The Vampire King’s Captive

MARIA

“What?”

“Give me your hand, Maria.”

“Why?”

“Why else would I be asking for your hand?”

She didn’t know why she was arguing, really. The only reason he would be asking for her hand would be to help her treat her injuries-or to inflict more, but from the look on his face, she was leaning towards the former.

The question was; why did he want to help her? Wasn’t he the same person that hard ordered the man to cut her hand?Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t refuse him. Not because she particularly wanted to, but because she had no choice. She really needed it to be treated. Even if it meant being civil with the one man she couldn’t stand right now. Even if it meant that he would do the treating.

Why hadn’t he just asked Edgar to do it? That man treated her better than any other person on this damn realm.

Gingerly, she extended her hand to him, expecting him to smirk at her cruelly and mock her. Maybe she would find out that he didn’t really want to help her. Maybe he would throw her into her cells and allow her hand to rot away.

But instead, he wrapped his fingers around her hand. Maria was positive that she was going to pass out from shock. Because what exactly was going on right now? Was she in an alternate realm? One in which her captor realised that he had been treating her wrongly and finally let her go free?

He held her hand softly, something she would never have thought he was capable of, and turned it from side to side, examining the injury. Finally, she started at it. She couldn’t push it off for long and besides, it was already in the process of being treated. Her eyes widened when she saw the injury. It wasn’t even that deep-at least as deep as she had imagined. It was a little cut on the side of her wrist and even though it wasn’t that deep to require stitching, it was definitely deep enough to bleed.

“You’re not going to need a stitch.” Her captor told her, confirming her thoughts.

Thank the Gods. That meant it wouldn’t scar much. She could deal with that. Maybe.

He laid her hand gently on her thigh and bent to open the box. He produced some times from it and briskly, he set on cleaning her wound and applying a salve and band on it.

All through the process, she just sat there staring at him. At his high and cut cheekbones, those intense green eyes completely focused on his task, although he looked up at her and murmured ‘sorry’ whenever the injury stung and she whimpered. She couldn’t believe that this man was the same cruel person she knew. She stared at his bent head, thinking of all the times that he had yelled at her in the cells and then his cold eyes when he had asked the man to press the button for the blade.

How could this be the same person?

And what did the fact that he had called off the torture mean?

Was he only just saving her for another torture session? Or had her pain been too much for him to bear that he couldn’t help but call it off?

No, she thought. That couldn’t be possible. He was a heartless man and she would do well to remember that. There was a reason he had called off her torture and she was sure it was one best known to him.

He was her enemy. She would do well to remember that.

He lifted his head in that moment and their eyes locked. It took less than a second for heat to lick across her skin and for a blush to creep up her face.

Gods, she was blushing. For a man that wanted her killed. What was wrong with her? Perhaps the collar wasn’t only nullifying her powers but also making her attracted to him? It could be, couldn’t it?

Her eyes trailed over his savagely beautiful face, his strong nose, full lips and strong chin. Had they met under different circumstances, she would have made a move on him. Maybe he would have felt the same way.

But she was a sorceress that he loathed and he was a vampire that she was only beginning to hate. He wanted to kill her and she was sure that she would kill him if she ever had the opportunity.

They were from different realms and the only thing tying them together, was his search for his sister. A sister that she genuinely did not know the whereabouts of. He wouldn’t believe it, but after they had taken his sister with them back to their realm, Ariti had ordered a guard to take her away and since that day, Maria had not heard a single thing about her.

She had assumed that the girl had been taken away to be killed-because it wants the first time Ariti had done something like that-but she couldn’t tell her captor that because she was scared that he would kill her.

Would it not be better enduring the torture than him flat out killing her?

She needed to stay alive. She simply needed to. She needed to go back to Ariti.

Her captor cleared his throat, figuring that she must have got lost in her thoughts. “Your hand is all good now.”

“Oh.” She murmured, her eyes falling to her hand to examine it. It didn’t look as bad as it did before, but how would she know when there was a band-aid covering it? Pain ricocheted up her hand as she tried to move it and she had to hold herself back from saying something snarky to him like, ‘Treating it is the least you can do when you were the one that ordered for it to be chopped off.’, but she bit down on her tongue. “Thanks.” She murmured instead, the word clipped and rusty and so strange on her tongue.

She had not used it in a long time.

He jerked his head in a nod, then he stared at her. It wasn’t one of the usual icy stares he gave her. The ones that always made her hate herself and hate him even more. No. This one was different.

He started from her eyes, then trailed down past her nose, lips, her neck, they even touched her hair before they drifted lower to her breasts. Instantly, before his very eyes, her nipples hardened and his eyes flared, jumping up. When they met hers, they were filled with lust and briefly, they flashed blue before returning to their original colour.

Blue. Vampires’ eyes flashed blue whenever they experienced intense emotions like pain, love, happiness, anger, lust and excitement. In this case, it was quite obvious that it was lust and she was so shaken by the knowledge that she didn’t know how to react.

She thought that he was immune to her. That there was no way he could ever be as attracted to her as she was to him, but the look he just gave her confirmed it. If that wasn’t confirmation enough, then the blue of his eyes were.

Heat filled his eyes and his lips parted. His eyes bounced between her nipples and her face as if he was trying to make a decision. An extremely hard decision.

Maria, on the other hand, wasn’t faring off better. His eyes were making her hot. Like, actually hot. Her skin was burning up and she had to squeeze her thighs together to subdue the sudden emptiness that she felt.

His eyes dropped, following the movement and as if he had lost a fight, he groaned. He stretched out his hand to touch her. She was literally panting at this point. Her nipples were two hard points, the seam of her shorts were wet and she licked her lips, silently begging for him to kiss her. Anything, as long as she had his hands on her body.

His green eyes were on fire, his big hand a few inches away from her shoulder when, suddenly, he pressed his eyes closed. He remained that way for a minute, maybe more, then when his eyes flew open, any lingering heat was gone from them and the frosty glare he gave her, had her dying a quick death.

Uh… What happened just now?

Did the man have multiple personalities?

He stood up, grabbed the box and slammed it closed, walking over to shove it back into the cupboard he had collected it from. Without another look at her, he stormed out of the room.

She stared at the door in open shock.

A few minutes later, a man, his clothes told her that he was a guard, came into the room and escorted her back to her cells. He had done it again-asked someone else to do his dirty work.

The man clearly had issues, she wasn’t going to lie.

Glumly, she walked into her cell, watching the man silently as he locked the gate and walked away.

Her captor had issues. And she wasn’t sure that she was interested in finding out what they were.