Page 9 of Cruel Vampire King (Honeyblood Vampires #1)

My legs stayed shaky as I made my way through the moonlit forest. I jumped at every little sound, but not from fear. Even when a death scream rattled the night—too distant to be Ysara or Kael—I wasn’t afraid. I kept bracing myself for the sweep of desire that would take me if Luken decided to jump out of the bushes again. Was he watching me still? Or had he taken off by now, laughing at the joke he’d played on me?

At camp, Greyson breathed deeply as he stretched out near the fire. Thessa was awake, heating some of the leftover griffin above the flames. As I entered the clearing, she looked up, her hand going for her sword.

Relief washed over her face. “Greyson told me you and the others were hunting another team that got too close.”

Hmmm. Wonder why he hadn’t just told her the truth? Not that it mattered. I shrugged the question off and sank down next to her. “Everything is fine, Thessa. Go back to sleep. I’ll take watch.”

Thessa studied me, her clear eyes full of trust even as she tried to parse out the truth of my words. It was almost unnerving how easily I could read her face. She was an open book. Even though I knew I shouldn’t think these things, even though I knew I shouldn’t underestimate her… it was impossible not to think of her as a kid, every thought laid bare on her face.

“Thank you,” she finally said. “I am exhausted.”

I nodded once, staring into the fire.

“I thought you might be hungry.” She nodded at the griffin carcass. “It’s safer to cook it again. Although we really shouldn’t eat it at all when we can’t refrigerate it.”

Despite myself, I chuckled. “Go to sleep, Thessa. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m just saying, food poisoning is no joke.”

She laid down, though, pillowing her head on her arms. Her eyes soon grew heavy, her face relaxing in sleep. She looked more like Darcie than ever in this moment. What had brought her here? I still didn’t know what crime she’d been convicted of. Didn’t know if there was anyone out there, watching her and praying to the Gods to spare her life.

I turned quickly and cast a puzzled look at Greyson. Why had he told Thessa we were hunting another team? Protecting her innocence or…? I didn’t know.

Eventually, Ysara and Kael returned, yawning and smelling of sex. I added a few small twigs to the fire, giving them a disapproving look.

“You’re taking stupid risks,” I told them. “Is sex really worth risking getting caught by another team or one of the beasts of the forest?”

“Spoken like a true virgin,” Ysara answered breezily.

I growled, my cheeks flushing. “Spoken like someone who doesn’t want to get massacred because her teammates decided to—”

Kael lifted his hand. “Hey. There’s no point in arguing here. We didn’t go that far, anyway.”

“It’s still a stupid risk,” I insisted.

“Mind your own business,” Ysara snapped, her usual careless mask slipping. “By moon and blood, girl! If you can’t understand why we’d think that such a risk is worth it, you don’t have the experience to be talking to us. Keep to your watch and leave us be.”

She turned her back to me. I stared into the coals, my shoulders slumping. I’d taken that too far. I knew that now. I’d only lashed out like that because I was frustrated and jealous and confused. I stayed quiet, letting Kaela and Ysara slowly fall asleep. At one point, Greyson twitched, and I thought he might wake up, but he only changed positions and fell back to sleep.

Soon enough, I was left alone with nothing but my thoughts and the flickering fire.

We were getting closer to the end. I’d been so focused on what would happen next that I hadn’t let myself dwell on what would come right after. Namely, after I’d killed my teammates in the colosseum, I’d be taken to the palace. Bathed, dressed in rich clothes, and taken to the king’s chambers. Would Marissa get me ready? Would she put me in the same purple dress?

I couldn’t really picture myself, but I could picture him. Luken. His handsome lips smiling, his amber eyes glowing. Would he talk to me first, or just pull me to the bed and lower his lips to my neck?

Ysara was right about one thing. I was a virgin. Out of everything I’d gone through, it was the one innocent part of me I had left. I knew pain. I knew loss. I knew pleasure. I knew death. I knew killing. But there were still parts of my body that nobody had touched… not even me. Sometimes I wondered if I was stupid for it, for clinging to virginity as though it was a protective shield.

My mother had always warned me to guard my virginity. My purity. My precious gift. There was an awful lot of weight put on keeping my legs closed. Especially when it wasn’t something that I could necessarily guard. If the elves that killed my family had decided that they wanted to slake their lust on me, I couldn’t have stopped them.

The one thing I could comfort myself about that night was that none of my family had been raped. The elves were more interested in killing us than anything else.

I stood and walked a perimeter, trying to force those thoughts from my mind. I didn’t want to dwell on that night. No, it was best if I focused on what was to come. When Luken drank from me, the desire I already felt toward him was going to explode. I had to be in perfect control of myself if I was going to resist that draw, so I could get my one wish from him.

Would it be helpful for me to keep my virginity and have this second thing I was protecting when the time came? Or would having sex with Greyson, experiencing the act for myself—and spiting Luken, because who was he to say it was his business whose cock was in me?—help guard me against breaking in that moment?

