“Yes,” the girl states, a thick British accent coming through loud and clear. “And you are like us. Aren’t you? Did they send you here like us?”
“What—” I pause as Reign gets to my side and pushes me behind him. He looks back at me in confusion before turning to the kids.
“Why didn’t they hurt you?” he demands. “No one is safe from them except Maddox and me.”
“I-I...” My mumbled words don’t make Reign any happier. He doesn’t face me, keeping his eyes on the children like a switch might flip any second. “Did they actually speak to you? They have never spoken. None of the ones before.”
“Yes,” I carefully answer. Wow, the demon kids have only talked to me? Why the effing hell do they think I’m like them? “They are British, and they said someone sent them here. I can tell you that much.”
The girl looks at me in clear confusion, and she then turns to the boy. I would guess they are siblings from their similar features.
Reign shakes his head and looks around, seeing curtains flickering and lights turning on. “We should leave. Katy will drive you back home. I will take the kids to the others.”
Reign takes both of their hands, which they happily offer. Then they are all gone in a moment, moving in that incredibly fast way they do.
“Get in, newbie, and tell me how you did that!” Katy hollers from the car.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Arlo, come on, it’s been three days,” I shout through the locked door. Arlo doesn’t reply, not that I expected him to. For whatever reason, he has locked himself in the bedroom and only comes out to grab food and water in the middle of the night, never speaking to me. Reign never came back after the incident with the children, but Katy came by to pass on the message that he will be away for a few nights. “This big mansion is boring on my own.”
Nope. Nada.
Sighing, I leave him to his moping, because I’m not sure what else I can do for him. The vampires messed him up, and clearly he isn’t coping with it very well. I think I’m the odd duck for being able to cope and wanting nothing more than to escape or kill the vampires who kidnapped me. When Arlo is off this island, he can heal, and Austin will help with that.
If Austin isn’t here.
I shiver, wrapping the blanket I found around my shoulders and heading back into the main area. It’s got the best views of the entire house, which I’ve explored and found isn’t as big as it looks. Other than two living rooms, three other bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms, this place is empty. There are two massive garages with only two cars in them. One is a black Jeep, and the other is a vintage red Jaguar in perfect condition by the looks of it. Like the entire house. Nothing is out of place unless I do it, and I’m bored out of my mind. Without planning it, I make my way to the garage and stop in front of the Jeep, seeing the keys in the ignition. I gnaw on my bottom lip for a moment, thinking of all the many ways this could go wrong before deciding to just do it. Reign said I wasn’t a prisoner, and I’m never going to escape this island by being trapped in this mansion like a damn princess.
No, I need to go into the town. Talk to people. Find out things the princes will never tell me. Maybe someone is already planning a way to escape the island. There must be a way. I clip my seat belt on and stare at the closed garage doors. Bugger. Undoing my seat belt, I quickly search around the edges of the garage door before finding a switch and pressing it. The garage door slides up, and I grin as I run back to the car. Climbing in once again, I do up my seat belt and turn the engine on after raising the seat a little bit. Once the garage door is fully open, I press down on the gas and get the hell out of here. It feels amazing to be driving, and the small amount of freedom brings a smile to my face. Clueless which way to go, I follow the road down through the forest and turn left at the end. The windy path is harder to navigate than I thought, and I only now realise Reign is a much better driver than he lets on. Strangely, I think under different circumstances, Reign might be a good person. The same can’t be said of his brother, who is always popping into my mind. Why I can’t stop thinking of his lips against mine, the way his hard chest felt under my hands…
How I felt in his arms.
“Dammit,” I mutter just as the engine cuts out on the Jeep, and I harshly slam on the brakes, jolting my whole body forward. I gasp, sliding back in the seat and rubbing my shoulder where the seat belt jabbed in. Turning the key, I try the engine, and all it gives me is a limping whine. “No, no, no, no.”
I try it a few more times, not wanting to accept my sheer dumb luck, before I look outside, just as it begins to snow. Fuck my life. At this point, the vampires should eat my stupid ass. I search the car and find a leather jacket two sizes too big and pull it on before leaving the stupid car and walking back the way I came. I don’t know how long I walk before I realise I’m lost, and the road drifts off into a dead end in the middle of the forest. Gritting my teeth against the falling snow, which has made my trousers and boots soaked and the leather jacket stick to me, I keep walking in the direction of the sound of the sea. If I can find a cliff, maybe I can trace my way back to the house and explain to Reign what happened to his car.
Kicking a stick across the ground, I wrap my arms around myself as I keep walking, the forest trees keeping some of the snow off me the deeper I head into it.
“Well, what is a girl like you doing out in the prince’s forest?” a man asks. Rather than feeling relief about someone else being here, I feel nothing but dread as I turn around to see two vamps a few feet away from me. They move silently, and I jar back a little bit. Dressed in camouflage clothes, one of them has a deer on his shoulder, its blood dripping down his clothes. Both of them have deeply tanned skin, bright hazel eyes, and muddy brown hair.
“I live with Prince Reign, and I’m lost. I’m sure he will thank you if you could direct me back to his home,” I answer, projecting as much confidence as I can into my voice.
They don’t answer for a long time, the only sound is the wind, and all I can smell is the deer’s blood mixing with the earthy scents of the forest.
“Do you think she is the blonde the princes are sharing?” one of them suggests.
I turn to the other. “Yeah, she must be. The princes could have any pussy on the island, why do they want to share this one?”
“Must be special,” the other answers, and a new fear starts to sink into me. They might do worse than just bite me. Oh god. Before they can even reply to each other, I turn and run on instinct. The vampires’ laughter is the only noise that follows me for a long time, and I know it’s because they could let me run for hours and still catch up to me within seconds.
It’s a game to them.
And I’m so fucked.
Swallowing down the fear, I focus on running and jumping over fallen logs, hoping that someone will come to save me. That they won’t get me.
But what feels like seconds later, I crash headfirst into one of the vamps, and I scream as I try to fight his grip as he wraps his arms around me.
“Let me go!” I scream over and over. He just laughs at me, like I’m nothing more than a toy, and roughly grabs my neck, turning it to the side. His teeth sink harshly into my neck, ripping my skin as he drinks from me. “No! Help! Please...please.”