Curses and Crowns (Vampires of Crescent Cape Book 1)
Page 3
No one had looked at me like that in centuries.
But, as intrigued as I was by her curious manner, I couldn’t let her distract me. I had waited far too many years to execute this plan, and nothing—especially not a human—was going to get in my way. And so, I instructed her to join the other girls, who stood there waiting for me in the drawing room.
I’d be lying if I said their apparent fear didn’t amuse me.
I adjusted my black suit jacket and then clasped my hands behind my back, pacing as I spoke. “It is my great pleasure to host the four of you this evening. I imagine you are all wondering why you are here.”
They stared at me blankly, too afraid to acknowledge me.
Exactly how I preferred it.
“You have been selected to partake in The Choosing Ceremony. You see, my younger brother—Prince Aiden, as you know him—is in need of a partner. A woman to rule beside him. And who better to rule over our lands than a human?” I waved my hand, amping up the dramatics. “Picture it: a blood slave turned Queen. Why, imagine what it would do for morale amongst the blood slaves. And from what my siblings tell me, they taste so much sweeter when they are hopeful. So, over the course of the coming weeks, my brother will select one of you to be his bride.”
“And what if we don’t want to marry him?”
My mouth twisted in amusement. I didn’t have to guess which one of them had been bold enough to be so insolent.
I turned on my heel to face her. Danielle’s milky skin looked ghostlike in the moonlight splashing through the window. She was looking me straight on, her dark brown eyes transfixed with determination.
I had to admit—her complete ignorance of her current predicament was amusing. For that reason alone, I would ignore her disrespect—this time.
“Ah, but you will.” I raised a finger to silence her. “Allow me to explain, Danielle. The woman who is selected will become my brother’s bride. And the only one of you who will live.” Gasps filled the room. “The rest of you will be drained of your blood, which will then be fed to the one of you who remains after you are turned. You see—no one, not even the winner—will make it out of The Choosing Ceremony alive.”
I grinned, purposefully being flippant about the bombshell I’d dropped on them. Everything was going exactly according to plan. “Now, then. I shall leave you to wait here while I fetch your prince. I suppose you should use this time to get to know one another. After all, you’ll be spending a lot of time together. For now.”
And with that, I headed down the hall, smiling to myself as the oak door slammed behind me.
Danielle
I ran for the door and tugged on the handle.
“It’s locked,” I said through gritted teeth, turning around and resting my back against it.
I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. And I didn’t know what I would have done had it been opened. I was trapped in a castle full of bloodsuckers. What was I going to do? Run? They were faster. And stronger. I didn’t stand a chance.
I was sick and tired of feeling so helpless.
I unclenched my fist, realizing I’d been digging my fingernails into my palm. The last thing I needed to do in a place like this was to draw blood.
I exhaled, trying to calm myself.
Needing a distraction from my spiraling thoughts, I turned my focus to the other girls in the room. Two of them were literally trembling while the blonde one tried to comfort them. I went over to introduce myself, figuring they could use a distraction, too.
“I’m Danielle,” I said, giving an awkward wave.
The blonde bombshell in the blue dress smiled and extended her hand. “Grace.”
I instantly liked her. Considering what Julian had revealed to us, she was surprisingly even-tempered. Like this place didn’t scare her one bit. Grace took the liberty of introducing the other girls to me since they were too distraught to formulate coherent thoughts themselves. Tara, the shorter one, had curves any girl would envy. Her scarlet dress and crystal crown made her look the part of a princess. The other, Amara, had rich, ebony skin and wore a beaded white gown with a train that wrapped around her. It was like the maidservants who had dressed her had picked out a wedding dress for her. Perhaps it was their way of giving Prince Aiden a subliminal message. I had to admit, she did look regal.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there had been some secret competition amongst the maidservants to see who could make the human they were assigned to look the most beautiful. Perhaps the ones who looked after the girl the prince ended up selecting as his bride would get some sort of reward. Yet another sickening game.
“I’m not ready to die,” Tara whimpered. Her mascara was starting to run. She wiped away her tears, but that smudged her makeup even more.
Grace tucked Tara’s hair behind her ear, trying to keep Tara’s tears from messing up her makeup any further. Grace shot a glance at me as if she were pleading for me to say something comforting. But I didn’t know what to say. I fished around in the purse Flora had given me and retrieved a handkerchief. I offered it to Tara, and she gladly accepted it. She mouthed the words thank you as she dabbed her face. Within seconds, the pristine cloth was coated in blotches of black mascara and shimmering gold eyeshadow.
I chewed my lip, thinking. What could I possibly say to make her feel better? The fact of the matter was that being part of The Choosing Ceremony meant that we’d been sentenced to death. The only question now was which one of us would come back as a vampire princess.
I didn’t want to die, but I also didn’t want to come back from the dead. It was unnatural. Plus, there was the whole feeding-off-of-humans thing. My stomach twisted with disgust at the mere thought of it. I was going to have to find a way to make sure Prince Aiden did not pick me. Death would be a more merciful fate than vampirism ever could be.
