Escape (Vampire King Book 1) (2 page)

I strolled through the
court with confidence.
Breathe. No one is
watching you.
Terror coursed through my veins. To keep my shivering hands
busy, I waved at the tribe of younger dominas who ate alongside their maids,
too young to breed or be left to walk around the castle on their own. The
maternal part of me wanted to take them all. I’d considered it all day as I lay
sleepless in my bed, wondering if I could bring others with me to escape, but
the risks were too high. Their little legs would slow me down. Their absence
would be discovered much faster than just one domina gone missing.

“Where are you going?” A
male voice sounded behind me.

Gathering the ends of
my teal robe, I twisted around and cleared my throat. “I was given permission
by Queen Regina to escort her daughter to the market.”

The guard paused at the
mention of the queen. The king had five queens. They began as dominas like me,
but once they delivered at least sixty vampire children, they were given the
title of queen, allowed more freewill, and could assert authority over dominas
below them.

“Queen Regina, huh?”
The brown leather straps tied around the guard’s biceps shifted as he flexed
his muscles. His bronze gaze bore into me. “And how do I know you’re not
lying?”

“Here’s her consent.” I
displayed the disk in my right hand. The queen’s mascot, a silver snake,
decorated the disk. “So if you can excuse me, sir. I’m already late.”

“Hold on.” He stepped
in front of me and scanned the area around us. “You’re captivating, little
domina. Never have I seen eyes so green or hair as blood-red as yours. You’re
lucky The Quiet King hasn’t drunk from you yet.”

The guard traced the
top of my lip with his index finger. It reeked of feces, but I didn’t flinch
away from his touch. Besides blood, vampires savored the taste of fear. The more
affected I seemed, the more he would bother me.

“And what will you be
buying, sweet domina?” The guard slipped his finger down to my chin and
outlined the curve of my neck.

“I assume Brie will be
buying what all women love: clothes and jewelry.” Octavia sauntered toward us,
fanning herself with a large peacock feather. Her blond hair glowed like the
sun and highlighted the white gown she was wearing. She carried a big white bag
in her right hand. “Get your hands off Brie before I tell my mother Queen Regina.”

The guard hissed and
bared his sharp fangs. Nevertheless, he backed up a few feet and maintained eye
contact with me. “Be here when dawn arrives.”

Before walking off, he
spat out a glob of dark liquid. It landed an inch from Octavia’s sandaled feet.
She ignored the guard’s disrespect and clasped on to my hand. “You’re late. I’m
not happy I had to come into the
Royal
Court
to get you.”

“I figured the feast
was the best time to meet you outside the gate.” I trailed behind her as she
stuffed the peacock fan into her bag.

We passed three young
dominas playing near a turquoise-stoned fountain, splashing water, and chasing
each other around the fountain’s lower edge. The girls must have been no older
than teenagers.

Octavia groaned as she
watched them and dragged me through the court’s exit. “I hate being around
these blithering sluts. They’re all stupid dominas.”

Careful,
I’m one of them.
I swallowed in my anger.

“My father leaves to
meet with his war council and do you think any of them considers breaking away
from their slavery? No.” Octavia scrunched her nose up as if she had caught an
alarming scent. “All these whores can think of is spreading their legs for my father
to birth his soldiers and princesses.”

Dominas delivered
princes too, but I chose not to correct her. Births were a sore spot for many
who lived on the castle’s grounds. Any baby boy who wasn’t a prince served in The
Quiet King’s army for twenty years.

Baby girls became
princesses if the king deemed them pretty. He could not see and was blind,
deaf, and mute, but he made decisions by analyzing the girl’s faces with his
fingers and communicating his choices by speaking them in our minds. He read
all of our thoughts and knew when we complied with his wishes. When the girls
grew, the king married them off to leaders with vampires in their territories.
There, the princesses were expected to add halflings to the foreign population.
Baby girls he considered ugly remained as servants in the castle.

However, the king
murdered all boys born with black marks, trailing up the side of their legs. I
was told by an old domina the marks signaled the sign of a prince, one strong
enough to conquer the king. Whenever a delivery nurse or guard spotted the birthmark
on an infant’s leg, the king ordered the little prince’s death. One night after
four princes were delivered, the king’s voice had boomed in all of our heads
with rage, “Kill them!”

Only
a monster would murder his own kids. May the vampire god Ambi damn him to Hell.

The first time I
witnessed the slaughter of baby princes I decided to escape and vowed to never
bear the king’s kids. It was why I walked next to Octavia, silent and nodding
in agreement. She was my path to freedom, and if necessary, I would call myself
a blithering slut to get her help.

“Hurry, Brie. I don’t
know how long Samuel will stay at the tavern.” Octavia lifted her white dress
with her hands and ran. Her feet slammed against the pavement. “He’s the best
pathfinder in the city and knows every hidden route out of this godforsaken
place.”

My sandals clicked and
clacked on the sidewalk as I sped up, carrying the bottom of my robe in my
hands. A few roses dropped from my hair, falling to my shoulders and making
their way down to the pavement. I couldn’t keep up with Octavia. Although she was
only half vampire and human, her stamina and speed surpassed my human legs.

“Quickly!” she called
back, now several feet in front of me.

We passed the Statue of
Creation—an image of The Quiet King thirty feet high carved in red coral stone
sitting on a throne made of skulls. Two moons rested in his lap. At his feet a
crowd of dominas gaped at him, their arms full of babies suckling from their
bare breasts.

