His Cure, His Doom: The Vampire's King Chosen Bride

Do not speak his name. Do not look him in the eye. Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not let him smell your fear. Remember what you are there for. He is allowed to do whatever he wants with you. You will open your legs for him whenever he demands it. But do not forget what you are there for. To spy. And you must find a way not to conceive, otherwise, you know what will happen. Isolde almost scoffed. She had heard those words so many times she had lost count, and she wished that she could tell her stepmother to close her mouth. But she could not. Nobody disrespected the queen and lived to speak of it. Her father made certain of that. The same father who had not lifted a single finger to protect his own daughter when it was decided she would be the one to take her stepsister's place. Sent to the Vampire King's castle. Dressed in another another name. To spy. She had heard the rumours about him. She should be terrified. She was not. Her mother had taught her that. Face what comes for you. Stand in it. Never run. It was the single most useful thing anyone had ever given her, and she had carried it every day of the ten years since her mother had been taken from her. If her mother were still alive, none of this would be happening. She believed that with a certainty she could not prove and did not need to. A sharp snap of fingers broke through her thoughts. "What are you smiling about?" Her stepmother's voice was cold. "Did you hear a single word I said to you?" "Yes, Your Majesty." "Yes?" Her brow lifted. "You were standing there staring at nothing, and you expect me to believe you heard every word?" "Every word, Your Majesty." Her stepmother studied her for a moment with that particular look, the one that was always searching for something to punish. It found nothing. She turned away. "Remember. You are not Isolde. You are Delilah. The first daughter. No one must know otherwise. If the truth leaves your mouth for any reason, the consequences will be severe." She paused. "Are we clear?" "Perfectly, Your Majesty." "Good. Hazel is not going with you. There are enough servants in that castle and I will not have her distracting you from your purpose. That is not something I am willing to discuss." She moved toward the door. "Now come. Your father is waiting." Isolde followed without a word. Her throat tightened as she walked through the familiar corridors. The throne room doors opened and she walked the length of it the way her mother had taught her. Her father sat on his throne looking every inch the king he had always chosen to be above all else. Queen Elizabeth settled beside him. Delilah stood at her mother's side, and Isolde did not look at her smile for long. She stopped and bowed. "Your Majesty." "Rise." He ordered. "Are you ready?" Isolde almost laughed at the question. "I am, Father." She met his gaze. "But I have one request before I leave." "Speak." "I want Hazel released from service today. And I want fifty thousand gold coins given to her so she may go somewhere and build a life." Queen Elizabeth was on her feet immediately. "Fifty thousand gold coins for a servant? Your Majesty, this is completely unreasonable. She is a handmaid. She has no title. She deserves nothing of the sort —" "She might be nothing but a maid to you. But she is my beloved friend" Isolde interrupted, eyes blazing. "She may not have a title or a crown or any of the things you people consider worthy of respect, but I love her. She is like a sister to me. And I want her free" "And who exactly do you think you are," Queen Elizabeth's voice rose sharply, "to stand in this throne room and make demands for a common maid?" Isolde looked at her stepmother for a long, unhurried moment. Then she smiled. It was not a warm smile. "I am Isolde Theodore. Princess of Elowyn. And what I am asking for is a small and simple thing given what I am sacrificing for this kingdom." Her smile spread. "But if neither of you can find it in yourselves to grant me this one thing, then perhaps the Vampire King should be made aware that the girl being delivered to his castle is not who she claims to be. That she is, in fact, a spy." She let that settle. "I imagine his response to that kind of deception would be rather unpleasant for everyone involved." The colour left their faces at the same moment. Queen Elizabeth turned sharply to the king. "Your Majesty, she is standing in your throne room making threats. You cannot possibly allow —" "Silence." He said it once. Her mouth closed. He looked at Isolde for a long moment. Then past her, at Hazel standing behind her, perfectly still. "Hazel is released from service effective immediately. She will receive fifty thousand gold coins before sundown." He straightened. "Is there anything else?" "No, Father. That is all." He descended from his throne and walked toward her, stopping a few feet away. Isolde waited. She expected something , anything. Some word that was only for her. Some flicker of the man who was supposed to be her father. "Safe travels," he said finally. Her chest tightened. Of course. She nodded once and turned to face Hazel. They held each other without speaking, because there was nothing left that words could do. "I love you," Hazel whispered. "I love you more." Isolde pulled back, smiled at her, and walked out alone. The carriage was black. Of course it was black. Pulled by four horses so dark they seemed carved from the night itself, their eyes an unsettling, vivid red that had nothing to do with any animal she had ever encountered. Nobody knew what his horses were or where they had come from. One of them turned its head and looked directly at her as she descended the steps. She almost flinched. She did not. She held its gaze and refused to look away first. Two emissaries stood on either side of the carriage door, dressed entirely in black cloaks. They did not look fully human. They did not bow. She was nobody to them. One of them looked her over slowly from head to toe and gave a single nod. Apparently she met the requirements. She climbed in without assistance and the door closed behind her. The inside was nothing like she had expected. Comfortable, deeply, almost insultingly comfortable. Dark curtains drawn back to reveal the night outside. A silver tray on the seat beside her holding a crystal glass of something dark red she was not going to touch, and food she was not going to eat. She sat straight and looked out of the window as the carriage began to move. Her kingdom rose behind her. Her home. The only world she had ever known. She watched it disappear piece by piece and not a single person stood outside to watch her go. The castle disappeared around a bend in the road. She looked up at the ceiling and let out a very long, very quiet breath. Her mind drifted to the Vampire King despite her best efforts to stop it. She had grown up on stories about him the way other children grew up on stories about gods and monsters and things that lived in the dark. She had always assumed the stories were exaggerated, the way stories always were. But what would he look like standing directly in front of her? Would he be what the stories described, or would he be something else entirely — something worse, something stranger, something the stories had simply lacked the words for? And why was there a strange, restless prickling low in her stomach at the thought of finding out? She pressed her lips together and turned back to the window. It did not matter what he looked like. She despised him already.