their faces as humans did. They did it through their feelings, emitting them outwardly like invisible tentacles for any nearby vampire to sense.
I spotted Robin across the room, sitting with the young vampire whom she danced with. I didn’t need to sense her feelings as she still showed them in her facial expressions. I supposed it was the fact that she hadn’t been a vampire for very long and got to live as a human, or perhaps it was just a characteristic of her personality that never went away when she was turned. She was an animated person that didn’t hide anything about herself and I loved that about her.
I sat up and scanned the crowd for Dmitry’s face and didn’t see him anywhere. As fast as he was, I was starting to wonder what was taking him so long. I decided I would go find something to eat myself when a familiar sensation wrapped around my arm and around my fingers. I could sense a ribbon of emotion holding my hand. Every emotion was different, but they were also connected to their owner. I instantly knew without a doubt who was on the other end of this ribbon, my mystery man.
I scanned the crowd again in an almost frantic state as I searched for him. I tried to send out my own ribbon of emotion to flush him out, but it seemed impossible since he was someone I had never met. I took two steps into the throng of vampires and the ribbon yanked at my hand, pulling me back.
“Stay,” it whispered sternly to me in its deep soothing voice.
“Why?” I asked, feeling silly to be talking to an invisible sensation on my hand.
“Not safe.”
In that instant, the ballroom doors burst open and a mob of angry protesters flooded into the room. They didn’t look the least bit afraid to be breaking into a private party full of ancient vampires. They shouted profanities and shook their signs at us.
I pulled away from the invisible hold on me as I marched toward the crowd. I saw Fox shouting at the protestors, ordering them to leave. I knew things needed to be handled gently. I couldn’t let a human or vampire get injured this night, or I would never be able to achieve the goals that Nicolae had set for me. A sense of duty filled me and I wanted to be the one to sway this mob of protestors to either leave or change their attitudes.
“Butchers!” A woman with wild, frizzy hair shouted as she spat on Fox. I walked past him and felt the heat radiating from him. It was hard to believe he wasn’t set ablaze by its intensity.
The mob of people stopped yelling and pointed as I approached them. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, Nicolae’s voice boomed throughout the room. My ears detected the rattling of picture frames and crystals on the chandeliers from its force.
“Silence!” The crowd remained silent for a moment longer before they started shouting again, yelling their hateful words. “You will depart from these premises now or you will be removed! You have been warned, humans!”
“You can’t do anything to us!” a man shouted.
“Yeah, or you will be breaking your treaty!” shouted another.
“There is no such treaty with trespassers,” Fox interjected. “The king, your king can eliminate any threat in any way he sees fit.”
I thought Fox’s words were a little dramatic, but they got the point across and the mob started to shrink back. If he had one thing going for him, Fox was intimidating and right now it was working in our favor.
“There she is!” The wild-haired woman pointed at me frantically. “Look what they did to her!”
I looked at Nicolae, confused about what I should do. When he said nothing, I knew he wanted to see me handle the situation. To step up as the princess and leader I said I would be.
I took a steady stride toward the woman and allowed a ribbon of determination and strength to wrap around me. My body stiffened and straightened as I stared down at her. I could sense that she thought she was rescuing me by coming here, but as she realized I was now a vampire, a wave of disgust became visible.
“They did not do anything to me that I did not welcome with open arms,” I said proudly, trying not to smile too widely lest seeing my fangs frighten her more. Any violent reaction could cause the entire room of upset vampires to come crashing down on her as well as her small mob of protestors.
“But… but… You were a human girl,” her eyes darted around the room as more vampires gathered closer to see the cause for the disturbance in their celebration. “Why would you choose to be turned into one of them?” she practically spat the last word at me.
I took another step closer to her, not to threaten her, but I wanted her to believe the sincerity in my words. “Everyone is free to choose the life they want for themselves. As you are free to express the hatred you have for my family and the ones I love. I am free to live as I wish, loving them,” I waved my hand to include the entirety of the vampire crowd. “Those whom you so openly hate from a distance, have experienced deeds of the past that you have neither suffered nor seen.”
I could see that my logic was breaking into her ignorance, but as the realization came into her eyes, it was quickly replaced with fear and anger. “You’re just trying to use those vampire tricks on me!”
The restraint on my temper was waning as the crowd again broke into a rhythmic chant of vampire hate. “The soulless shall not reign!”
I could feel the combined heat of the angry vampires expanding into an inferno of rage. I was familiar with protestors spouting
their hateful prejudices, but having it directed at me was a kind of discrimination I could have never comprehended before. The word “soulless” struck a particularly sensitive nerve that seemed to have an effect on every other vampire as well.
