Claimed By The Vampire King (The Vampire King Series #1)

by T. S. Ryder

  “I’m not sure. We can try. Couldn’t hurt, right?”

  “Oh sure.” They both turned at the sudden sound of Elise’s voice. She had come downstairs very quietly.

  “What’s your problem now?” Logan asked, glaring at her.

  “You found a way to cure her real fast. You couldn’t even stand a single day of being with her when she looked like that.”

  Logan shook his head. “Stop this. You’re being ridiculous. You think she wants to walk around like that? It doesn’t matter much to me. I love her just the same, no matter how she looks. It doesn’t change who she is. I wish I could say the same for you. But you’ve become ugly on the inside.”

  Thea’s heart had skipped when he said he loved her, but Elise’s face turned to disgust.

  “Oh, so now you love her, do you?”

  “I do.” He turned back to look at Thea and smile at her. “I know what I’ve said before, but all this has made me realize what losing you would do to me. I love you, Thea. I really do.”

  “What did you do, slip him a love potion?” Elise huffed.

  Thea’s face grew warm. But she hadn’t. Not since that first time. “No.”

  “Right. Whatever.”

  “I need to talk to you,” Logan said. He cast his spell, then shifted into dragon form.

  “Logan, what are you doing?” Thea hoped he didn’t plan to tell her about the baby. Not yet. She wasn’t ready for that.

  He moved to stand in front of the stairs, blocking Elise’s way out. She turned to glare at Thea, then shifted herself.

  The two dragons faced each other. Logan’s red and orange scales glimmered bright, in contrast to Elise’s emerald-green scales. Thea couldn’t hear them talking, of course. As dragons, they could speak in their minds.

  She watched, wishing she knew what they were saying. After a shorter time than she thought it would take, Elise changed back and shoved past Logan.

  Logan changed back and watched her go up the stairs. “It’s obvious you’re lying.”

  She gave him the middle finger and slammed the door shut.

  “What happened?”

  Logan came to sit beside her. “I tried to find out what was really going on with her. Why she’s freaking out like this and acting so out of character. It’s easier to tell if someone is lying when you’re speaking right to their mind. She said nothing was wrong, but she was lying. I couldn’t get her to tell me anything. But she’s madder at me than you. I could feel it. I think she’s truly just concerned for you. But she hates me.”

  “Then why did she splash that stuff on me instead of you?”

  “I think she wanted to show you that I would break up with you or something. But she saw today. She saw that I really love you.” He bent down and kissed her. “And our baby.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  He shook his head. “I thought it’d be better for us to do it together and I know you wanted to wait.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I have a plan for tonight.”

  Chapter Eight

  Before they went to sleep, Logan cast several spells of protection around his room and Elise’s. He casts spells to detect an unwelcome presence and to detect any magic being done.

  By the time they lay down to go to bed, most of Thea’s boils had cleared up. She took a long shower and put on scented lotion. She brushed her teeth carefully, and swirled a bit of Logan’s mouthwash in her mouth. She brushed her hair and made herself look as presentable as possible. There was still some redness and splotches on her face, but Logan applied a fresh layer of paste and she hoped that, by morning, her face would be back to normal.

  They hadn’t slept for more than a few hours when Logan sat up suddenly.

  “What’s wrong?” Thea whispered.

  “Someone is here. The spell was set off.” He crept out of bed and she got up, too. She cast a spell of silence so they could move through the house without being heard.

  They snuck together down to the kitchen, where the dim light of the refrigerator illuminated the room. The refrigerator door was open and several containers sat on the counter.

  When they were just a few feet from the door, the person behind it stepped back.

  “Sophia?” Logan said, in obvious shock.

  She let out a squeal and jumped back in surprise. “Logan! I didn’t even hear you.”

  “That was the point,” Thea said.

  “What is wrong with your face?” Sophia asked, holding back laughter.

  Thea glared. “Shut up.”

  “What are you doing?” Logan asked.

  Sophia tried to stick something in her pocket, but it was too late. Logan reached out and grabbed her hand. He took a long test tube from her and held it up.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  Sophia crossed her arms. “Why don’t you drink it and find out?”

  He sniffed at the potion and handed it to Thea. “Do you know what this is?”

  She recognized it immediately. “Yes. It’s the love potion I brewed months ago. How did you get this?”

  Sophia glared at her. “You might want to take better care to lock up important things. And maybe don’t label your potions. It makes it very easy for someone to steal them.”

  “You broke into my room?” Thea asked.

