The Wolf's Mate, Vampire's Bride

Trisha’s POV:

The first thing I noticed as I came to was that I was being suspended by my arms above my head. My arms were stretched up as they supported the weight of my entire body, my feet hanging above ground and the harshness of the rope against my skin was as unwelcome a perception as was the sensation of the absence of my clothes on my body.

I could feel the gentle movement of air around my skin as if there wasn’t any thread of clothing left to prevent the chill. My nipples were pebbled hard, and goosebumps appeared on my skin. I couldn’t feel anything else in the room, however. The air was dead silent, with the absence of any scents or movements that could help me figure out where I was. Which meant that I was either on a skyscraper, high enough that even my enhanced hearing couldn’t pick up any noises, or I was in an abandoned area somewhere far away from population which didn’t have enough buildings around it to reflect sound waves. But the only positive to my situation was, I couldn’t hear any bird songs. Which meant that the sun hadn’t risen…yet.

“Why pretend to be passed out when we both know you aren’t?”

I sucked in a gasp. I knew that voice! I knew it well enough that it had every hair on my body standing on end, making a shiver ran down my spine. And it was not a pleasant feeling at all.

I opened my eyes to a dark room, and they immediately fell on the lone figure sitting on a throne-like chair not too far away from me. Even though the curtains were drawn with sunlight proof drapes and there wasn’t a hint of light in the room, there was no mistaking that sinister presence, those vibrant green eyes that were lit from within, making them glow in the dark like emeralds and that presence so powerful, it made anyone, and everyone run in the opposite direction, as far as possible. Because this was none other than Damien Vandolff, the Vampire King.

Damien was perfection personified. Built the size of a battle tank, a physique to die for, and a face so unparalleled in beauty that no one can forget it once they had a look. His hair appeared black in the darkness, but I knew that it was originally a very, very dark shade of red. He was the most coveted and the most dangerous creature on the planet. Except, he didn’t just break hearts; he crushed them in the palm of his hands, after ripping it out of the person’s body.

A smile formed on his face. A smile that was as cunning as it was beautiful. “I see you’re standing your ground. You’re more stubborn than I initially apprehended.”

I returned the smile, because if I didn’t hold my own against him, I’d be mincemeat in no time. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not done yet?”

Damien leaned back on his chair. “I’d say you’re quite right, Ms. Redfern.”

I tilted my head to the side, and it pushed my breasts up even further, but I fought through the urge to feel humiliated. Shame wasn’t something immortals felt often, especially after having lived centuries. And even though I wasn’t nearly as old as Damien, I had seen my fair share of years. “Are we on last name basis again, Damien? I’ll have to say I’m disappointed.”

I know I shouldn’t be pushing the wrong buttons right now, but I had valid reasons. I won’t stand down, not when there were several lives on the line. Lives that Damien had sworn to protect but had never acted on his promises, at least not since Vampires became the rulers of Earth, taking over the human race and any other minor supernatural species that existed. The fight had been long and hard, and Damien had fought tooth and nail to bring back peace to all the landforms on the planet, but we were on shaky ground once again, and Damien had decided to stand by our race alone and abandoned the rest to a cruel fate.

The only reason I was in this position right now was because I had dared to take a stand against him in public. And with the current political conditions, it had seriously affected his rule, making some of the masses, who had been strong and brave enough, to question his decisions.

Good. His ego had needed a jitter after he’d made human slaving legal right after becoming King and had never once thought about abdicating that law even after two centuries had passed under his reign. He needed to get back on the right track.

“You always seem to surprise me, Trisha.” He got off the chair, his face the only thing visible in the darkness, which made me guess he was wearing his usual dark clothing. “We’ve battled countless times in court, and I have to say, I liked the banter because you usually had a valid point. But this time, you’ve gone too far, Trisha Redfern. Your behavior has led several aristocrats to rebel against me.”

“So that’s why you’ve brought me here? To humiliate me? I didn’t think you’d be so low as to rape me into submission!” I knew I was fighting for the greater good, to save an entire race from becoming extinct, but the closer Damien moved to my body, the more I could feel heat pool between my legs. I was no exception to the effect he had on the opposite sex, but right now, I needed to fight back if I wanted to get out of this alive, not be wet and ready to do as he pleased. The moment he sensed my arousal, he’d do everything he could to break me.

The next words that he spoke were like a sharp knife against my skin, and I felt death whisper in my ears. “Never. Ever. Say that repulsive word in front of me again. Ever!”