I wished my mother was here, so I could ask her. I did my best not to wish for what I couldn’t have. I did my best to put the dead aside to focus on the living. But Gods, sometimes it was hard.

Would I be so wary of sex, of losing my virginity, if it weren’t for my mother’s warnings?

Back in the assassin’s coven, it was common for the members to have sex with one another. They’d say there was no point in holding back on life’s pleasures. Not only that, but by holding anything as sacred would put them at a disadvantage when that thing was threatened. It was a hard life, being an assassin, full of pain, misery and death. More than once, Emily encouraged me to go ‘get some.’ She’d even gone so far as to pay a handsome young man to seduce me.

I’d always answered the same thing, that I was practicing self-restraint, learning how to control my physical urges so they couldn’t be used against me. Emily would always answer that the same way.

“Bullshit. You’re putting too much value on a piece of skin, Elara.”

More than once, I’d seen the orgies that the others would end up in. Sometimes I even watched, as a means for arousal to train myself out of it. But though the attraction was there, I’d never felt anything real enough to tempt me. No man or woman, regardless of their looks, their species, or anything else. Nobody except Luken, that was.

I stepped outside of the ring of light from the fire so I could search the darkness of the forest better.

Which only made it more confusing and frightening how intensely I reacted to Luken’s presence. There had to be some sort of magic happening. Maybe he’d slipped something in my drink when I was eighteen. Maybe he had that effect on anyone. That would account for how starry-eyed the previous winners of the Blood Trials were, even when they failed his test.

Regardless, I’d done too much and come too far to fail. I already knew it would be painful when he drank from me. I’d been drunk from by other vampires, and I knew how intense it was when I wasn’t attracted in the first place. Which meant I was going to be in hell when Luken drank from me.

I’d just have to hold onto my anger. Let it fuel me, prevent my body from changing my mind. Someone had to save my sister, and I was the only one who could.

Taking a deep breath of the clear air, I carefully set my thoughts of sex and Luken aside. I’d face that when it happened. And if he was out there in the forest watching me, or back in his palace by now, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t getting what he wanted from me, no matter what. Maybe after he’d agreed to save Darcie… yes, that’s what I’d do. After she was safe, I would give him anything he wanted.

Because I had to be certain he wouldn’t come after her again, wouldn’t punish her for my no, like he had all those years ago.

Another deep breath in. Let it out slowly.

Think about Darcie. Nothing but Darcie.

Four years was a long time. How would she have changed? When I last saw her, she was fourteen, round-faced, bright-eyed, with an easy smile and dimples that looked like Mom’s. She knew those dimples were a weapon and wielded them with impunity. The effects were devastating in our village.

“That girl is going to leave a string of broken hearts wherever she goes,” our father had said more than once, shaking his head in exasperation. But then he’d smile, so I knew that he was just happy that Darcie was happy.

It had been a cold winter night when Darcie was born. I was having trouble sleeping. I shared with my two older sisters at that time, and they were snoring away, almost as loud as the howling wind outside. I kept seeing shadows beat against the windows and was convinced it was a frost demon trying to come in and carry us away. In my young mind, the only thing stopping it was that I was still awake.

A low moan came from the hallway and when I rolled over in bed, a sliver of light from beneath the door caught my eye. The door opened, and Dad came in, buttoning his red flannel shirt. His eyes were tight, and he didn’t see I was awake. Was he here because of the demon? Was he going to make it go away?

He crossed the room to Anna’s bed and shook her gently. Anna groaned and rolled over.

“Anna, I need you to wake up,” Dad murmured.

Anna pushed herself to an elbow. “I was sleeping,” she pouted.

“The baby’s coming,” Dad said. “Aunt Janet is coming over, but I need to take Mom to the hospital right away. We need you to look after the house until Janet arrives, okay?”

Anna sat up, the sleep seeming to have gone from her. “But the baby isn’t due until next month!”

I knew by the alarm in her voice that something was wrong.

“I know,” Dad said. “Try not to worry, sweetheart. The doctors will know what to do.”

He kissed her forehead and headed out. The shadows seemed to grow even larger outside the window as Anna pulled on her slippers and padded out. I didn’t sleep a wink that night, praying to the gods to protect us, to protect the new baby, and most of all, to protect Mom.

Darcie had had to stay in the hospital for a week, but when she was brought home, a tiny, pink bundle with large dark eyes and a solemn gaze, I knew I’d do anything for her.

The forest was still silent, so I slipped through the trees and returned to the fire. My scars ached tonight. They were tight and itchy and far too sensitive to the slight temperature fluctuations. I rubbed my face absently, trying to erase the discomfort.

With Darcie having been claimed for the gods, at least she’d be well treated. She wouldn’t go without. She wouldn’t be taken advantage of. The gods demanded only the purest souls, so she wouldn’t have faced the same horrors of the world I had seen. She wouldn’t have the same scars that I had.

Darcie was still the innocent child I remembered.

And I’d still do anything for her.