If I couldn’t get this situation under control soon, there wouldn’t be anything to prevent a massacre of epic proportions from occurring on the night of my coronation.
Ana and her parents flashed to my side, their fangs bared, and devilish smiles plastered on their faces. “Nicolae,” Ana’s dad, Samael spoke, “we cannot allow them to poison this evening. Such disrespect cannot go unpunished, nor can it be handled by a child.” He looked at me then with revenge aflame in his eyes.
I yanked the hem of my gown into a tight fist and took two incredibly quick steps toward the group of ignorant humans. I couldn’t let Ana and her dad steal away my chance at proving myself. Nor could I allow any human or vampire to doubt my worthiness. It was obvious that kindness wasn’t going to sway them, so perhaps giving them a reason to fear vampires was what they so obviously required.
This thought process was so alien to my nature, but the animal within me was emerging and being fueled by the mutual outpouring of vampiric emotions in the room. I relished the sense of power.
As I stopped only inches from the woman, I looked down at her with a firm scowl on my face. No doubt my brow was wrinkled into a furrow and a growl arose from the center of my being. For a fleeting moment, I thought I had even grown taller, until I realized the woman was cowering at my feet, along with many others.
I could only imagine that in that instant, I looked more like a vampire than the human they thought I was. My body vibrated from the rage of hundreds of vampires as the ribbons wrapped around me in their unyielding, fiery embrace. Doubt rippled through my thoughts for a brief second and I wondered if I was acting of my own accord or were these ancient vampires directing me, trying to influence me.
I couldn’t let this doubt build into fear and I wouldn’t. “Leave!” I growled at the protestors, my voice taking on the amplified quality that Nicolae had embodied. It was deep and raspy, and sounded nothing like my former self. If I hadn’t known better, I would have compared it to a lion’s voice, if it could talk.
The humans paused only for a second before throwing their signs onto the floor and exiting the ballroom. They were walking backward as if they were too afraid to take their eyes off us. The angry woman and one man were the last to leave and she stared at me intently. I could tell she was searching for something in my expression or my eyes that was not there. She was looking for my soul.
“Let’s go,” the chubby man said as he pulled at her shoulder.
The woman shook her head, breaking our eye contact and threw her sign at my feet. I instinctively stepped back, allowing the sign to skid across the marble floor behind me.
I took a deep breath as the ballroom was finally free of humans and turned to face the crowd of angry vampires. I was surprised to find that they had already lost interest and were moving back to the stairway where Nicolae was commanding their attention. I scanned the swarm of vampires for a familiar face and quickly found a set of eyes that were not interested in Nicolae, but were intently locked on me with wild amusement.
The instant I exhaled my irritation, Ana bolted toward me with incredible speed, her lengthy, golden blonde hair flowing behind her like a cape. “That was rather fun, wasn’t it?” she asked as she slithered around me.
“What do you want, Ana?” I said defiantly, trying my best not to care. I really didn’t want her to cause another scene. Although I didn’t want to admit it, the sight of her made my stomach churn.
“Oh, I already got what I wanted,” Ana said with a cackle as she left me in a whirl of air and flitted away through the crowd.
“What was that all about?” Robin surprised me as she popped up at my side. Her expression was full of concern, but when I saw the smeared lipstick on her lips I couldn’t help but grin.
“I have a feeling she was gloating. Boy, am I glad to see you. Did you see all that?” I asked as I pointed my thumb toward the ballroom doors, where just moments before, a dozen protesting humans stood whose scent still slightly tainted the air.
“It was hard to miss, but you handled it pretty well. I wonder how they even got into the palace. I mean they are almost always protesting outside, but no one ever made it in before or even tried.”
We both pondered on the thought for a moment before something popped into my head, “You don’t think that… Ana?” I couldn’t imagine that Ana would put the entire royal family and every vampire dignitary in our whole region at risk by allowing a mass of protesting humans to penetrate the palace walls and crash such an important event, or did she really hate me that much?
“Don’t even say it. I mean Ana is a bitch, but I don’t know if she is really that stupid.”
Robin and I locked eyes and shrugged, both of us silently agreeing that perhaps Ana really was that stupid, but who would believe us if we told anyone? I imagined if I did voice my suspicions to anyone, it would only make me look bad and I really didn’t need the negative publicity at the moment.
“So, what is going on?” I asked Robin, referring to the crowd that was gathering around the base of the grand staircase. “Do you think Nicolae is going to make an announcement about what happened?” Nervousness twisted my heart as I worried that I might have handled the situation wrong, but as we approached the crowd, I focused on Nicolae’s expression and couldn’t sense any hint of disappointment or disapproval.
