Wicked Vampire Prince by Bella Klaus

Chapter Five

Prince Draconius fell to the floor with a heavy thud. My jaw dropped. I skittered to the other side of the lumpy bed and swung my legs off the mattress.

Part of me had known he would return. There was always a downside to dark magic. Sometimes it demanded too big a price from its caster. Sometimes it backfired and made the victim more powerful. Sometimes, it worked for just enough time to lull the practitioner into a false sense of safety before the spell shattered.

With the most tentative of steps, I rounded the bed to find the vampire unconscious on a hideous rug. He lay unmoving, his chest neither rising nor falling, and I placed a hand over my mouth. What if I’d killed him? What if he’d already been dead before? It could explain his erratic behavior, the theft of more blood than a supernatural vampire needed to stay alive, and his lack of funds.

A deep ache formed in my chest. I should have turned on my heel and run, but guilt squeezed at my heart and rooted me to the spot.

I’d prepared for his return. Sort of. In the months after Prince Draconius abducted me, I had researched which poisons would be most effective against powerful vampires. It had taken a lot of sneaking around, some petty thieving, and a slew of lies, but I had made an extra-strong batch of bloodbane for this very moment.

It was only supposed to immobilize him for a short time, but it looked like the dose I’d made was too strong. I knelt beside him, placed my fingers beneath his nostrils, and checked for a warm puff of air.

Nothing.

Shit.

Tears sprang to my eyes and claws of guilt tore at my heartstrings. I’d just poisoned my fated mate.

Or he was a preternatural vampire and would soon rise to drain my blood.

The thought of him biting me again was the kick in the ass I needed to get moving. I scrambled to my feet, picked up the phone, and rushed to the door. Fortunately for me, it didn’t require a bone, at least not for exiting, and I ran out into the night.

My gaze dropped to the smartphone’s display. It was eight-fifteen in the morning. Since it was still dark, that meant the magical disturbance was still in place. Maybe the angels or whoever were adjusting the wards after having gotten rid of the invading humans.

None of that mattered right now. I needed somewhere to hide.

If he survived, Prince Draconius knew exactly where to look for me. It wasn’t like I had any family outside the temple, but I did have a friend who worked for the Supernatural Council. Willa.

I ran across the upstairs walkway, down a set of external stairs and through the hotel’s courtyard. A spotlight illuminated vehicles of all shapes and sizes, including mobile homes, but I couldn’t see anyone roaming about in the gloom.

My pulse thrummed in my ears twice as hard as the pounding of my boots on the asphalt, and my breaths turned shallow. What the Hell had I just done? For all his talk of punishing me, Prince Draconius hadn’t actually done anything too dastardly. Sure, he tied me up, but he had expressed concern when I was hungry and had even gone to the Hatch to order me something to eat.

Headlights shone up ahead, illuminating the road and reminding me of the dangers of wandering around in the dark. Especially when I still had no idea if Prince Draconius was deceased or alive or the thirsting dead.

I glanced down at my smartphone and tapped the commands for an Überwald Achtung. It was pricey, but the only choice of transport for a person on the run.

Moments later, a car slowed down at my side. “Sister Iyana Torchbearer?”

“That’s me,” I squeaked, not breaking stride.

“Ike Crene, your driver.”

My gaze dropped to the app, which displayed the image of a brown-haired man with a trim beard and eyes as green as limes. Even though he had the look of a mage or a wizard, I was still too jumpy to stop.

“Listen,” he said with a weary sigh. “If you’re not going to get in the back of my cab, say so, and I’ll drive to your destination without you and collect my fee.”

“What?” I turned to meet a face identical to the one on the app.

Ike raised a shoulder. “It’s the Achtung guarantee. We’ll drive wherever you want, even if you change your mind. And we’ll charge you for the privilege and add a fifteen percent tip for the inconvenience.”

“That’s a scam,” I said.

Without another word, the driver sped ahead.

“Hey!” I slipped the phone in my pocket.

The cab driver stopped a hundred or so feet further down the road, and his door opened. I picked up my pace, jumped into the back of his car, and landed on my belly in its back seat.

“Drive,” I said from between clenched teeth.

“Enforcer barracks, Supernatural Council?” he asked as the car accelerated.

I pulled myself up to sit and fastened my belt. “Yes, please.”

For the next few heartbeats, the man didn’t speak. I dared to turn my head to look out through the car’s back window but found only a road full of passing cars. The hotel stood in the distance, a short building nestled between a conglomeration of high-rises.

