Children of the Goddesses (completed)

The Vampire King

Laila’s POV

            A pale chiseled face with a pair of familiar round black eyes stared at me as one of my captors pulled me out of the glass cage that I was trapped in. I didn’t know what the glass care was spelled with, but each time when I tried to bang my bound fists against it, an unbearable burning sensation, oddly similar to the burns from witch fire, would spread across my skin. My captor didn’t unbind my hands, instead, he snapped a thin, metal collar around my neck and was about to attach a leash to it when the owner of those familiar eyes stopped him. 

            “That wouldn’t be necessary and remove the collar too,” the vampire said to my captor as he walked towards us. My captor obeyed without questions and for the first time in days, I felt something else other than pain. Curiosity filled me as I gazed into those familiar eyes, struggling to remember if I had seen them somewhere before. The vampire held my gaze and his face softened ever so slightly as his lips curled into a warm smile. A blazer covered my bare shoulders as a pair of strong arms scooped me up and before I knew it, we were already outside under the moonlit sky and heading towards a jeep. 

            “I’ll drive,” the vampire said to another vampire while buckling me into the passenger’s seat. The other vampire nodded and headed to the car behind us while the vampire who had carried me into the car got in beside me. 

            “Who are you,” I asked hesitantly. 

            “I work for the Vampire King and you belong to him now but you have nothing to fear. I won’t let him hurt you.” 

            “Vampire King? Since when did we have a King?” 

            “Since the werewolves and witches tried to exterminate our kind at Wallace Bay. None of the Royals survived that night but Lord Nyi was a smart man. He gave a small unit of elite troops to his favorite son and instructed him to lie low until the battle was over. And just as Lord Nyi had feared, Wallace Bay was our Waterloo, but he had gone behind Lady Lae’s back to make provisions to ensure the survival of our kind, giving us our King.” 

            “A self proclaimed King from the sound of it,” I scoffed. 

            “Watch your attitude in front of King Demitri. He’s the only surviving heir of a Royal and though he may not possess all the powers of a Royal, he’s still more powerful than an average vampire.” 

            “I see you’ve accepted him as your King,” I mumbled. “Why? You had the choice to be free after the battle, the choice to be a free person subjugated to no one but the laws of the Union.” 

            The vampire chuckled in amusement before taking eyes off the road to glance at me. There was so much intensity in that glance and I swallowed nervously, wishing that I would just keep my mouth shut in front of my new captor. 

            “Free? Is that what you call being subjected to laws that only applied to vampires? Compulsory registration with biological data with the Supernatural Office and interstate checks when we want to cross state borders. How is that free?” 

            The vampire’s questions left me speechless but I remained firm in my belief that the Union was a just Union, and if only we had petitioned with the right channels, we would be able to right these grievances. 

            “No nation is perfect,” I argued. “That doesn’t mean that violence is the answer. We live in times of peace and we should agitate for change through peaceful means. Besides, I heard about vampire attacks on werewolves and humans. We shouldn’t have done that.”

            “And you simply believed what you saw on the news?” The vampire asked incredulously, “did you not question why the vampires attacked in the first place?” 

            “I just don’t think that violence is the answer,” I replied weakly. “If the vampires felt threatened or were wronged, then they should have pleaded their cases before the authorities and not resorted to violence. If the Vampire King truly cared for our kind, and wasn’t just in this for his own gains like Lady Lae and the Royals were, then he should have campaigned and fought by peaceful means for these vampires!” 

            “What did you expect King Demitri to do? Show up at a Supernatural Office and bring a lawsuit against werewolves and humans colluding against vampire businesses? In the meantime, we should just be sitting ducks, waiting to be slaughtered as the werewolf, witch and human bureaucrats take their own sweet time to process a case brought on against their own kind? A strong King doesn’t let his people suffer while counting on others for a solution. A strong King protects his people with every weapon in his arsenal.” 

            “If that’s what you believe in, then why is your King buying abducted vampires from a trafficker? I’m sure he’s not paying so much gold to buy me so that he could set me free.” 

            The vampire’s face hardened and his voice turned cold. “We cannot play with clean hands if our enemies are playing a dirty game. Sometimes to win, sacrifices have to be made. After all, only the victory at the end counts.” 

            Silence filled the air and I gave up trying to talk to the vampire. It was impossible to speak with someone who believed in the very exact opposite of what you believed in. 

Unknown POV

            We spent the rest of the car ride in silence and soon, the female vampire was asleep before I had time to find out more about her. It was nearly dawn when I pulled up in the garage of my King’s underground fortress. The female vampire showed no signs of waking up and I didn’t have the heart to wake her up from her slumber. Her face reminded me too much of the only things in the world that could evoke any sort of feelings in my heart. 

            I got out of the jeep and carried her to the examination room for newly acquired vampires and assigned my trusted deputy, Loki, to keep watch over the female vampire while I reported back to our King. 

            “Your Grace, I have brought back the product on auction tonight as you have instructed,” I reported with a straight face, careful not to reveal any emotions. 

            “Good work, Lem. And I trust that she does look exactly like the product description that the auction house had sent with the invitation? If not, I can’t imagine that you’d bring a defect back.” 

            I nodded in response to my King’s question and quickly added, “She looks exactly as she did in the photo on the invite and I have already put her in an examination cell. If it pleases Your Grace, I would conduct a thorough examination of this female personally.” 

            The Vampire King frowned slightly and I feared immediately that his paranoid nature might derail my plans. “Your Grace, I would like to make sure that the female vampire is no threat to your health before presenting her to you. If her unique appearances are the results of any sort of ill-intentioned magic, it would be too much of a risk.”

            My explanation seemed to have convinced the King and he nodded his head before waving his hand to dismiss me. “Very well, you’ve proven once again to be a thoughtful strategist. Send her to me when you’re done but if any male touches her and claims what’s mine, I would hold you responsible.” 

            I nodded before leaving my King’s office and headed back to the examination room. If by some miracle, the female vampire was somehow related to Laila, I would never allow anyone to touch her, let alone the King, who was fixated at producing a pureblooded heir with female vampires.