Vampire King Chapter 51

A Dozen Bes
+25 BONUS
A Dozeń Bites
Emory
I hear about Lex being sent off as a hostage at Scarlett Thunder from my maids after he’s already left. I don’t get the chance to say goodbye. Lex and I may not have started out on the right foot, but I still feel bad he’s essentially become King Peter’s prisoner. I want to talk to Kane about what happened but hear he’s in a meeting. I’m able to find Rainier who has a rare spare moment where he’s not doing something for Kane.
“Lex said it’s better this way,” Rainier tells me. “It would have been an awkward scene if he stopped to say goodbye to you, and Lex doesn’t find that entertaining. That chaotic little shit has a dramatic flair.”
1 still wish I’d had a chance to say goodbye to him. It’s not easy being a prisoner in a castle filled with your enemies.”
I understand that feeling more than anyone. Kane treated me more like an honored guest rather than a prisoner, but I was terrified when I first arrived at Castle Graystone. Even when Kane brought me to a nice bedroom, and I got to wear beautiful clothes and jewelry, I didn’t feel safe. I hadn’t known who to trust, and I felt isolated and frightened.
“I can’t imagine Lex is having a good time in Scarlett Thunder. His family is here,” I remind Rainer.
He shrugs. “Don’t worry about Lex. He has a remarkable talent for surviving odds. He’s like a handsome, blonde co**h that refuses to die.”
I know Lex isn’t completely helpless. He’s a vampire, and he is still faster and stronger than any wolf shifter. How he will fare around other vampires, I don’t know. He isn’t a trained soldier like Rainier..
“Why would Kane send Lex to be a political prisoner?” lask. “I know they’ve had their differences, but isn’t this dangerous?”
“Someone had to go. Kane tried to dissuade him, but Lex really wanted to go for some reason. He chose this for himself. Kane did not push him into it.”
“He volunteered to be a hostage?” I can’t believe my ears.
“It shocked me too. I didn’t know he had in him. I still think he has an ulterior motive behind all of this, but Kane seems to think his brother is being selfless and noble for once.”
“Maybe he did it for Kane.” I had sacrificed myself for my sister because I wanted to protected her above all else when nobody else would. Lex surrendering himself to King Peter in order to help Kane isn’t as far- fetched of a concept to me as it is to Rainer. Lex could have done this for one simple reason-he loves his brother. And that is more than enough of a reason for me to believe that there is no ulterior motive.
Rainier frowns. “I can’t believe that. The Lex I know is not that kind of man.”
“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do,” I point out. “And people can change, even vampires as old as dirt.”
“Ouch.” Rainier put a hand over his heart. “I’m not that old. I’m in my early hundreds, thank you very much.”
“And that in shifter and human years is as old as dirt,” I tease him. “Your bones would be dust if you
weren’t a vampire.”
1/5
A Dozen Bites
+25 BONUS
Rainier rolls his eyes before turning away to leave. “In that case, I’m going to go rest my bones before they disintegrate before your very eyes.”
I’m about to tell him I’m only joking, even though he knows that, when Helga runs up to me. She looks
harried.
I look at her in concern. “What’s wrong?”.
*You have to come, Princess,” she says, urgently. “It’s your father. He’s been attacked.”
The shock hits me like a lightning bolt. I’ve spent days trying to forget my father is even in the castle. The news that he’s been harmed urges me to go find out what happened immediately. How is that possible when he’
in the dungeon?
“Where is he now?”
“He’s been brought to the infirmary,” Helga answers. “Dr. Martin is looking over him.”
I start walking briskly toward the infirmary, Helga follows me along with Rainier who stopped his retreat when he heard Helga’s proclimation. The maid says she doesn’t know any more details about the attack. She was informed by a guard who’d come looking for me in my room.
When I reach the infirmary, I find Bernard unconscious on a bed. Dr. Martin is giving him a blood transfusion. I have never seen my father look so pale. He’s almost as pale as the vampire physician.
All my life, my father always looked big and tough. He was the strong, domineering Alpha that bowed to no man. It isn’t until I learned who he really was, the greedy coward, that he became something else in my eyes. With him lying in that hospital, I can see how much weight he has lost in the dungeon. Bones poke out of his grimy clothes. He looks crumpled and brittle, like the doctor could break him easily if he isn’t handled with care.
I approach the bed warily. Somebody had s**d his head, and they had done it badly. The loss of his hair, makes it easier for me to see the bite marks on his throat. There are half a dozen bites. His arm is dangling off the edge of the bed, and there are bite marks at the wrist. This is the work of more than one vampire.
“Who did this?” I demand. “Who’s been feeding on him?”
“I’m not aware of who it was,” Dr. Martin answers. “You’ll have to ask the guards.”
I’m going to interrogate the guards to find out who is responsible and how they let this happen. If this happened to my father who is not supposed to be touched, then I worry for the feeders in the dungeons. The last time I was down there, it had been a hellish existence for the feeders. I thought I would be left to the same fate of living in squalor and being fed on until I died until Kane came to free me. And there are other abuses that happen down there, worse than just being fed on.
My understanding is that all of that has changed, but then, how did my father get in this shape?
I look at the heart monitor and see his heartbeat seems stable. “Will he recover?”