 
I pray I’ll never have to see this horrid
statue again.

Twenty minutes later,
we arrived at a black-and-white checkered building completely made from
concrete. The king forbade builders to use lumber for business structures since
wood was lethal to vampires. Wood pierced their flesh with ease like a sharp
knife slicing through water. If that material stabbed into their hearts, it was
impossible for them to heal the wound, even when they drunk the curing blood of
a domina. Copper houses and buildings made of brass outlined the streets.
Poorer home and business owners lived in concrete structures. No one had
windows. It was to keep out the sun. Its light seared vampire flesh and caused
permanent burns.

A metal sign hammered
near the roof read,
Blood Spirits!

We dashed through the
door. Loud chatter and guitar music greeted my ears. A portrait of The Quiet
King hung behind the bar. My legs burned from the journey, to the point I
wobbled a little as we maneuvered through a crowd of drunken vampires and
humans. Vampire men dressed in gray business suits gathered around and laughed
with human women draped in amber robes with gold tattoos of the sun upon their
foreheads. All of the human men huddled together in green work uniforms and
gossiped over mugs of beer.

It was pretty easy to
tell a vampire from a human. All the humans appeared short and frail with tanned
skin and eyes shaded with colors found in a rainbow. Almost all humans
possessed brown hair or gray if they were old. My red hair was actually a
peculiarity that caused adults to whisper and point at me when I was a child
and kids to bully me in school.

 
Vampires maintained muscular frames with eyes
the color of precious metals and fangs that extended when they were happy, mad,
or hungry. I still could not easily identify halflings like Octavia because
they had a varied blend of both qualities. Although Octavia enjoyed her speed
and metallic-colored eyes, she didn’t have fangs.

“I hope Samuel is still
here,” Octavia mumbled. “Mother will kill me if I mess this up.”

I decided not to ask
why her mom would be mad if things didn’t happen as planned. I’d been wondering
why Queen Regina and her daughter decided to help me run away from the king,
but in the end it didn’t matter.

I
can’t survive in that castle another day.

Gusts of brown smoke
and the fragrance of Zumayan mushrooms thickened the air. I smirked, inhaling
the familiar scent. It reminded me of my home, Zumaya. My real husband, not The
Quiet King, lived there with my twin daughters. Every night for the past two
years of my slavery, I’d closed my eyes and thought only of them.
I’m coming home, baby.
I clutched the
silver locket around my neck. A picture of my husband and children rested
within it.

We had owned a large plantation,
harvested Zumayan mushrooms, and sold them to vampire cities. The mushrooms
were the only thing besides alcohol that could get a vampire inebriated. They
also affected humans, but not as much as vampires. Regardless, all sought them.
My husband and I had been wealthy for many years. But this was all before the
drought that decreased the mushroom production and even before the tough
decision my husband and I had made: to sell me to the king so my family and
other Zumayans could survive the winter.

More brown smoke
drifted in our direction. Octavia coughed and waved it away. My smirk
transformed into a grin as I breathed in the mushrooms’ aroma. I scanned the
bar. Almost every vampire held a pipe with streams of brown smoke rising from
their openings.

Zumaya’s
mushroom production must have improved since I left. Things are finally better.

Octavia halted and
faced me. “I almost forgot. These have to go.” She snatched out the few ice-blue
roses that remained in my hair and tossed them on the bar’s tiled floor. “You
can’t tell Samuel you’re a domina or he won’t help you escape.”

“Okay.” I searched my
hair with my hands and confirmed all the roses were gone.

Octavia yanked a sea-green
shawl made from caterpillar silk out of her bag and handed it to me. “Wear
this. It goes with your eyes and covers your robe.”

I wrapped the shawl
around my shoulders and hid my robe’s ivory embroidery, which symbolized I was
untouched by the king and other vampires. In my two years of domina slavery, no
fangs had pierced my skin. The king never attempted to have sex with me, but my
name had been on the breeding list for next month. I counted myself lucky.

“And what should I tell
him?” I asked her.

“Say you’re a human
maid who served dominas.”

A vampire stumbled by
us, burping near my face. A sour odor followed.

“If I am a maid, then
how did we meet?” I twisted the end of the shawl in my fingers. The soft silk
smoothed in my hands. Beads of sweat materialized near my eyebrows.

“You can tell him the
actual story, if it comes up.” Octavia balanced on the tips of her toes and
frantically searched the bar. “But substitute a few parts like when I
approached you asking you if you desired your freedom, say you were in the
servant quarters instead of the domina resting room.”

“And if he doesn’t
believe me?”

“There he is.” She
snatched my wrist and tugged me forward as if I were a tiny doll instead of a
grown woman. Octavia was older than me by thirty years, but vampires and
halflings aged slowly, healed most injuries easily, and lived well past a
hundred years. Nevertheless, we both looked my age of twenty-five.

“Don’t worry about his
questions. I’ll step in to save you whenever I need to.” She shoved two human
females out of the way and guided me several tables down to where two vampire
men sat. One had black-and-blond wavy hair. The other was bald.

“Finally, Princess Octavia
graces us with her presence.” The vampire with the wavy hair clapped his pale
hands. His waves were as dark as the
midnight
sky, except for the honey-blond strands that bordered his face. Even his
eyebrows were striped in blond-and-black. He wore his tresses cut shorter than
most men I’d seen around
Capitol
City
. Many allowed their
hair to hang to their shoulders. A huge gray coat made of wolf hair covered his
arms and chest.