The Vampire King’s Captive

MARIA

“We’ve been walking for hours, where exactly are we going?”

Maria’s words from before had come back to bite her in the ass and she seriously regretted uttering them now.

They’d been walking in the first for over two hours now and despite how far they had come, all she could see in front of them was mass and mass of bushes. It was like they had not made any progress at all, which was just crazy because they had been walking for over two bloody hours!

Two bloody hours of being bitten by mosquitoes-and who knew what else-two hours of walking and her feet were aching her, two hours of the branches and twigs digging into her flesh-some had succeeded in cutting her-and two hours of her captor ignoring her.

She was fed up. 

”Talk to me.” She hissed.

“I’m not your entertainment, princess.” The asshole finally spoke, using his sword to cut through the next set of clogged branches they came across, his shoulders heaving with force, swiping and hacking, until it was open enough that they could pass.

She had to admit that if it were not for him, she might not have even made it this far. Maybe she wouldn’t even be walking at all in the first place. But still, of not for him, she wouldn’t be stuck in a forest with lots of dangerous animals in the first place, so it was only right that he created a safe passage for her.

“I never said you were.”

“So shut the fuck up.” He punctuated the word with a swipe of his sword at a branch that stuck out from the side into the path.

“I will, if you answer my question.” She shot back, undeterred.

He ignored her and they continued walking in silence. Him, quietly hacking at twigs and her following grudgingly behind him, occasionally grumbling when she slapped at her skin in a bid to kill the insects that plagued her. She only succeeded once and when she did, she squeaked in excitement.

The sound of her excitement must have been so foreign to her captor that he probably mistook it for her being hurt, because his head turned quickly and his eyes swiped her frame. When he saw nothing out of place on her body, he cocked a brow. She took that to mean he wanted to know what went wrong, bit she didn’t read expressions and he was going to have to spell it out for her, so she stared back at him blankly.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“What happened?” He forced out, like he was being forced to ask her.

“I killed a mosquito.”

He seemed to be waiting for the pin to drop. “And?”

“And nothing.” She rolled her eyes. “A lot of them have bitten me and gotten away with it, I’m just so glad I was able to kill one.”

He stared at her for a bit, before shaking his head in disapproval and turning away, continuing his walking, hacking and cutting of twigs.

She couldn’t resist. “You don’t think that’s something I should be happy about?”

“I think mosquitoes should be the least of your problems.”

“I think you’re an asshole.”

What the hell did she just say? Did she have a death wish?

He froze, his shoulders going tense and the hand holding his sword hanging mid-air. “What did you say?” His voice was deceptively cool, his words sharp and precise.

She swallowed. Well, there was no backing down right now, was there? “I said I think you’re an asshole.”

This time when he turned to look at her, there was an odd expression on his face. A cross between a surprised look and a confused one. For a moment, he looked like he didn’t know what to do with her. Like she was a strange creature and he couldn’t place her.

The explosion she’d been waiting for didn’t come. She’d been expecting him to go berserk on her, but for reasons best known to him, he said nothing and went back to walking.

Huh.

“Will you tell me your name?” She tried again.

She really didn’t know why she was trying to talk to him. Forcing conversation with him, was like forcing a teeth out of a lion, except that the latter seemed more plausible at the moment. She just needed something to take her mind off the fact that she was in a dangerous forest.

Why was the man so opposed to speaking?

“No.”

“Tell me where we’re going at least.”

He surprised her by actually answering. “A friend’s home. It’s in the next town, which is three days from here.” He informed her. “We can’t go by car because father dearest smashed all of them, so guess who’s going to be walking the entire distance? Through the forest no less.”

She hated the note of accusation in his voice. “Why do you say it like it’s my fault?”

As if it was her fault that her father had suddenly decided to get his daughter back from the vampire king who’d captured her.

“Because it is.” He said easily.

“No, it’s not.” She disagreed. “If anything, it’s your fault. You’re the one who captured me in the first place and my father wasn’t doing anything other than try to get his daughter back.” She paused, hesitating. “You did the same thing, didn’t you?”

In a flash, he had turned and was standing in front of her with his teeth bared. She briefly wondered whether he had traced, because she hadn’t seen him move an inch.

“And whose fault was it that I had to break into your home and capture you?” She swallowed, her bravado dying a quick death, now that she was on the receiving end of his all-too-familiar anger. “Whose fault is it that I took you in the first place? Thats right. Yours. You killed my parents, took my sister and I took you-which isn’t even fair in my opinion. I believe I still need to get even.” He took another step towards her and she cowered. “Tit for tat, princess. You started this war, and I’m going to end it.”

In another second, he was back where he’d been standing and was walking away. She stood there staring after him, still trying to recover from his words when she heard an ominous sound from the bush beside her and she jumped into action, running after him.

They walked in silence for another hour and in total, she’d counted twelve mosquito bites. The spots were swollen, red and itchy. So itchy that she had to physically fight the urge to scratch them. She really hoped she wasn’t going to fall sick in the forest. Especially when they still had two more days of walking to do.

Gods, two more days of walking. It sounded impossible. They had been walking for just over three hours and she already felt like she was going to pass out. Her legs were three times heavier and they felt like they were not a part of her body anymore.

How would she survive two more days of this?

The sky was starting to darken. It was getting late. Where could they possibly sleep? Or were they going to walk throughout the night?

“Hey, it’s getting late.” She added the ‘hey’ mostly because she still didn’t know his name and she wanted it to grate on his nerves until he had no choice but to tell it to her.

What was so special about his name that he kept from her anyway?

“I have eyes.” was his reply.

Ass.

She wanted to say something snarky along the lines of, ‘Glad you can see after all’ or ‘You almost had me fooled there, I thought you didn’t’, but she didn’t want to anger him unnecessarily. She may like pissing him off, but it was not a smart move. The fact that the man had not killed her yet was a miracle in itself.

Although she knew it was because he believed she knew where his sister was. That was the only thing keeping her alive.

“What I meant was,” She explained, dusting a smear of dirt off her body. “Where are we going to sleep?”

He tilted his chin at something in front of him. “I can spot a cave some miles away. If we can make it there before it gets dark, we’ll be spending the night there.”

“A cave?” Maria asked, appalled. Surely, he had to be joking.

She hurried over until she was standing directly behind him, then she looked around him, searching for the cave he spoke of. True to his words, she could spy a cave not that far away from where they were standing. It looked quite small since they were so far away, but she knew that the closer they got to it, the bigger it would be.

“I’m going to be spending the night in a cave.” She uttered the words disbelievingly.

She felt the focus of his gaze on her and when she looked at him, she saw that he was watching her closely, keenly, as though he was awaiting her reaction. The hard set of his jaw and the slight mockery in his eyes told her that he probably expected her to freak out over the knowledge that she would be sleeping in a cave.

Just like the princess he kept calling her.

Little did he know that he was in for a surprise.

“One more thing to tick off my bucket list.” She said breezily, walking ahead of him. “Count me in!”