“Terrible business,” the driver muttered.

My gaze snapped back to the front. “Excuse me?”

“Humans, eh?” he said. “Who’d have thought they’d band together and attack the wards.”

“Have you heard any news on that front?” I asked.

“The vampires are fighting our battles right now.”

“They’re at the wards with the angels?”

He shook his head. “My wife’s cousin’s daughter is one of those blood cows, and she told me her master was leaving tonight to volunteer for King Valentine’s crusade against Kresnik.”

My brows drew together. Everyone knew that name, including me, and I didn’t even have an academy education. Mother Hecate said he was a Lord of Fire who terrorized the Supernatural World five hundred years ago and created the first preternaturals. I glanced over my shoulder at the disappearing hotel. What if Prince Draconius was connected to him?

“But isn’t Kresnik dead?” I asked.

He scoffed. “Do you know how difficult it is to kill a god?”

“I thought he was a fire mage?”

“He’s all over human TV, telling them that he’s their lord and savior and performing miracles beyond the capabilities of a witch or your average fire mage.” The driver turned into the ring road that circled Logris and would lead us to the Supernatural Council building in the center. “Kresnik is the one who went and told the humans where to find us. He said we were a village of devils.”

“Bloody hell,” I muttered. “That’s why they brought down the killer angels?”

“Yeah.” He stared at me through the rear-view mirror. “Aren’t you a nun?”

I glanced down at my habit and frowned. “I’m in fancy dress.”

His eyes narrowed. “With a name like Sister Iyana Torchbearer?”

“Will you tell anyone you had me in the back of your cab?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Secrecy is part of the Überwald Achtung guarantee, isn’t it?”

“And?”

“And it means you’ve already paid for my silence unless I’m called to give evidence against you in a court of law.”

My mind conjured up an image of the driver standing in the witness box, telling everyone I had fled from the scene of a crime, too shaken to get into my own Achtung.

I slid down my seat and folded my arms across my chest. “In that case, don’t expect me to answer any of your questions.”

He drove the rest of the way without speaking, instead turning up the volume to play the latest newsflash. The voice of a bureaucrat filled the speakers with a message that the whole of Logris was on a lockdown. Until further notice, nobody could enter or leave our supernatural city without written authorization from a member of the Supernatural Council.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut. It wasn’t like I cared about leaving Logris. This was my home, and I’d only visited the Human World twice. But if our borders were closed, it meant that Prince Draconius couldn’t leave for London Central Station.

“Here we are.” The driver pulled in beside the vast courtyard of the Supernatural Council building, a glass-fronted structure illuminated by teardrop-shaped lights that stretched from the ceiling to the floor.

I stared past the fountains decorating its paved front, and into its downstairs atrium. It was deserted, save for a couple of enforcers patrolling the empty space.

“This isn’t the enforcers’ barracks,” I said.

He twisted around in his seat and stared at me with a frown. “You really want to go there?”

“Why?”

“Most people who pay the premium for Achtung are on the run from the law.”

“Not me.” I raised my chin and held my features in a mask of innocence. “Could you please take me to my destination?”

“Suit yourself.” He drove around the corner and stopped at a side door, marked BARRACKS.

After thanking the driver, I stepped out into a chilly evening. My head tilted to the sky to find small patches of white within the darkness. Faint light streamed through it, reminding me of the igloos we used to make on days Sister Mariah would take us out to Richmond Park. I narrowed my eyes. Was snow settling on the wards? Did it really matter?

Through the door to the barracks was a black-and-white reception area with a tall desk. The woman standing behind it wore a modified version of the enforcer’s uniform. A white shirt and tie replaced the usual armored jacket, but she retained the hat.

“Excuse me.” I strode toward her. “Could you direct me to Willa Martin’s room?”

She leaned back in her seat. “Are you expected?”

“No.”

“Then I can’t let you in.”

I glanced at a set of white double doors on the space’s far left. “Is she upstairs?”

She folded her arms. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

I was about to ask her if she was at liberty to call Willa when the phone in my pocket buzzed. My heart leaped. I’d forgotten all about it. After extracting the handset, I looked up my friend’s number and dialed.

She answered in one ring. “Yana? Since when do you have a phone?”

“Can I come up and see you?” I blurted.

Willa paused. “Where are you?”

“Downstairs in your reception.”