His voice was low, spoken through gritted teeth, and I felt every cell in my body grow stiff in response. “Then why am I tied to a pillar, naked?”

“I don’t want to cause a scene by publicly harassing you, Trisha.” His face was inches away from mine, and if I hadn’t been tied up, I probably would have had to look up into those gorgeous gemstone eyes because of how tall he was. “This is me asking very nicely that you drop the case or face the consequences.”

The said case was of an entire human family being slaughtered by an aristocrat whose only excuse was that he had been bored and in need of entertainment. But he hadn’t stopped there. He’d kept the youngest son alive only to have him watch his family get killed one by one, his mother having suffered a fate worse than dying before death became her freedom. That boy, Neema, was now under my custody, having escaped that aristocrat’s clutches and found his way over to me.

“Never!” I spat.

The smile that followed reassured me that this would be the last thing I’d ever see. A sadistic smile on a hauntingly beautiful face. God was cruel indeed. He always made the predators the most magnificent of beings, so they had no trouble attracting innocent prey.

“I had a hunch you would say that. After all, you’ve always chosen the difficult path.”

The next few instances happened in a blink of an eye. Damien pulled out a remote from the back pocket of his pants and pressed a button. A shifting noise came from the ceiling as I followed the motion. The next instant I tried to look past the blinds and realized too late that the sun was already up, and the blinds had not only been light-proof but soundproof as well for me to have missed the noises all around me. A thin beam of sunlight streamed down the opening in the ceiling and fell on my body.

And then there was only screams and fire.

Trisha’s POV:

I woke up screaming in bed. The feeling of the sun scorching my skin was imprinted on my mind forever.

It’d been a week since the incident at an abandoned farm on the outskirts of town. I didn’t know what had happened after I’d passed out from the excruciating pain, but the next time I’d opened my eyes, I’d been in a healing center under constant surveillance. Turns out, I’d been out for two days, which for a vampire meant about as much as six months for any human. My flesh had healed relatively quickly, but the scars were now imprinted on my brain.

That had been the purpose behind my punishment all along, to teach me a lesson I’d never forget. But this? What Damien did to me was nothing more than just a warning. It was just the tip of the iceberg compared to what he could actually do to me.

After all, no one dared oppose Damien Vandolff. And those who did, they were simply wiped out of existence.

Now came the question of what I might have done to deserve this. Well…I had the audacity to go against the vampire king and one of the biggest aristocrats in his court.

I’m a well-known lawyer in the vampire council, and my disappearance from the public eye had caused quite an uproar, especially from those who were supporting me against the aristocrat, so I had to do an emergency press conference. And although my body had trembled, my mind not yet out of the trauma of what had been done to me, my voice had been steady when I’d announced that I wouldn’t back down from this fight no matter who stood in my way.

Damien had been absent from any major event this past week, which wasn’t unusual since he preferred to stay away from media attention, but things had been eerily quiet over the past week. I still remembered the day I’d decided to bring Neema to the media to bring forward his story. Damien had personally given me a warning call, and then things had been quiet for three months until I had been kidnapped and drugged on my way home from court before ultimately ending up in that abandoned farm house. I should’ve stopped when I’d received the call, but I hadn’t. I had filed an official case against the aristocrat, which had led to the warehouse incident. But things had been quiet since. Which meant that either Damien was letting it slide, which had as much a possibility as pigs flying outside my window, or I was going to be dealt with permanently and made an example out of.

Rubbing my hands down my face, I got off my bed and made my way to the bathroom. I sprinkled some ice-cold water on my face to remove the remnant of the nightmare that wasn’t a nightmare. It helped but not as much as I expected it would. I pulled my long blonde hair into a messy bun on top of my head and proceeded to brush my teeth and go about my morning business.

“Trisha?”

The frail, scared voice coming from outside my bedroom had me rushing out the door. “Neema? Are you hurt?” I pulled open the door to wide innocent blue eyes and a physique that looked like it might snap in half at the lightest touch. No child should’ve ever had to go through what Neema did. Never!

I took the trembling six year old into my arms, and he wrapped his arms tightly around me. His pajamas hung loose on his shoulders, and I had to stitch those pants to half their size so they could fit him, but he was improving, getting better little by little every day.

When he had been first brought to me by one of the aristocrat’s Vandal Rudolf’s servants, who had snuck him out before their master returned home, the boy had been no more than a walking corpse, scared of even his own shadow. I’d given him my blood to heal most of the severe injuries, but he’d refused to eat or drink for days until he had to be hospitalized from malnourishment. I’d stood by him then, taking care of him until he’d trusted me enough to come stay with me. His current location was a secret that I intended to keep until he could live in a world that no longer saw him as a blood slave or lowly worker. Although the latter was nearly impossible, I’d be damned if I let the former go unchanged.

