The Alpha And His Vampire Queen

Prologue

The smell of blood always lingered in the air, a testament to what this place is. The white marbled floors looked black in the mute lighting, the shadows of the vampires watching from above cast down all around me.

The balcony with its spiraling pillars and ornate design used to fill me with wonder as a child. This room was like a grand ballroom right out of one of the fairytales my dad would read me before tucking me in at bed at night. He would call me his princess before kissing my head, and I would dream of dancing in this ballroom with my prince.

Being a princess was just a fantasy, but being a queen has turned into my nightmare. The balcony looked haunted with the wicked, pale faces of the coven hovering around it. The ballroom was no longer a dream, but the setting of my tribulation. It is where my loyalties and my abilities are being put to the test.

“Ah,” Atticus, holding his arms out in a welcoming manner, standing on the platform at the center of the grand room. His son, Aamon, was watching me with that penetrating, invasive glare beside him. When the corner of his lips twisted up into a sinister smirk, a chill ran over me, and a sick feeling began to churn in my gut. “Welcome! Welcome, our chosen one,” Atticus droned on with false cheer. “We have been waiting for you. I was beginning to think you would never come.”

“I didn’t have a choice in the matter, did I?” I lifted my chin. The note he had sent by messenger was still clutched in my hands. “Where is my mate?” I said with a deadly calm.

“Your mate?” Aamon scoffed. “How unvampiric of a term. And this is who was chosen to rule us?” His eyes roamed my frame, looking me up and down. “She is too warm-blooded to rule over a turtle, let alone us. Better for warming a bed, I say.”

“Hush, my son. Let’s not be too hasty in our assumptions,” Atticus said with a smile on his face, his movements and words sounding like the practiced skills of an actor. There wasn’t an ounce of sincerity in them. “She may yet surprise us.”

He lifted a hand and snapped his taloned fingers, causing the large double door stretching from the floor almost all the way to the thirty-foot ceiling to slowly open. There was a loud, rumbling scraping sound, like something heavy being dragged across the floor coming from the darkness on the other side.

“As you are aware, when Lady Delilah left us, she took with her all of her sires and pets. I know that, because you have not grown up surrounded by active coven society, you may not be accustomed to the terms.” He stopped to smile when a soft gasp left me. I was horrified by the giant platform being dragged out from the other room. “Those we keep close to us that are marred by our fangs are nothing more than sires and pets, young Karina. Mate is a term not recognized here. And since it is against this new absurd, arbitrary law for lower generations to create our own sires, it is up to our leader to provide us with fresh sustenance by sharing hers.”

Reece was at the center of a stone platform, similar to the one Atticus and his son were standing on. Except, this one had a pillar right at its center, manacles anchored several feet from the base. My mate, the man I have loved my entire life and who has given his soul for my every happiness, was hanging from the restraints, naked and covered in dried blood. His mouth, the same mouth that was whispering reassurances and affirmations in my ear as I drifted to sleep last night after trailing gentle kisses all over my body, was gagged with a sordid cloth. His auburn hair looked crimson, coated in his own blood.

When his eyes opened and met mine, I could see the searing pain in his mossy green irises. I always believed nothing could harm my Alpha mate, and seeing him like this triggered something inside of me.

Rage overflowed inside of me. My body sprung towards him, but Atticus raised a hand and several figures in black robes stepped out from the darkness blocking my path. Aamon lifted his face with a smug expression, opening his shirt and taking a knife from his sheath slung across his chest. His red irises glimmered in greed, watching me as he took callous, deliberate steps towards my mate.

“Your family already control the blood supplies in Miami, and seeing as you are the only vampire with the right to a sire, apart from your traitor of a father, my father and I, along with the rest of the coven, only think it is fair that you give us the same privileges as your predecessor.”

He took the knife, and slashed it over Reece’s chest, right over his heart. Reece let out a groan of pain, and I hissed, trying to leap forward to get to my mate again. Once again, I was stopped by three men in robes, their faces shrouded by their hoods.

“He is an Alpha of Crystal Moon!” I shouted. “What do you think the pack will do, his sister and parents will do when they learn of this?!”

“Did Lady Delilah not have the previous Luna of that pack sired to her?” Atticus asked, his smile sardonic.

That was different. That was to save her life, but I’m sure they already know that. It doesn’t fit their agenda, and telling them would do nothing.

Aamon took a goblet, catching Reece’s trickling blood in it. The wound on Reece’s chest slowly started to heal, and when it closed, the cup was already full. Aamon lifted the goblet in the air, his crimson eyes and sinister smile shining down on me.

“We offer you this, young Karina. You have two options in exchange for our devotion. If you prove your loyalty by continually sharing this man’s blood with us as your followers, it will be a true demonstration of where your loyalties lie.” Atticus waved his hands around the congregation. There were many murmurs of agreement from the shadows casting down on me.

“And the other option?” I would never subject Reece to that kind of treatment. Ever.

Atticus’s smile stretched on his pale face, making him look ghostly. “You do one last act of a werewolf, forsaking your hybrid blood and rejecting this young Alpha, and take my son in his place. With the alliance of our families, our kind can trust you to rule over us as our queen.”