“I’ll come down.” She hung up.

I leaned against the wall and blew out a long breath. The Supernatural Council headquarters was one of the most secure buildings in our city, and Prince Draconius wouldn’t think of looking for me here. Slipping the phone back into my pocket, I exhaled a long breath and I let my eyelids flutter shut.

This had to be the second most shitty day of my entire existence, but at least I didn’t get bitten or groped like last time. Maybe if I lay low for long enough, the Vampire Prince would leave? A bitter laugh huffed in the back of my throat. He had spoken into my mind today, even without the eye contact. We had a connection that went deeper than magic, and it would take another heinous act on my part to suppress it. Or worse if he tried to reach me from the grave.

“Yana?” Willa’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. I glanced up to find her standing at a doorway clad in a t-shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms.

“Thank the goddess you’re here,” I said with a sigh.

“Cadet Martin,” said the receptionist. “Do you know this nun?”

“She’s my friend.”

“Then you have my authorization for her to enter.” The receptionist reached beneath her desk. She must have pressed a button because the air shifted, becoming slightly less thick. My brows rose. It felt like a form of subtle ward.

Willa escorted me through the door and into a dim hallway of gray walls and ceilings. “What’s up?”

Wringing my hands I glanced over my shoulder before meeting her eyes with a grimace. “Can we talk about it when we’re in private?”

Her eyes widened. “Sure.”

We continued to an elevator and down another set of corridors, passing more white doors than I could count. That was when I noticed the place was well-lit compared to everywhere else I’d seen since the magical disturbance. I guessed a building as important as this one had a back-up generator.

“Do you think it would be possible to charge my habit?” I asked in a small voice.

“Wasn’t it dangerous to walk around without magical protection?” she asked.

“I took an Überwald Achtung.”

“Good,” she replied with an approving nod. “Crime has risen these past few weeks, especially in Lamia.”

“Because of the riots?”

I cast my mind back to the confusing newsflash about the death of King Valentine, which had been retracted under a week later. Unrest had gotten so bad that a senior royal from New Mesopotamia had flown to Logris to take over King Valentine’s throne. It hadn’t occurred to me that this person might be Prince Draconius.

“Riots, new taxes, lockdowns, you name it.” She stopped at an unmarked door and rested her hand on a wall panel. “Criminals take advantage of any kind of upheaval.”

The door clicked open, revealing a room that was four times the size of my cell. Actually, it was palatial but not in that sleazy way blood salons decorated their boudoirs. The floors were pale gray with matching walls covered in maps and posters and lamps. Willa had a bed large enough to accommodate two with a desk opposite that overlooked a garden.

I followed Willa inside, my brows rising to the hem of my veil. She had worked hard and deserved a great job with prospects, education, and steady pay. I wished circumstances were different, so I could bask in her success.

Hunger and exhaustion and anxiety rippled through my digestive tract, filling my mouth with the taste of bile. Why on earth would fate pair me with something I loathed? Why would it pair a nun with anyone at all?

As soon as the door clicked shut behind us, Willa turned to me with her brows furrowed. “It’s not like you to venture out on your own. What’s happened?”

My shoulders sagged. “Problems with a vindictive vampire. Do you think I could stay with you until he goes away?”

Willa gestured to the bed, indicating for me to sit. “Are you talking about Caliban?”

“Someone far worse.” I lowered myself onto the edge of the mattress and stared into my lap. “If I told you, it would be too dangerous.”

She sat next to me and took my hand. “Are you in trouble?” she asked. “What did Mother Hecate say?”

“She wouldn’t understand,” I whispered.

“Of course she would. As would the temples’ counselors. Half the work you do is to save people like me from supernatural predators.”

My temples pounded, and I rubbed at my heated brow. They were far more charitable to the victims of vampires. I hadn’t just fought back. I had perverted the sanctity of the magic we used for healing to escape.

“Everyone knows I’ve been keeping secrets for years, and their patience with me has worn thin.”

The phone in my pocket buzzed, its sound filling my veins with sludge. I curled my hands into fists and clenched my teeth. It looked like Prince Draconius had either survived the poison or his status as a preternatural vampire had kept him undead.

“Are you going to answer that?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Do you remember that night Richelle and I found you in the Hemo Salon?”

Willa leaned into my side and dipped her head in an attempt to make eye contact. “Did something happen to you that night?”