“He should recover with time and rest. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s malnourished.”
“They weren’t him enough food?”
Dr. Martin looks uncomfortable. “You’ll have to ask the guards.”
A Dozen Bites
+25 BONUS
I have a lot of questions for the guards. The situation in the dungeons is meant to be different now. Kane had been furious when he saw how Clarke had been treating the feeders. I haven’t gone to see if the changes he wanted had been implemented as I have been busy dealing with the pack and doing damage control, trying to right my father’s wrongs.
I’m furious and ashamed. The feeders down there are wolf shifters, my people, and I had assumed someone else had taken careo f the problems. I can’t expect the vampires in the castle to suddenly be empathetic toward them after decades of bad blood. I should have done more to make their lives better and not left it to Kane to deal with the issues.
I turn to Helga. “Could you keep an eye on my father and call for me when he wakes up?”
“Yes, Princess,”
Rainier understands without me saying anything what I want from him. He quietly follows my lead, and we head to the dungeons. When we arrive, we question all the guards about what happened to Bernard. While the feeders had been treated better since Clarke was no longer in charge of the dungeon, the same hadn’t been applied to prisoners. The guards had largely left Bernard alone, forgetting to feed him for a day or two. Initially, he was loud and obnoxious enough to keep their attention. But after a week or two in his cell, he stopped being such a pain in the a**, and sometimes, they said, they forgot he was there.
The guards sear none of them had been feeding on Bernard.
“Who was it then?” I demand, jabbing a finger at a short vampire with a long black beard. “You’re the ones with easy access to him. The nobles and the staff don’t come down here.”
The guards look at each other, fidgeting under my glare.
“Well?” I exclaim. “Who was it?”
The youngest-looking guard stammers out, “I-It could have been the prisoner in the cell besides his. Another vampire.”
“Who?”
“Jacob Maxwell.”
My eyes widen, and I take off in a rush toward Jacob’s cell. Rainier catches me before I can get too far. My impulse is to run and find Jacob **ing Maxwell and punch him in the face. Rainier is stronger and grabs me firmly, but not painfully, by the wrist, tugging me back to his broad chest. I struggle against his hold, but he doesn’t let go.
“I know, I know you’re angry,” he says. “But you can’t attack that son of a b**h even if he deserves it.” When I think of Jacob, I remember his smarmy face laughing at me as his sister insulted me. I remember a fake note and a cruel plot. I remember his teeth biting into my throat. He had tried to kill me before, and I feel my blood boiling for retribution.
“Let me go, Rainier!”
“I’m sorry. I can’t. Kane was very clear about how we must handl Jacob-especially since Lex is a hostage. now.”
The reminder of Lex makes me stop. My blood is still hot under my skin. I still want to punch something,
+25 BONUS
A Dozen Bites
but not being able to direct it at the right person frustrates me. I take a few deep breaths, willing myself to calm down.
“Are you okay?” Rainier asks.
I nod. He lets me go, and I walk away from the dungeon without a word. He follows after me as I run up the stairs and begin to make my way back up to the infirmary.
“Let me handle Jacob,” Rainier suggests. T’ll break his leg again and make it look like an accident if I have to.”
I don’t want to talk about Jacob because I still want to run down to his cell and break his bones until he can never walk again. I am angry at my father, but he is still a membe of my family, my pack, and I hate Jacob with all my might.
“Make sure he can’t feed on anyone else,” I say. “He shouldn’t have been able to get to anyone.”
“I can have the guards reprimanded and replaced-”
“Do what you need to do, Rainier.” We reach the door to the infirmary. I turn to him and add, “You need to tell Kane what happened. If Jacob is able to get out of his cell, he might try to escape the dungeon next.” Rainier nods and turns away to go find Kane. I open the door and enter the infirmary. Dr. Martin is taking notes on his clipboard. Helga is seated by the wall, watching Bernard on the bed.
“How is he?” I ask.
“He’s stable,” the doctor answers. “However, another transfusion might be necessary.”
“I could donate my blood.”
He pauses before replying. “That might not be a good idea due to your condition. The vampire blood in your system would not help and could slow down his recovery. Besides, it could potentially take blood away from the baby.”
I touch my abdomen. I forgot about my pregnancy. The doctor had also warned me about stress. It’s bad for the baby.
“Pregnant women shouldn’t be donating blood,” Helga tells me, disapprovingly.
I’m about to reply to my maid when Bernard’s voice booms out, “Pregnant?”
We all turn to see he’s awake on the infirmary bed. He tries to sit up but is too weak and collapses back down on the bed.
“You’re pregnant?” he questions in a raspy voice. “How are you pregnant?”
Dr. Martin comes over and tells him, “You must calm down. You’ve lost a lot of blood-”
“I know I lost a lot of blood!” he retorts, trying frantically to get off the bed. “That vampire has been feeding on me, and no one stopped it!”
Dr. Martin puts a hand on his shoulder to push him down on the bed, but my father snarls, “Don’t touch me!”
“Father,” I tell him sternly, “stop fighting the doctor, and calm down.”
A Dozen Bites
His grey eyes snap back to me. “Who’s the father of the baby?”
“That’s not important right now-”
“Who is it?” he yells. “Who’s the father?”
I glare at him and answer, “Kane.”