As he whispered to Evilyn, who stood nearby, they both looked particularly excited about something and the smallest of smiles crept onto their faces. They must have felt my eyes on them because they both looked toward me, finding me immediately in the crowd and beckoned me to them.
I realized I had grabbed Robin’s hand in my stress and hesitantly let go as I made my way toward the landing of the grand staircase. The crowd quickly separated, giving me a clear path. As I reached Evilyn, she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before turning me toward the crowd.
We stood together a few steps behind Nicolae as he raised his hands to silence the crowd. They quickly obeyed and turned their dark eyes on us. Even in a sea of sparkling jewels and grand gowns with rich fabrics that exposed large amounts of flesh, their eyes were what hypnotized me. It was their dark, limitless orbs that held my attention.
“I must admit that I have another motive for inviting you all here tonight and after the recent intrusion on our celebration I am only further determined to announce my decision. It was our belief that when we brought our new daughter into this family, we would adhere to the traditions of our kind. It is with this devotion to tradition that we have chosen with unwavering certainty, that Princess Claire be joined with a Blood Mate.”
The throng roared with cheers at the king’s announcement, but I didn’t share their enthusiasm. I was in complete shock and confusion. I didn’t know what a Blood Mate was, but it didn’t sound like something I wanted to be joined to. Robin mentioned something about it briefly, but the way Nicolae announced it… it was a much bigger deal than I ever would have thought.
My knees began to buckle and I was certain I would have fainted if Evilyn hadn’t been firmly latched onto my arm. I wasn’t sure if she was there to hold me still and keep me from running away, or because she knew this announcement would rock me to my core.
I knew it would have been more appropriate if I had kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help blurting out my question. “What is a Blood Mate?”
To my dismay, Nicolae completely ignored my question and continued with his statement. “The ceremony will be performed immediately to ensure the safety of the princess. A Blood Mate has already been chosen, one which is a perfect match for my child,” Nicolae waved his hand toward me, completely oblivious to my dismay. He beckoned me to him; and suppressing my anger, I complied, letting him wrap me under his arm li
ke an obedient child.
“I want it known that your new princess has a dedication to our family I have not seen in a very long time. Her adoption of this old tradition is just another sign of her love for her vampire family and her respect for our way of life. I hope that you all see, as I do, that after tonight, we are all bonded in a new way. We are all part of a new future and a stronger foundation for our region.”
The crowd cheered again as their black eyes sparkled and their faces lit up with fangy smiles. I was baffled by their reaction, making it hard for me to partake of their jubilation when I felt such anguish. I respectfully bowed to the king and backed away as he marched proudly into the assembly of vampires and they congratulated him as though he had accomplished an amazing feat. All I could think was that he wanted me to do something I knew nothing about, and was fully unprepared for. He made it seem like he had my full endorsement on the decision, which further infuriated me.
As the crowd’s attention moved to congratulating the king and queen, I slowly walked out of the ballroom, unnoticed. The halls of the palace were nearly empty with the exception of an occasional vampire couple sitting on a lounge chair or whispering in a corner, their ribbons of attraction and passion eminent.
I wanted to go to the palace gardens, but as I made it to the stairway that led outside, I could immediately sense at least a dozen vampires walking the grounds. I needed to be alone and I knew I wouldn’t find a moment of peace if I sat out there, so I reluctantly retreated back into the palace and headed for my room.
By the time I reached my bedroom door, tears were threatening to fall with burning ferocity, but I kept them at bay until the very instant the door shut behind me. I stood in the center of my room, sobbing as I stared at the beautifully decorated, yet imposing walls. I could feel them closing in on me and I felt like I was suffocating. All the power and control that I thought I had was swiftly disappearing, and for the first time, I regretted my decision.
I knew I didn’t have a choice, but there was no going back now from what I had done. Pangs of nausea wrought my stomach and the room began to spin. I snatched a throw pillow from the sofa and made my way to the balcony, hoping for a breath of fresh air.
The cool night breeze seemed soothing and made the tracks of my tears feel icy against my skin. As I looked out into the night, I saw figures walking around the property. I didn’t want anyone to see me, so I sat in the corner of the balcony, not caring anymore if I ruined my dress or not. I hugged my pillow and cried as I looked out between the beams of the balcony, silently watching the vampires below and I wept.
I grew envious of their freedom as I realized I would never have such a thing myself. I was being forced into some kind of union or joining with a Blood Mate, whatever the hell that was.
~
