There’s my sadistic vampire owner.
I sit up, grumbling at the movement of my sore arm, to see we are in a carriage of some kind with black leather walls and an outline of a door on the left side. Above me is a glass roof that floods the small space with bright light, and opposite me is Maddox, sitting with his legs stretched apart, his arms up, and the back of his head resting in his hands. His eyes swirl with power, the mix of red and black reminding me constantly that I’m trapped with a monster and not a man.
A “man” could never be used to describe what he is, the word is too weak. Everything about Maddox, the Mad Prince, is power.
I rub my arm, noticing that it’s hardly swollen anymore, and it was just broken. When I touch my neck, the cut is nothing more than a scab. “How am I...okay?”
Maddox yawns. “Vampire blood heals humans, and I fed you some. If you drink enough of it and have your heart turned cold, you will become a d’vampire. I like that idea.”
He healed me? I drank blood. Sickness fills my throat at both of those ideas. “Don’t do that again.”
Maddox turns his head to the side, and quicker than humanly possible, he is leaning over me on my seat, his face buried in my hair. I freeze. “I will do as I please. You belong to me now. Your blood, your body, your soul and, most importantly, your death. I command you.”
Turning my head to meet his gaze as he leans back, I watch him carefully. “I belong to no one, and you may forcibly take my blood and body, but you will never, ever have my consent, my willingness to be yours.”
“Is that a bet, Riona?” he softly asks, his eyes sparkling with a challenge. Not many people call me by my full name, mostly because they call me Ria. But when Maddox says my name, it’s like he owns it. “I think it is.”
“It’s a promise, Prince Maddox.”
He laughs and leans back, and I finally feel like I can breathe now he isn’t so close. I still don’t relax, because like it or not, I’m on an island of vampires who clearly have no respect for human life. Or morals, while I’m thinking about it.
“Where are we heading?” I question after a brief pause of silence.
“To my castle at the top of the mountains. The royal castle of The Onyx,” he answers me, still sounding bored, and it gets on my nerves. “It is mine, and my brother did live there until he decided to move out.”
He yawns again.
“Am I boring you?”
“Mildly.” He waves a hand at me. “I’m waiting until you get to the bit where you beg for your lover boy to be found and brought to you. Or will you beg for someone else? Women can be so fickle with their love.”
“His name is Arlo, and I know better than to ask you for anything, Mad Prince,” I counter, crossing my arms to stop him seeing how much he is affecting me, even as I shake with anger. All I want to do is attack him, hit him hard and see if he bleeds. If the devil can bleed at all. “I will ask Reign to help me.”
“My brother is a fool for blondes,” Maddox responds. “I’m sure he will help you, or he will kill the competition. It’s hard to tell. I may be mad, but he is nothing if not fickle.”
Turning my head away from him, I bite on my lip to stop myself saying anything that will get me killed. The carriage turns silent, and I’m thankful for it, a moment to collect my thoughts and plan my next action. Realistically, I know that Maddox’s castle, being at the top of a mountain of blood-red snow, isn’t the best place to try to escape. He must have other humans working for him, or at least there for food, so I could try to find out as much as I can about how to actually hurt a vampire. From there, I think the best plan is to reason with Reign, he seems the more logical one of the two princes.
I have a feeling Maddox is just going to use me as a pawn in whatever game he is playing with his brother, and I want nothing to do with him. He is the devil. I’m sure of it. The carriage eventually comes to a stop, and Maddox opens the door, jumping out. I stand up, feeling a little wobbly (likely from blood loss), and walk to the edge of the carriage. Before I can climb out, Maddox is in front of me and grabs my waist, picking me up and lowering me onto the red snow-covered stone path. His hands stay on my waist for a second, both of us extremely close, and I stay very still, unsure what he is thinking. His hands feel like they burn into my skin, and he is so warm to touch, much more than a human is.
We stare at each other for a long time, and I wonder if he knows I’m planning to find a way to kill him for good and escape.
I wonder what he sees with those demon eyes of his.
He lets me go, looking at me like I just burned him as his eyes scorch with what I think is annoyance. He spins around, his black cloak brushing against the snow.
“Make sure she rests today and joins the staff tomorrow. Nothing extreme!” Maddox barks out, walking away down the path to the giant building in front of me. Holy shit, this is a castle and a half. Looking like something straight out of a Disney movie, nine strong and solid square towers pierce the clouds in the sky. They are connected by reinforced, heavy walls made of gold stone and brown-framed windows. Around the castle is a wall pressed into the mountain, and between that and the castle are thick gardens and a maze on the one side. A massive gate is right in the centre of the castle, and it is circle-shaped with birds flying around the edges, hundreds of them until I can just make out wings. In the middle is a sword with wings behind it, and I know I’ve seen this before. It’s one of the marks on Merethe’s cheeks.
It must be a royal crest of some sort.
“Are you ready to go inside, madam?”
I turn and meet the gaze of the guy who spoke...a human just like me. I don’t know why I was expecting a vampire, but I was.
“When is anyone ready to walk into the home of the devil himself?”
The guy doesn’t answer me, instead choosing to stumble ahead, and I have no choice but to follow.
For now.
Chapter Ten
The human I’m left with stops the second we get through the door into what is the biggest entrance hall I’ve ever seen. Talk about over the top. Literal gold pillars line the walls, and in the middle of them are paintings of, well, vamps of course. Vampires biting people or fucking people. There are a whole lot of painted cocks in this room. I turn my gaze away and look up at the plain white ceiling with a massive glass chandelier in the centre. Rather than white crystals, this one has dozens of red crystals that are shaped like drops of blood, reflected in the shiny hardwood floors. There isn’t a bit of dust to be seen, so someone cleans this place up well.
Footsteps draw my attention as a man rushes down one of the two gold staircases, brushing a hand through his dusty red hair. He is a giant, well, at least in terms of his size. The human, which I’m assuming he is, has wavy but almost spiked-up red hair, and his hazel eyes almost seem to be the same colour as his hair from this distance, but as his huge steps eat up the space between us, I realise they are definitely more hazel. Like pools of honey. A light stubble of ginger hair graces his firm jawline.
He is model material. Maybe Irish or Scottish model material as he has that certain look about him. His long and thick thighs are held in old, worn jeans, and he wears a simple dark blue shirt over his wide chest. With Skechers trainers and an old watch on his wrist, he looks like a normal human.