Page 130 of The Ballad of the Vampire Prince

The calling leads me to a narrow tunnel and a set of stairs, leading down to an endless abyss. Multiple torches line the dark pathway, flickering uselessly against the devouring darkness. My eyes adjust quickly to the dim lighting as I descend down the spiral staircase.

Bones litter the ground where I walk, those of my enemies and allies alike. I keep moving until a black door at the bottom of the dungeon impedes my track. Forged of steel, iron, and a mixture of the toughest metals, the door is impenetrable. It has to be, considering who I have sealed shut behind it. The presence behind the forged steel beckons me again, and I push the door open.

I behold a pair of dark, depthless eyes as they stare back at me.

My own.

A beat of silence hangs between us before he says, “Release me.”

I don’t respond to his demand, studying him from head to toe. His resemblance to me is faultless, down to the last scar. Seeing myself in a cage, strapped in chains, stirs a strange feeling in me.

This is him, the fucker who has been messing with my head.

The bond.

“Why are you doing this?” He gives me a pointed look, sharp enough to dissect me alive. “I am a part of you. Fuck that. I am you.”

His revelation does not come as a surprise because it is the truth. This bastard in the cell is me.

“What you did to Rhianelle yesterday in the cellar… that crosses a line,” I finally say.

“She came at us first!” His eyes darken. “I know her better than anyone, better than you. Secretly she wants nothing more than to submit.”

The bastard throws a vision into my head. An image of Rhianelle suspended with chains with hands tied behind her back, whimpering helplessly and in tears. I savor the exquisite sight of her squirming as she takes every inch of my cock.

His will pushes against mine, twisting my emotions into something darker. The need is primal, demanding. “Enough…”

He gives me another scene of Rhianelle writhing beneath me, bound, gagged, and blindfolded as I drive into her at a maddening pace like a fucking heathen. I can almost feel every wild buck of her hips.

The pictures he paints in my head are always fun.

“I said enough!”

“She wants us,” he repeats, his voice reverberates in the dark room like the wake of a thunder. “It’s written in the stars, inked in her blood, braided into her soul that she will always do.”

Yes.

I remember the way her eyes sparkled with equal excitement and fear when I told her of the fucked up things I’d do to her.

I let out a heavy sigh. “I know.”

“Then why haven’t you claimed her?” he asks, pinning me with an expectant gaze.

Anger burns in my gut. “Is that what you want? To break her? To make her fall at your feet?”

“It’s the only way we can have her,” the cold-hearted bastard simply replies. To think that this piece of shit has always been a part of me…

“Have some shame, even the Fallens from Hel will not do that,” I snarl at him, my voice near guttural.

The beasts that make up my cursed existence coil in the darkness behind me. From the noble black direwolf to the little acorn holding pixies to the darkest souls and dwellers of the underworld. I fucking hate them. They disgust me to the point of overwhelming revulsion, so much that I once took a knife to shed them from my flesh.

But if it weren’t for them yesterday, I might have actually succumbed to the bond’s demand. I never thought I’d see the day where I’m grateful to these monsters.

“Thank you.”

I mean it, from the bottom of my heart.

They have protected Rhianelle from me twice now. I don’t know how she does it, but my darling Nel has charmed every single one of these beasts.