“No.” He shook his head now, his curly blonde locks having grown enough that they flew around his face. “But you are.” Tears were in those big blue eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, baby!” I hugged him tighter to my chest, unable to hide the moisture gathering in my eyes. “It’s not your fault. None of this is.”

I picked him up in my arms and took him to bed with me, where I laid him down and stroked his hair until he was able to fall back asleep. I then covered him with the blankets and left the room silently to get some coffee.

“Zoey?” I called out to my maid, a lovely seventeen-year-old human girl whose family has been in our family’s service for generations.

“Yes, madam?” She appeared in front of me holding my coffee cup with a wide grin on her face. Zoey was a good foot shorter than me, with light brown hair and hazel eyes that looked greener than brown. She also had a lovely face and a contagious smile. It was impossible not to smile at her as I took the cup from her hands.

“Thank you, Zoey.” I took a sip of the coffee, tasting a hint of the blood that she had put in it. It was a myth that vampires needed to constantly gouge on blood. A drop or two a day was sufficient for us unless we were injured or under tremendous stress.

Zoey bowed and left for the kitchen as I made my way to the living room.

The covers of the living room windows were thrown back, and a faint ray of early morning sunlight streamed through it to hit the floor. I walked over to the window and looked outside, the sunlight now a warm sensation on my skin, my daylight bracelet safely strapped to my wrist. It was a good thing that not all vampires had the right to a daylight bracelet or ring; otherwise, the world would be an even horrendous place.

My daylight bracelet had also been put back on my wrist when I’d woken up in that hospital. I don’t know what games Damien was playing, but at this point, I was prepared for anything.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to admire the gorgeous early morning view outside my window for too long. The shrill ring of my phone broke me out of my thoughts, and I hurried over to receive the call before it woke Neema. The boy was a very light sleeper, and I didn’t want to wake him up since he needed rest.

Half expecting to hear that cool, composed voice that was like a whip against delicate skin, I was surprised to hear a deeper, warmer voice greeting me on the other end of the phone.

“Yes?” I asked, thinking this was another new client, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Trisha Redfern, it’s a pleasure to finally speak to you.” The warmth in that voice was a welcome change.

“Thank you. And you are?” I was starting to suspect this as a threat hidden behind honeyed words, but the truth turned out to be anything but.

“You must have heard about me, I’m Lucas Donovan.”

A gasp left my mouth as my eyes widened in recognition. “Lucas Donovan? The Supreme Werewolf Alpha?”

Werewolves were a vampire’s mortal enemy. The only reason that we weren’t in the midst of a constant bloodshed was because the werewolf population had dwindled considerably during the war that had come to decide the fate of the world. A war that was now known as the Wipeout. But that war had occurred two centuries ago, giving the wolves enough time to regroup. Rumors had it that they were now stronger than ever and had increased considerably in numbers, but no one had ever seen them in the city yet. They tended to stick to the wilderness.

Lucas Donovan, however, was a different story. He’d been the first one to show his face in front of us when he’d dragged a mangled vampire corpse through the city and thrown it in front of Damien’s castle with the threat that if anyone else ventured into the woods, they’d suffer the same fate. Damien had sent out a search party to bring out the wolves, but each member of that party had met with a similar fate. Damien had immediately dropped the search and, after much debate against the nobles, had declared the woods a no-go zone and had set up patrol stations to oversee that his orders were being followed. I’d supported Damien in that fight, and I knew he’d made the correct decision to prevent any more bloodshed. The world was at peace now, had been so for the last two centuries. No one needed another Wipeout.

“Indeed,” Lucas said now, although I no longer felt the warmth that was in his voice.

“What do you want?” I gulped. A call from The Supreme Alpha, right after the punishment I’d received from Damien last week; this wasn’t a good sign at all.

“World peace. Equality. And maybe the extinction of all vampires?” His tone was light, but there was a dark undertone to his words, especially when he said extinction of all vampires. “I want what you want, Ms. Redfern, except maybe the last bit. But I have a better proposition for you.”

“What kind of proposition?” I fell back on the living room couch, my legs wobbly and my heart racing a thousand beats per minute. Contrary to what people believed, vampires had a heart, and it beat the same amount of time as any human.

“I’ll help you protect the human child under your care… if you bring me Damien Vandolff.”