Chapter 6

Isla

I stand alone in the fog. Walls rise up on all sides, swallowed by the mist, their dark shadows looming over me like spectres.

I peer into the whiteness. My heart is beating too fast and my mouth is too dry. “Hello?” I call out.

There is no echo. The thick fog catches my voice and swallows it.

The air is wet and thick and heavy. Like the clouds fell down to the earth and devoured us. My breath puffs out like smoke, but I’m not cold. I am on fire.

Two red orbs float towards me in the fog. My breath catches in my throat.

He’s here.

Aeron.

My heart speeds up even more and my knees start to tremble.

His shadow joins with the orbs, merging into one. I watch him, my mouth slightly agape, feeling the magnetic pull beckoning me closer.

I don’t move. I stand quietly, watching him come towards me.

He’s not wearing a suit. Just a white shirt with frills at the cuffs, a pair of tight black trousers, and boots that almost go up to the knees.

He stops right in front me, his gaze burning through me. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he reaches up and undoes his shirt.

He pops the buttons open, one after the other, revealing a muscular chest. But that’s not what catches my attention.

It’s the glowing, concentric circles on his chest. They call to me as if they’re alive and know me by name.

“Can you see it?” Aeron asks.

I nod and reach out to him. He doesn’t smack my hand away this time. Instead, he allows me to touch him, to feel the prickle of his cold skin against mine. I trace my fingers over the pulsating rune. It’s alive and warmer than his skin. “What is it?” I ask in wonder.

His eyes glow - not just red, but deep, blood-warm, like embers stoked too long. “You. Me. Us.”

He throws back his head and bares his fangs. A jolt of fear mixed in with desire and longing rockets down my spine. It’s dangerous. He is dangerous, and I need to leave. Right now. While I still can, because I have a feeling that soon I won’t have any other choice. That I’ll stay here with him in the darkness and let him do unspeakable things to me.

But I can’t walk away. I can’t even stop touching him.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I say softly, more to myself than him.

He frowns at me, but it’s strange, unnatural. Like watching marble ripple. “You’re always here. It’s where you belong.”

He takes my hand in his and lies it flat on his chest. He’s cold. Smooth. Like all vampires, he doesn’t have a detectable heartbeat, but I can feel that mark on his skin, pulsating against my palm like it’s alive.

“You belong here with me. You were born to be mine.”

“No!”

I gasp and try to take a step back, but my legs don’t work. My body’s heavy and my limbs feel like they’re stuck in molasses.

Aeron lifts his hand and flutters his fingers across my collarbone, then down to trace the outline of my breasts. I shiver, and lean into his touch.

A pain shoot through my neck, and something wet and warm runs down my front. I look down at the river of blood spilling from the wound in my neck.

Aeron’s lips clamp around my flesh. He growls as he greedily swallows my blood. He holds my head with one hand while the other grips my hips, pulling me tightly against him.

I just hang there, limp in his arms, as he drains me.

Dying shouldn’t feel this good.

Even as my life slips away, I crave to have his mouth on my neck, want to keep feeling the hardness between his legs pressing into my belly, his hands curling around my butt, digging into my flesh.

“You feel it,” he mutters against my cooling skin. “You’ve always felt it.”

“What?” I gasp and arch my back, pushing my breasts into his hard chest.

“Our blood.”

I gasp and sit upright.

A dream. It was just a dream.

I’m covered in a layer of sweat and my heart thunders in my chest like a passing freight train. I can’t quite catch my breath, and there’s a strange kind of longing inside me. An empty, gaping hole.

The lights are on, and familiars are rushing past the door, whisper shouting at each other in the hallways.

It was just a dream.

I exhale slowly and lie back, staring at the roof, listening to the thunder of footsteps traveling down the floors as I concentrate on my breathing, forcing my heart to slow down.

The prince warned me that I’d be drawn to him for a while. Is that what the dream was? Just his blood working inside me?

There is only one window in my room. High up on the wall, a little slit in the grey stone letting a thin sliver of light through.

I drag my hand through it, watching as the sunbeam dances on my skin.

The sun doesn’t feel good. It’s too hot and too bright, and I’ve always hated it. Even as a little girl, when our teachers sent us outside to get sunshine, as per the vampires’ command, I’d find a place to hide from the deadly rays.

It always just felt wrong.

At night, long after all the humans went to bed, I’d sit by the window and stare at the vampires, marvelling at their beauty, envying them when they’d kick off and soar into the black sky.

Gradually, the castle settles down for the day. A hush falls over the grounds. In the distance, a wolf barks orders to his warriors and then there’s just silence.

I can finally go to the bathroom. I really need to pee, but worse is the dry, flaking blood on my skin. It itches and I’m starting to smell like death.

I find clean clothes in the dresser. A familiar’s uniform – white blouse, black pinafore, sensible, black shoes.

Most familiars are just servants, tied to a vampire family by some kind of secret blood ritual. They live longer than regular humans do, and they are loyal to the core.

I gather the clothes tight to my chest, ease the door open, looking left, and then right to make sure I’m alone.

I run down the hall on my tiptoes, my bare feet smacking against the stone as I try to make as little noise as possible. I keep glancing over my shoulder, afraid that someone will find me – dressed in only my underwear and completely unprotected.

Just when I think I’m safe, a woman steps out of one of the rooms and blocks my path.

She’s tall and burly, built like brick outhouse, and dressed in the same kind of uniform I’m clutching to my chest.

The overseer from last night. The one who ground my face into the floor. “Where do you think you’re going, blood bag?” she asks.