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Addie

"You're in for a delicious treat today. He is in a foul mood," Adrianna smirks, flicking her long black hair over her bare pasty white shoulder as she leans against the door frame. While she is the same height and size as me, standing at only 5'2" tall, that tiny body is a weapon that could rip my spine clean from my body in the same amount of time it would take me to blink.

If the venom in her eyes doesn't kill me first. The only emotion I ever see in her beady, black-eyed gaze is pure, unadulterated hate. The reason behind it courses through my veins, a potent addiction to the Vampire King that even saw his bride pushed aside at times.

Like now.

Before I am summoned and requiring a headstart as I am on the other side of the castle, I am up and out of my favorite kitchen chair next to the window. It gives me an unobstructed view of the wildflower field currently in full bloom—the perfect distraction while I drain one of the rabbits the hunters captured early this morning. The action was pointless, in my opinion, as the meat would be served to beings that didn't even need to eat. However, the action's pretense seemed important to their kind. Perhaps to make them appear normal. To make us forget what they fundamentally are. Monsters.

I drop the rabbit in the steel bowl nearby, my hands sticky with its lifeblood. The apron around my waist is stained with the evidence of my work. This section of the castle is usually deserted and reserved for staff only. Adrianna's presence here, her need to gloat, speaks volumes about her emotions.

I square my shoulders and hold my head high, not saying a word as I pass her. The stench of her kind assaults my senses, the old, stale whiff of it making me want to vomit. It surprised me that even after sixteen years of being around these creatures, the smell of some of them still made the bile rise. I suppose it was as psychological as it was a physical reaction. While the stench was more prominent among older vampires, it was more intense when filled with hateful emotions. As if it physically tainted their bodies and impacted their aroma.

I wish they could have smelt like shit instead. Their stenches' likeliness to opening an old book tarnished something I loved.

Adrianna's cackle follows me as I run through the servant's corridor, which leads into a large room, the start of the communal rooms where all The Vampire Kings subjects liked to lounge around. Feeding and fucking. Sometimes, doing both at once. Luckily, if I could even say that, we were considered too lowly for the latter. This amused me as humans were the very beings keeping them alive yet considered too lowly to do the deed with.

I stop and brace myself just before I push the door open. This room I need to pass through is the only way to the stairs to The Vampire King's chambers. The alternative was going a long way via the outside, but that added minutes to my journey—minutes that would only infuriate him, as he hated waiting.

As I enter, along with the stench of old books, the smell of iron hits my nostrils. Courtesy of all the blood spilled on the carpet. It sickened me how careless these beings were when feeding.

There must be about thirty-two vampires in this room, each with a human. Either draped across their lap or out of the way, allowing them to fuck each other as the high kicks in. Pets and food. That's all we are. I catch Lilly's eyes as one of the vampires I least like, apart from The Vampire King himself, sucks on her arm, his nails digging into her hips painfully as he rides the euphoric high that drinking our blood evokes. Marcus.

She smiles a timid smile at me, the action indicating just how accustomed and brainwashed we had become to this whole sordid situation.

Like this was normal.

"Ohh, I like the smell of this one. Come here." I stiffen at the sound of the male voice—a newcomer.

Keeping my movements slow, I turn on my heel. These creatures could strike at any minute, given even just the slightest provocation. The last thing I wanted was to be unalive, just days away from my escape.

I finally had enough money squirreled away to leave. I had been stealing small amounts, small enough that the vampires wouldn't notice, and had accumulated enough to get me out and far away from here. Hopefully, to the other side of the lands rumored to be hiding one of the last covens. I would finally be with my own kind. I last saw a witch sixteen years ago, when I was ten. During the peak of The Great Cleansing. Eradication of all witches. Which is why I have to keep who I really am a secret.

The newcomer, who has been feeding off another girl my age, Maggie, drops her to the floor like a ragdoll, her knees hitting the carpet painfully. She flinches but doesn't cry out. Trained not to make a noise.

There is still blood on his lips, and a trickle runs down his chin, hanging from the tip of it before hitting the already filthy carpet.

"You should obey when I command. I told you to come here." His black eyes lazily travel my face and then move down the column of my neck. While he appears calm, the gleam in his eye at my supposed insolence tells me otherwise.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. That one belongs to The King." Marcus comes to my rescue, and a relieved breath leaves my body. Though, there is no mistaking his motives. They have little to do with assisting me and much to do with preserving his own kind. Other vampires hum in affirmation, none of them even glancing at me. They knew better.

"Really." The newcomer drags the word out as he takes another step towards me, his scent indicating that he is still young—a new vampire.

He leans in, his face inches from mine, as he inhales deeply, his tongue licking his lips lecherously.

"My, my. The King's plaything. Is that why you think you have the right to disobey me? You think you are special." Snorts and laughter erupt at his words. They hated me as much as Adrianna did. I could understand why. The King would kill one of his own rather than lose me.

While human blood was delicious, witch's blood was to die for. It was pure, sweet, and had rejuvenation properties that made vampires feel stronger, faster, and better—like an elixir on tap—precisely what a King needed.

This is why he would kill his own for me. His addiction. I suspect he knew what I was, which made my situation even more precarious and further solidified my need to escape.

The newcomer's finger reaches out, the tip barely touching my skin, when a flash of black followed by a gust of wind replaces the space in front of me.

Vampires in the room jump up, and some pets are thrown to the ground. One even breaks their silence as she yelps out in pain—a sound that would cost her dearly later. I can tell by how the vampire next to her eyes her in disgust.

"My King." The greeting echoes around the room as vampires bow, all other scents overpowered by The Vampire King's arrival. Old. And filled with so much hate. The familiar need to vomit assaults me, and I raise the sleeve of my worn dress to my nose, the calming scent of mint oil I place there for this very instance slightly alleviating the feeling.

I shift my gaze, locking with the Vampire King's side profile as he holds the newcomer up against the wall, his feet about a meter off the ground.

Silas Dragomir. Centuries-old. The oldest vampire alive. And yet you wouldn't say. He looks my age. But where I have dark circles under my eyes, his skin is like porcelain. Even with no hair growing on his face, he is handsome. Except for the red eyes, mouth pulled into a slashing sneer, and long pointy canines that are all too familiar to me, he could be considered an adonis.

Unfortunately, the inside did not match. He is anything but pleasant. He is evil incarnate, just hidden in fancy clothes and manners. When in public.

We weren't now, so some of his true nature shines through.

"Did you not hear Marcus' warning." There is no shouting from Silas. The steely edge to his tone is more terrifying than if he had raised his voice. Calm. Controlled.

Except with me. Except when we were alone. Then things changed, and the real beast behind the façade came out to play. Cruel. Unrestrained. Sometimes reckless.

"I-I'm s-sorry M-my K-k-ing," the newcomer stutters, his voice now devoid of the authority and arrogance of before.

God, I longed to see anyone who didn't shrivel up in front of this monster, to see Silas' match.

As I think this thought, a pair of gunmetal grey eyes flash through my mind—the same ones from the dream I had just last night, and the night before, and the night before that. How long had it been? A year?

While oneiromancy runs in my bloodline, I still wasn't skilled at dream divination and interpretation, having no elder to guide and teach me.

So what did it mean? A premonition? A warning?

As if sensing my train of thought and wanting to solidify that there is no match to his power, his gaze drifts over to me. With one lightning-fast twitch of his hand, the newcomer is dead, his neck severed from his body, which falls to the floor with a loud thud.

Unlike last night's dream, the hand around my neck now is biting and harsh, cutting off the blood flow until I see stars, followed by darkness.

This was not going to end well.

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