“Maybe you’ll end up being the one he chooses,” I said to Tara. I knew it wasn’t particularly helpful, but it was the only thing I could think of to say. “And then you’ll come back.”
She nodded as if to convey that that helped a little, but the tears came harder, suggesting otherwise. “I don’t want to turn into one of them.” Her pink lips quivered, and she choked on her own words.
Grace rubbed her back, trying to help her relax. “Take a deep breath, Tara.”
Tara did as she was told. Together, the three of us stood there, inhaling deeply and then letting our breaths go. It felt silly, but it did seem to help.
Amara didn’t participate, but I didn’t read much into it. Based on the way she was standing there with a glossy look in her eyes, I figured she was in shock.
Once Tara had calmed down enough that her tears ceased, Grace dug through her purse, too, and applied some more foundation to help even out the smudges
“I don’t get it,” Amara said, finally speaking up. “She’s our competition. Why are you being nice to her?”
I raised my chin and looked her in the eye. “Because the one thing those monsters can’t take away from us is our humanity.”
“Well, technically, they will take that from one of us,” Grace added solemnly.
Please, I thought to myself, whatever happens, don’t let Prince Aiden choose me.
Aiden
Julian burst through the door. I swiveled around, glaring at him. “What have you done?”
Anger overwhelmed my senses, and despite my vow to never taste human blood again, if he had been human I would have broken it right then and there. I wanted to attack. I wanted him to fight back, turning into the beast that he was, and then skin him and use his werewolf carcass as a rug.
But despite my growing rage, I had to hold back. Because there was no defeating Julian. Claudia, the Albright witch who had cursed our family, had seen to that.
“It’s what Mother would have wanted,” Julian said with a fiendish grin.
I wanted to smack those stupid dimples right off of his face. “How dare you speak of her. You’re the reason she’s—” Xander came up fr
om behind, grabbing me by the shoulders, holding me back. I tried to wrestle out of his grasp, but he was too strong.
“It’s not worth it,” he said in my ear.
I shook my head in disgust. Julian had murdered our parents to get revenge for what they’d made us become. My siblings and I took him captive afterward with the help of wolfsbane. If it hadn’t been for me, they would have killed him in return. Sometimes, I regretted not letting them. It certainly would have made eternity go by a little smoother for the rest of us...
“Ah, I see our brother has returned,” Julian said. His voice was airy and playful, which only infuriated me more. “You received my invitation to our brother’s impending nuptials, I presume?”
Thinking irrationally, I lunged for Julian again, but Xander held me back.
“He has a point, you know,” Xander said, his voice strained as he fought to keep me from ripping our older brother to shreds.
I whipped my head around. Surely, I’d heard him wrong. He couldn’t be siding with Julian on this. He hated Julian. Xander was the one who had wanted Julian drawn and quartered after he’d slaughtered our parents all those years ago. And now he was backing him up on this? “Are you serious? You’re really going to take his side?”
“Just because we shared a womb doesn’t mean I have to agree with you on everything. Like I said before, I don’t think Mother wanted you to be miserable.”
I smirked. “You think I’m miserable?”
“You don’t? All you do is stare out of that window all day watching those humans in the village.”
“Except for when I’m—oh, I don’t know—running a kingdom. So that you don’t have to, I might add. And anyway, if getting married and riding off into the sunset is so important, why don’t the two of you do it?”
Julian flashed a mocking smile. “Because we’re happy the way we are. Look at Alexander here.”
“It’s Xander now,” our brother corrected him.
Julian bowed his head. “Ah, yes. Apologies. Anyway, I only meant to say that Xander doesn’t need marriage to be happy. He rather enjoys his independence. He’s much like Charlotte in that regard. As for Natalie—”
“Where is our sister these days anyway?” Xander interjected.
Julian shrugged. “Last I heard, she was dining with royalty in the Kingdom of the Silver Seas. She doesn’t need my help in matchmaking. She does quite alright on her own.” He ran his finger along the rim of a wine glass before lifting his eyes in reverie. “And we all know what happened last time our dear Charlotte fell in love.”
His voice trailed off. He didn’t have to explain any further. We knew exactly what he was referring to. I hated to admit it, but he had a point. Charlotte’s relationships never ended well for anyone. Still, I found Julian’s callous attitude about Charlotte’s long history of heartbreak to be rather disrespectful, especially since the two of them were so close. But rather than get into that, I folded my arms across my chest and asked, “And what about you, Julian?”
A laugh escaped his lips. “Do you really have to ask?”
It was true. I wasn’t sure Julian was capable of loving anyone other than himself.
At least, not anymore.
It was funny. Even after all of these years, I vividly remembered how much I looked up to my older brother as a kid. I knew he’d been adopted and that we weren’t related by blood. But that never mattered to me. Or to any of our siblings, for that matter.
Our parents, on the other hand, had never truly accepted him. Long before we were born, our mother had struggled to carry a child to term. Eventually, she and our father took Julian in, but they were uneasy about one day handing him the kingdom. In time, our mother learned of a woman who possessed supernatural powers. She summoned the witch to the castle. Claudia came, and our mother requested that she be blessed with four biological children.