“You could say that.” Air forced itself out of my lungs in a hysterical laugh. “Richelle and I were patrolling Hemo when the owner allowed us in to help you. When I went out to the ambulance to get a stretcher, a vampire snatched me off the street.”

She didn’t say anything for several moments. Vampire abductions were rare. King Valentine was one of the better blood suckers, and he always made sure to punish his subjects who bit others against their will. He extracted a vampire’s fangs himself, and employed a witch to cauterize the wounds with magic, which slowed their ability to regenerate. Any vampire who forcibly drained enough blood for their victim to require a transfusion was put to death.

That’s why Mother Hecate and the temple hated blood salons. The people working there did so because they’d run out of choices. Willa was probably imagining that I’d survived a heinous attack, put on my habit and returned to the temple.

“How on earth did you escape?” she finally asked.

I scrubbed my face with my hands. “He didn’t want to kill me.”

“Then what?” She placed a hand over her mouth. “Was he a perv?”

“Umm…”

She threw her arms around my shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

“He only bit me,” I muttered. “And grabbed me a bit.”

“But you got away?”

I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Yana,” Prince Draconius’ voice rang through my ears.

I scrambled off the bed and whirled around. “Did you hear that?”

She gaped up at me, her mouth falling slack. “Your phone?”

“That voice.” I slapped myself upside the head. The wretched bastard was using our soul bond. “Never mind.”

Willa rose and placed a hand on my shoulder. “If you want, I can introduce you to our vampire liaison officer. She can take your statement, and the king’s guard will find whoever did this to you.”

“Yana, you have twenty-four hours to return to your cell before I take the evidence I’ve gathered and have you executed.”

I stiffened. The blood sucker was bluffing. He didn’t really want me dead.

As if reading my mind, he said, “Once they’ve handed your delectable carcass to the funeral home, I will use the darkest of magics to resurrect you into my undead thrall.”

My heart stopped beating.

Willa waved her hand in front of my eyes. “Are you alright?”

“No,” I rasped. “I mean, I’m fine.”

His dark chuckle filled my ears. “I am an expert in supernatural law, and I specialize in prosecution. Do you know what will happen to your fellow nuns?”

I shook my head, not daring to vocalize my thoughts and give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to me.

“Since you’re mostly witches, the law deems your temple a coven,”he said, his voice ringing with authority. “When one member of a coven commits dark magic, the Council holds the others responsible.”

Trembles seized my limbs, and I curled my hands into fists. His words sounded more like a promise.

“Twenty-four hours. That’s plenty of time to check the veracity of my claims and check their legal precedence.”

“You’re in trouble,” Willa said.

My lip trembled. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Do you know what happens to goddesses who lose their worshippers?” Prince Draconius asked.

I lowered myself back onto the mattress, leaned forward to rest my elbows on my thighs, and placed my head in my hands. How could someone be both infuriating and demoralizing without so much as sending an annoying text?

Willa whispered words of comfort in my ear and rubbed gentle circles on my back.

“I’m sorry,” I said out loud.

“Please, tell me what’s wrong.” Her voice shook.

“You’re about to start a new life with the enforcers,” I murmured. “I can’t drag you into my problems.”

“Even when I want to help?”

“Especially then.” I rose to my feet and stared down at the only friend I had outside the temple.

She met my gaze with shimmering eyes, her brow creased into a confused frown. If I had to be honest with myself, she was the only friend I had left. Everyone else had grown impatient with my lies and attempts to cover up what I’d done.

“Are you involved in something illegal?” she asked.

My heart sank into my stomach. “If I answered that question, you’d be honor-bound to report me to your superiors.”

Willa shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

“I’m being silly. When I return to the temple, I’ll tell Mother Hecate everything,” I lied. “There’s no need for you to get involved.”

The furrows in her brow smoothed, and her features lifted with hope. “She’s helping you, just as you and the Sisters in the temple helped me.”

I forced a smile. Mother Hecate once banished a Sister for kissing one of the worshippers. If she knew what I’d done, I’d be excommunicated. Not that it mattered, because if I didn’t return to where Prince Draconius could find me, he would report my crime to the Supernatural Council, and it wouldn’t be just me facing punishment.

The Council was unforgiving when it came to people violating others, and they often punished entire clans or covens or family groups when one of their members committed a heinous enough crime.

I wrapped my arms around Willa and gave her a tight hug. “Thanks for being there for me, but it’s time to face the consequences of my actions.”