The Vampire King’s Captive

MARIA

His sure strides slowed to a stop when he saw her. If not for the light in the hallway, she would not have been able to see his expression and she thanked the gods for it.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

His expression was one of… confusion?

A cross between confusion and surprise, actually.

“What are you doing here?” The words were hard but he sounded genuinely curious like he wasn’t trying to be mean, so she tried not to let them sting.

“I…” She shook her head, swallowed and tried again. “I just want to know how he’s doing. I saw… I saw the physician leave some while back-at least I think he is a physician-and I… well…” She stumbled all over her words as Corey just kept staring at her, his expression smoothened into a blank mask that unnerved Maria. “I wanted to know if he’s okay.”

“How long have you been waiting out here?” He asked again, completely ignoring Maria’s embarrassing, jumbled words.

Had he not heard her?

She held back a sob. “Two hours.”

Why were they all treating her this way?

Then she remembered. For a minute there, she’d forgotten who she was.

She’d forgotten that she was Maria Hatzi, daughter of the ruthless sorcerer, Ariti. A sorceress that was feared far and wide across different realms by both mortals and immortals.

A sorceress that was hated just as she was feared.

But she didn’t want to be feared and she didn’t want to be hated anymore. She just wanted to be Maria Hatzi. If she could ditch her last name, she would.

But she was stuck with it.

That faint look of confusion appeared on Corey’s face again but he refrianed from saying anything. He simply gave her a sharp nod and turned to walk away.

Maria’s heart cracked even more in her chest.

This time, she couldn’t hold back the sob as she watched him walk away. It was just when he was about to step out of the hallway that the broken words escaped her. “I just want to know if he’s okay.”

As if pulled by a string, maybe from Maria’s words, he stopped, turned to her, and kept his eyes carefully averted from her face when he said, “He’s fine.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Maria felt a tear slide down her cheek.

***

It had been three days.

Three days since they’d brought Bran in, three days since she hadn’t seen him and three days since she last stepped out of her room.

She’d gone back to being the prisoner she once was.

Maria still couldn’t believe how one of the best days in her life had turned so drastically into one of the worst.

How was it possible that one moment she’d been happy, finally let out of her room and into the brightness again, then the next moment, she’d been plunged into darkness, the brightness stolen from her?

Everyday, she sat by her window, hoping to see Bran walk out of the house in all his six-foot-seven glory, that seductive stride and that peculiar harsh scowl on his face.

But she knew that it was only wishful thinking.

She pestered Olivia whenever she brought her meals, asking her if there were improvements on Bran, but she was just as clueless as Maria was.

Apparently, the situation was being contianed as much as it could because they didn’t want word of it getting across these walls and she understood why.

If people found out that the vampire king was badly injured and unconscious, it would cause a stir that would spread out like wildfire.

And nobody wanted to tell her anything because they considered her a person of insignificance.

Maria looked up when her door creaked open and Olivia’s head snuck in between the small space.

“They’re moving him to the living room on this floor,” she whispered. “This is your chance to see him.”

Maria’s heart leapt in her chest as she felt the beginnings of hope blossoming inside her chest.

She was finally going to see him!

She stood up from her chair and hurried over to Olivia, yet then she stopped when she remembered. “But the guards outside my door-”

“I distracted them,” Olivia cut in impatiently. “Now hurry.”

Maria did just that.

She wasted no time in shoving her feet into slippers and running out of her room, only stopping to hold onto Olivia’s hands. The woman turned to her with wide, surprised and confused eyes-they didn’t initiate contact a lot.

“Thank you so much,” Maria told her. “I owe you.”

Olivia simply smiled. “Don’t worry about that.” Then she gave Maria a light shove. “Now go before the guards come back.”

Nodding, she hastened away then realised that she didn’t know where the living room was on this floor and when she turned around, she saw that Olivia wasn’t there anymore.

She would find it herself. It couldn’t be that hard to find it, right?

After walking for a bit, she found a huge door closed firmly shut.

This must be it.

Taking a deep breath and hoping that what she was about to do didn’t go south, she gripped the door handle and pulled it open.

Corey leaned against the wall on the far side of the room, his legs crossed at the ankles, and a familiar woman stood not far from him.

There, lying on a huge bed in the middle of what was supposed to be a living room, was Bran. His face was turned towards Corey and the woman, and she couldn’t see the rest of his body because it was covered by a sheet pulled up to his neck.

When she pulled the door open, all three heads turned in her direction and Maria thought that she would melt under the intensity of their stares.

She deliberately kept her gaze averted from Bran-she couldn’t look at him just yet.

“As I said before, I’m not the one you need,” the woman said, her voice low and commanding, carrying out across the huge room. “She is.”

Maria realised two things simultaneously.

One, this woman was the oracle she’d met in the vampire’s castle and two, she was pointing at her.