Filed to story: The Vampire Prince’s Bride
I wanted to lie to her-to say yes. But I couldn’t. Not after already having lied so much.
“No,” I said. “I came because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I may have lied about who I am-about whatI am-but my feelings for you are real. So please, Scarlett-come with me. Let me save your life.”
Scarlett
I had no reason to trust him. Not after he’d lied about so much.
How had everything changed so fast?
Mike was dead. Jake-
Sean- was a vampire prince. Camelia had sent vampire guards to bring me to the palace. Tanya had told them where I was without even trying to protect me.
It was too much to take in at once.
But I knew one thing for sure-those vampire guards would be back. As a human, I was powerless to stop them. They would drag me to the palace and do who knows what to me. I would likely end up dead.
And here was Sean, offering to save my life.
The strangest thing was, despite his lying to me, I did trust him. At least with this. After all, he could have killed me in this alley. He could have tasted my blood. Instead, he’d kissed me. I’d kissed him back.
Part of my mind knew that spending a few hours talking with him last night and kissing him today wasn’t enough to earn trust-especially after he’d lied about so much.
But if I didn’t trust him now, I was as good as dead.
“Fine,” I said, since I was out of any other feasible option. “Let’s go.”
He nodded, and moving so quickly that he was a blur, picked me up and placed me on his back. “Hold on tight,” he said, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Tighter,” he instructed. “You won’t hurt me.”
“Have you ever done this before?” I asked.
“I’ve seen it done,” he said simply. “Now, you might want to close your eyes.”
The next thing I knew, he was zipping through the back streets of the village, zigzagging to avoid crashing into the occasional human in the path. The wind whipped across my face with so much force that tears streamed from my eyes. The speed reminded me of when I went on a vacation with my family to St. Kitts and my brother and I went on a banana boat ride behind a speedboat. Grant kept telling the driver to go faster and faster, until it got so difficult to hold on that we both went flying off.
Luckily, Sean ran a lot steadier than that, so it wasn’t nearly as difficult to hold on. But more unnerving than the speed was knowing that if a human were running this fast, they surely would have crashed into something by now.
Apparently, vampires had much better reflexes than humans could ever imagine.
Soon enough, we were out of the village and tearing through the wilderness. We were higher up in the mountains now-so high that the ground was covered in snow.
There was only one other time I’d ventured this far out of the village-when I’d tried to escape and had gotten attacked by that wolf.
“Wait,” I said, barely able to catch my breath as the wind whipped past me.
He slowed down to a stop, the snow skidding under his feet. “What?” he asked.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re leaving,” he said quickly, angling his head so his cheek brushed mine. “We have to get you out of here. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“Leaving theVale?” I asked, unsure if I’d understood correctly. Because we couldn’t just leave the Vale.
Could we?
“Yes.” He turned back around, but before he could continue running, I untangled myself from his neck and jumped down to stand. My legs shook when I landed-apparently I’d been holding on to him tighter than I’d realized.
“What are you doing?” He turned to me, irritation crossing his face.
“We can’t just leave,” I pointed out.
“I thought that was what you wanted?” He expression shifted from irritation to confusion. “Freedom from life as a blood slave?”
“Yes,” I said, although we both knew that wasn’t all I wanted-I would never be safe from the vampires as long as I remained human. “But what about the wolves?”
“I’m a vampire prince.” He brushed away my question. “The wolves won’t attack me. Or you, if I ask them not to.”
“Okay,” I said, although given the fact that the wolves had been breaking into the Vale and attacking humans, I doubted the relationship between the vampires and wolves was as solid as he was making it out to be. “But let’s say we do make it past the wolves. It’s winter in Canada. I’ll freeze to death before we make it to the nearest town-wherever that might be.” I motioned to the flimsy clothes I was wearing-jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt-to prove my point. The temperature in the Vale was regulated by the witch-by Camelia. Once we left, we would enter the full onslaught of the Canadian winter.
“Good point,” he said, his eyes roaming over my thin clothing. Then he took a deep breath and lifted his wrist to his mouth, puncturing his skin with his fangs. “Here,” he said, holding his bleeding wrist out to me. “Drink.”
“What?” I widened my eyes and stepped back. “You’re turning me into a vampire? What about everything you told me about the transition-how not everyone lives? And how any vampire turned illegally is killed?”
“Drinking my blood won’t turn you into a vampire.” He chuckled, his eyes dark. “The process is a bit more complicated than that.”
“Oh,” I said, my stomach dropping with disappointment. Because despite the challenges, I supposed I was hoping he was giving me what I wanted-the chance to become a vampire and never be helpless again. After all, even now that he was trying to help me, I was still at his mercy. As long as I remained a human, I would never be truly safe. “So if drinking your blood won’t turn me into a vampire, then what will it do?” I asked.
“You don’t know?” He looked surprised.
I rolled my eyes. “If I knew, would I be asking?”
He was silent for a few seconds, as if contemplating how to begin. “I suppose the power of vampire blood is kept from the humans in the Vale for a good reason,” he started. “Like wormwood, it could be used against them. And you know all about that, clearly, since you have it on you now.”
“What?” I scrunched my eyebrows, getting more and more confused by the second. “I don’t have wormwood on me.”