Four blood heirs.
A terrible choice of words, looking back on it.
The witch had warned our mother that such magic would come with a price. Our mother had presumed that to mean gold, which she would gladly part with. But she was wrong.
Because Claudia had something else in mind...
As it turned out, Claudia had been abandoned by her family as a girl. Her parents had grown fearful of her powers. The elders of the Albright coven had taken her in, but she’d always felt like an outsider. And when she realized how little our mother cared for her adopted son, she cast a curse upon us all.
Yes, we, the blood heirs, would be born. But on the first full moon of our twentieth year, the curse would take hold.
And it wasn’t just that we would be bound to bloodlust.
Our brother Julian was granted the power to end us all.
He was a werewolf.
And his bite was the only thing that could kill us.
Aiden
I didn’t have time to come up with a way to get out of participating. And even though Julian didn’t outright threaten me, both he and I knew that, for the most part, he got his way. Yes, I had been the one to take over the Crown when our parents died. Technically, I was the oldest in our family’s bloodline. I’d been born a whole minute and a half before the others. But really, that had little to do with it.
Serving as a prince for all of eternity was more of a burden than a blessing. Any of my other siblings would have found it too confining. Well, any of them except for Julian. For so many years following his release, I’d hardly been able to sleep, fearing he would end me and claim the throne for himself. I still didn’t fully understand why he hadn’t done it already. It would have been so easy for him.
Nevertheless, over the centuries that followed, Julian grew to be a loyal advisor. He was a ruthless politician and was constantly cutting deals with the covens and rival vampire kingdoms.
So, as much as I didn’t want to go downstairs and sit through what I expected to be an insufferable evening, I relented. I was sure, in time, I could convince him that none of these women would prove to be suitable matches. But in the meantime, I’d play along.
I had to admit, I was curious to see who he’d selected for me to choose from. But I was definitely not going to marry any of them. Falling in love... well, it would feel like a betrayal. I’d been madly in love once before. Even after all these years, not a day went by that I didn’t think about my dear Victoria. The way she squeezed my hand when she told me she had decided not to turn... I still wasn’t sure which hurt more: that she’d rather die than live an eternity by my side or that her decision revealed the painful truth that, deep down, she viewed my kind as monsters.
As much as it tore my heart to shreds, I understood. I didn’t want to condemn her to this kind of life. A natural death was a more merciful fate.
So, despite my going along with The Choosing Ceremony for now, I had absolutely no intention of taking a bride at the end of this. But since, thanks to Julian, the women were waiting for me, I would do the courteous thing and meet them.
After having changed into my favorite navy suit, I went downstairs. I dismissed the guards, preferring privacy. It wasn’t like they were needed anyway. Humans were no match for our kind, and they knew better than to press their luck.
I let out a heavy sigh as I reached for the doorknob, taking a second to compose myself before entering the drawing room.
The staff had outdone themselves. An elegant spread of fresh white roses filled the room, the flickering candles only adding to the ambiance. The smell of melting wax nearly overpowered that of the floral arrangements.
There was something else, too.
Jasmine.
I felt a pang of sadness as the memory of the jasmine oil I’d gifted Victoria flashed across my mind’s eye.
Snapping myself out of it, I suddenly became aware of the terrified girls standing before me. They were trying to look brave, of course. After all, marrying me would offer them an escape from their current roles as blood slaves—roles which I wished I could free all of them from.
I ran my fingers through my dark hair, realizing I didn’t need to make this out to be such a serious thing since I didn’t intend to pursue them anyway. I relaxed and added, “But while you are here, you may call me Aiden. I look forward to getting to know all of you.”
The girls lined up to introduce themselves to me. Amara was first. There was something alluring about her, but the words she was saying didn’t match up with the way she was saying them. She went on and on about how handsome she found me and how grateful she was to be here, but she said it in a tone like she had a gun to her head and was being forced to recite a speech against her will.
Then, there was Tara, a tall brunette wearing a red gown with a neckline that trailed halfway down her chest. The crown atop her head was a little presumptuous, but I knew the maids had dressed her, so I didn’t hold it against her. And anyway, she was something to behold. But her hand trembled when I shook it, reminding me of what I was to her. I hated that this girl had such a visceral reaction to me. To what I was.
Grace, on the other hand, was a bit more intriguing. She was a youthful-looking blonde, and the color of her dress brought out the blue in her eyes, which were looking everywhere but at me. She seemed nice enough. She might be a good choice to spend some time with while I played Julian’s game.
Finally, the last girl came up to meet me. I offered my hand to her. I didn’t think much of her at first. She was pretty, but then again, they all were. Chin raised, her doe-ish brown eyes locked in on mine. “Hello, Aiden. I’m Danielle.”
Danielle
Aiden terrified me. He wasn’t just a vampire. He was a devastatingly handsome vampire. I honestly didn’t know if the swirling feeling in my stomach was butterflies or terror.