2_ Pledged to the King
2
The earth had to be standing on its ear. Everything was tilted. Kamilla groaned.
Her eyes.
She had to open them.
No, they were too heavy. She gave up trying to blink her heavy eyelids open.
A sudden bout of nausea rocked through her body and Kamilla moaned in agony.
There was suddenly a sharp sound, making her wince.
A siren? She didn’t know, but the sound filled her ears, filled her head. It was shrill and painful.
Desiring nothing but escape from the sharp noise, Kamilla relaxed in bliss when darkness took over and she felt nothing.
Numb.
It was like being at the bottom of the ocean. She was being held down by an invisible force so unknown to her, it could have been anything.
A soft sound reached her through the darkness in her mind. Soothing. A voice. Kamilla’s heart ached.
Her mother.
It was sudden. One minute, she felt like she was in the depths of the ocean and the next, like she was rushing through wind.
Unable to breathe, Kamilla gasped desperately.
Her eyes flew open.
She was home.
She sat at the kitchen table, staring at her mother who sat across her. It was hazy, like a nebulous dream.
Kamilla studied the tears glistening in her mom’s chocolate brown eyes, so different from Kamilla’s bright green ones. Her mother’s blonde hair the opposite of Kamilla’s scarlet red hair.
“Kamilla. Your father…” her mother was saying softly. Kamilla stared at her. “Your father wasn’t just a Vampire. He was an Elder of the Onyx Vampire Kingdom.”
Kamilla stared silently, her chin trembling. They had visited her mother. The Vampires.
Oh, yes. That was right. Kamilla wasn’t human anymore. Apparently, she never was human.
The dream grew hazy and her mother faded away, but her voice stayed in Kamilla’s head.
“Your father pledged…” she whispered. “…you.”
Kamilla heard herself laugh. The sound echoed through the darkness of her mind. It sounded scornful. It sounded like it came from someone else.
Surely, it was all nonsense.
“He pledged you,” whispered her mother. “…in marriage to the next Vampire King…”
Kamilla jerked up, her heart beating heavily in her chest. She panted hard, drawing in a lungful of air.
What had happened?
Her head hurt. Wincing, she touched a finger to her temple. Slowly, the memories came flowing in. She gasped.
Oh, no. They’d caught her. Those blood-sucking rats had caught her.
She’d almost gotten away too.
Her pink lips parted, expelling a muttered curse. She lifted her chin, eyes searching. She was in a room. Her gaze dropped to the bed upon which she was seated and her trembling fingers gently touched the smooth, black silk sheets.
Surrounding the bed were long, dark lace drapes and she couldn’t see much of the room through them. From the little she could see, Kamilla could tell that she’d never come across such a luxurious bedroom in all her life.
Clenching her jaw against the pain in her head, she swung her bare feet over the side of the bed and drew the drape away.
“Where the hell are they?” she murmured, trying her hardest to ignore that her heart was trembling in fear.
She bit her lip, trying to accept that she really was kidnapped and a hostage.
They’d come out of nowhere, back in the forest. The Onyx Vampires. They’d surrounded her before she could even blink.
She didn’t want to call them men, since they really were nothing more than blood-sucking bats, in her opinion, but she found no other “acceptable” term to call them. Besides, they had been far, far too beautiful to be called bats.
Even she had found herself momentarily entranced by their beauty. Blast. She’d gotten distracted. She couldn’t even remember how she’d gotten here. They must have hypnotized her. She pushed both hands up into her thick red hair.
Turning around in circles, Kamilla studied the large room. Every single ornament, from the long window drapes, to the single armchair, even the dresser looked like it had come straight out of an expensive Dracula film.
Everything was dark and beautiful, luxurious and entrancing.
Kamilla made a face at the room, forcing herself to find distaste in everything she saw. It didn’t matter that she secretly wanted to swoon from the beauty of the room. She was still a girl and beauty was beauty. But, no. Swooning at the moment would get her nowhere. Because she was kidnapped.
Her eyes filled and Kamilla wiped the tears away, hating that she was this helpless. What would she do? How could she escape? She sighed, studying the luxury around her.
She would hate everything about this place. Yes. She’d make a fuss and give them hell until they let her go home.
They had to eventually, right? Vampires couldn’t be that heartless, could they?
It was her only plan. She would hate them, she would hate their kingdom and she sure as hell planned to hate their King, damn his bat wings!
With a nod of self-assurance, she marched over to the dark window drapes and moved them away, revealing tall windows.
“Holy…”
Kamilla stared at the view, unable to move for a second.
It was like she was caught up in a beautiful nightmare. The land stretched down, a hilly terrain filled with gagged dark rocks, turns, and dips. Further on, as far as her eye could see, were dark woods, the sky hauntingly grey above the tall trees.
