The Vampire King’s Captive

BRAN

Bran walked down the long corridor to Corey’s private room, a thought running through his mind over and over like a record on loop, until it pushed out all his other thoughts and it was the only thing he could think of.

When he reached the door, he pushed it open and barged in without knocking, announcing, “I’m going to get her back.”

The occupants of the room froze, shocked by his sudden presence and manner, and stared at him with similar expressions of shock mixed with wariness on their faces.

Corey snapped to his feet, his eyes widening with surprise before he quickly masked his expression and with his eyes never leaving Bran, said, “I’ll have to cut this meeting short. We’ll continue later.”

The men nodded and hastily rushed out of the room, one of them reaching for a sheet of paper but Corey told him to leave it and he nodded sharply, hurrying out.

“What the hell, Bran?” Corey asked, pushing away from the table and running his hand through his hair roughly.

It was then that Bran noticed that a maid-the one that had been assigned to Maria-was slowly clearing the table in front of Corey. He stood, waiting for her to finish up and leave before they started talking, but she was taking forever. Bran’s eyes narrowed and he had the sinking suspicion that she was doing it deliberately so that she would be able to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Corey, probably noticing that Bran had been silent for a long time, looked at him and saw that his narrowed eyes were on the maid who thought she was being discreet.

Understanding lit up Corey’s eyes. “Leave.”

The maid, at first, must not have known that the words were for her because she kept loading empty glasses on a tray.

“Leave, Olivia. Now.” Corey’s voice was firm enough to have her head flying up and her eyes widening in mock innocence. “You may come back later and finish it up.”

She nodded at that, bent in greeting and turned to leave with the tray in her hand. Her eyes flitted up to Bran briefly as she passed and when she saw that Bran was staring right at her, her eyes jerked away. She kept her head down until she left the room.

“Why is she so interested in what we have to say?” Bran asked as he walked over to the chair on the other side of Corey’s desk and dropped down on it.

He’d barely fed these past few days. He’d been doing too much thinking and most times, he’d end up forgetting to drink. Today his eyes had caught his reflection in his bathroom mirror and he saw that he’d lost weight. It wasn’t glaringly obvious, but anyone who knew him well would notice it.

“I didn’t notice until you pointed it out,” Corey said from his position by the window. “Olivia has worked for me for a very long time. I believe it was nothing more than harmless curiosity.”

Bran was jaded as hell and hard a hard time accepting things on the surface. He always made sure to investigate and find out why a person did anything they did, but just this once because he was tired and had other things to worry about-one of them being why he was here in the first place-he decided to take Corey’s word for it.

“What do you mean you’re going to get her back?” Corey asked, bringing them back to the topic at hand.

“I’m going after her, Corey.” His friend turned away from the window and levelled Bran with an unbelieving, almost betrayed look that made Bran sigh tiredly and lean back into the chair, pressing his fingers into his eyes. “There is something you should know.”

Bran proceeded to tell Corey about his dreams. About how he’d seen Maria being forced to kill and torture people by her father and how she’d refused but he’d threatened to kill her mother, who, apparently, was Maria’s only parent.

He refused to classify Ariti as a parent.

At first when Bran had seen the floating woman in his dream, he’d wondered who she was. But he’d had more dreams ever since that night and the more dreams he had, the more everything started to make sense to him.

Maria loved her mother with a fierceness that staggered Bran. He knew; he’d felt it. And that love for her mother was the only reason Maria carried out her father’s orders.

“Fuck,” was the only thing Corey could say when Bran was done.

The man had seen a whole lot in his life-he was just as old as Bran and they’d fought together in several battles-and things rarely surprised him, but his eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open.

That said something.NôvelDrama.Org exclusive content.

He pushed away from the window and walked over, dropping into the chair opposite Bran. He frowned. “Wait, how were you able to dream her memories when you didn’t drink her blood?… Or did you?”

Bran was sure that his expression was answer enough. He felt a bit guilty and suddenly like he was being studied under a microscope, and he was sure that it showed in his face.

Shock wove into Corey’s expression. “When?”

“The night before we came here.” Bran looked away, uncomfortable with the intensity in Corey’s eyes.

“Oh?” Corey sounded like he was hedging for more. More that Bran wasn’t so sure he wanted to give. “Hell, Bran, you know I wouldn’t usually stick my nose in your business like this, but I just want to know… How?”

He figured he might as well give Corey a watered down version of what happened that night. “We kissed, my fang pierced her accidentally, her blood slipped down my throat, you get the gist.”

Silence.