Kamilla’s eyes turned up and she stared open-mouthed at the large, black birds that circled in the sky, creating the perfect scenery for a Vampire Kingdom.
“You’re awake.”
Kamilla spun around, her fists up in defense. Her heart jerked in her chest. What would they do to her?
She blinked. There was nobody.
The voice had been right there, behind her. So close that she’d felt like a shrug of her shoulder would bump its owner. But her eyes saw no one.
Kamilla impatiently lowered her arms and sighed.
“Look here,” she said, trying to steady her shaky voice. “I have zero tolerance for bullshit.”
Kamilla had been a social outcast for all of her twenty-two years. With her pale skin and startling green eyes, not to mention the crimson red hair, the other kids always found it more entertaining to make fun of her than to be her friend. That is, those who weren’t terrified of her. So when it came to social courtesy, she had none and would continue to have none as long as this Vampire kept playing hide and seek.
She was about to speak when, like sorcery, the air began to shift before her.
Kamilla’s eyes grew large as she watched.
The air turned dark, swirling before her very eyes, and out of it walked a pale-skinned work of art.
Kamilla couldn’t have stopped the gasp even if there’d been no oxygen. He was gorgeous.
“Kamilla,” he greeted. In a manner identical to the one who’d snatched her out of the forest, this man bowed his head. “Our queen.”
Kamilla made a face, blinking to snap herself out of her thoughts.
She blinked any tears away and rested her hands on her hips, looking at him. “You, there!”
The man’s gaze snapped up in disbelief and he blinked his wide green eyes at her.
Kamilla nodded. “Yes, y-you! I order you to let me out this minute!”
A pale hand came up to scratch his blonde head as he stared at her with a raised brow. “Uhm, I don’t have the authority to grant your wish.”
“Who are you?”
The vampire waved a pale hand. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Damon.”
She snorted, studying him. “Sounds awfully similar to ‘Demon’.”
His mouth twitched with impatience. “Yes, and like my name, I too can be awfully similar to ‘Demon’.”
She blinked at him. Had that been some form of a threat?
“What’s that you say?” she asked with widened eyes. “Is that a threat? After sending your blood-sucking goons after me, causing irreparable damage to my emotional and psychological health, you still threaten me?”
The vamp hardly blinked an eyelid. He tilted his head in thought as he studied her. “How melodramatic. You have manners terribly unbecoming of an Onyx royal, my queen.”
“My name is Kamilla! Not ‘my queen’, you neck-sucker! And I don’t think I need to have manners when you took me against my will. Where’s my mother? If you laid even a finger—”
“Your mother is safe at home, where you left her. For now.”
“If you ever visit her again, if you ever frighten her again, I’ll yank out your fangs myself, blood bat.” Her voice trembled in fear, but she stood firm.
He raised a hand. “Enough of this. Come. You must meet Viktor.”
Kamilla gulped. “W-who... who’s that?”
He ignored her.
Before she could say anything else, the ground began to shift. Kamilla gasped. What was happening? It felt like her feet were hovering above the ground, giving her a heady sensation. Kamilla clutched her stomach. If she was going to throw up, she’d make sure to do it on the vampire’s shiny black shoes.
She watched in terror as darkness enveloped them, swirling around her body in a cold wave.
“What is this?” she asked, her voice trembling in the most embarrassing way. “What are you doing?!”
Her yelled question received no response and in the next second, Kamilla felt her feet touch the ground again, her stomach settling, sadly without having expelled its contents onto the vampire’s shoes.
The dark, swirling air disappeared and the vampire smiled, lowering his raised arms like a music conductor after a concert.
She glared at him.
She stepped forward to wipe the smile off his gorgeous face but stopped.
Something was off.
Kamilla closed her eyes when a shudder of awareness ran through her entire body.
She felt… bizarre.
This room felt strange. She opened her eyes and looked beyond the vamp before her. It was a different room. He’d teleported her?!
The thought was unbelievable, but Kamilla couldn’t dwell on it for too long. She was feeling something inexplicable. It was dark and powerful, pulling her soul in different directions. It called her, compelled her. It was a force.
“Kamilla.”
She gasped.
The voice had come from behind her. Dark, powerful and sensual it had sounded. Kamilla was disgusted to find herself drawn to that voice. More drawn to it than anything she’d ever experienced in her life.
Slowly, carefully, she began to turn around. She kept her eyes closed, afraid of what she would see. Undeniably afraid of the force that drew her.
Finally, she’d turned.
“Kamilla,” she heard again.
It was him. Kamilla just knew it. It had to be him.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
In the darkness, he stood, his power stronger than anything she’d ever felt. Kamilla couldn’t turn her eyes away. He was controlling her, drawing her in with just his presence.
She trembled.
The Vampire King.