  “No. I happen to be friends with your roommate. I can’t help it if she had to go to the bathroom, and I took the opportunity to go through your things. I never in a million years would have guessed you’d be into this stupid fake magic stuff. So lame. But then I got to thinking that maybe it worked after all. There are certain foods that are aphrodisiacs, and I knew that there was no way Logan would dump me to go for you, so it made sense that you must have drugged him into wanting you.”

  “So you stole my love potion and did what exactly?”

  “Spiked his favorite orange juice,” Sophia grinned and held up a carton of orange juice.

  Thea’s heart sank. All this time, when they both thought he hadn’t been taking the potion, he actually had been. Was it the only reason he was feeling something for her now? She wanted to cry again.

  “Except that’s Elise’s, not mine,” Logan said.

  “You didn’t drink out of it at all?” Thea asked. Her heart tottered on the edge of hope, ready to fall either way.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s a lie,” Sophia said. “I saw you drink it! You drank like three glasses of it that one day.”

  “When I was sick?” Logan said. “Yeah, when I have a cold, I’ll drink it, but that’s it. Elise drinks a glassful every morning. I can’t stand the stuff.”

  “So then…” Sophia looked at them both. “Are you saying Elise has been drinking the potion I put in here?”

  Thea shook her head and laughed. “Don’t you even know how it works? You idiot. I made the potion. It has my essence in it. So that means whoever drinks it falls in love with me. When did you steal it from me?”

  “After the first time Logan broke up with me,” Sophia said. “When he slept with your slutty ass.”

  Logan gasped and turned to Thea. “Think about that. It explains everything.”

  It took a minute for it to set in. “Elise is in love with me?”

  Logan nodded. “And she’s acting in extreme jealousy against me. Much like Sophia is now.”

  Sophia gritted her teeth and scowled. Her voice was small when she spoke again. “So if I gave Logan this potion, it wouldn’t make him love me?”

  “No,” Thea said. “It would make him love me. And besides, it’s just for fun anyway. There’s no such thing as magic.”

  She squeezed Logan’s hand. They may have said too much already. There was still a secret to be kept, and if Sophia thought the potion was real, it could cause trouble. She needed to think they were full of it.

  Logan reached out and took Sophia’s hand, stepping closer to her. He leaned down to whisper into her ear. Thea could barely hear, but she knew what he was doing. He was casting a mem
ory charm to make Sophia forget what had happened. Then he stepped back and took Thea’s hand as Sophia blinked at him.

  “I can’t believe you thought love potions were real,” he said. “It was just a joke.”

  Sophia glared at them.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, but I’ve known Thea for years. It took me a while to see my feelings for her, but now I know. I love her. I know you’ll find someone great who will love you.”

  “Whatever. You’re a jerk anyway.” Sophia pushed past him, shoving his shoulder hard as she went. She slammed the front door on her way out.

  “That was nuts,” Thea said.

  Several doors upstairs opened. Minutes later, everyone was in the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” Steven asked.

  “Just my jealous ex-girlfriend breaking in to poison me. I’m going to check everything in the fridge. If you have any food or drinks in your room, I’d check them.”

  “You’re a real ladies man,” Steven said.

  They all headed back upstairs to their rooms, but Logan reached out a hand to stop Elise.

  “One second,” he said. “This involves you, too.”

  When it was just the three of them, Logan lifted his hand in a sudden movement and cast a spell that hit Elise square in the chest.

  “What the hell was that for?” she asked.

  “You were drugged,” Logan said. “That spell undid the effects of the potion.”

  Elise looked from Thea to Logan. “What? By who?”

  “Sophia,” Thea said. “I made a love potion a while ago. She found it and didn’t know how it worked, so she spiked Logan’s drink, thinking it would make him love her again.”

  “Except that she didn’t know it doesn’t work like that,” Logan said. “And she spiked your orange juice.”

  “What?” Elise poured a glass of the juice and held her hand around the glass as she cast a spell to reveal magic. The juice glowed faintly. “What the hell?”

  “Yeah.” Thea sighed. “So it seems that all your recent anger over us being together was really only your jealousy toward me because you were in love with me.”

  Elise spun and pulled her eyebrows together. “That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t have feelings like that for you.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that,” Logan said. “It must work even if you have loving feelings that aren’t of a romantic nature. But that could be why you were angry instead of just all gaga in love with her. Your friendship type of love was even stronger than normal and it made you crazy with worry for her.”

  Elsie shook her head. “I guess this explains a lot. I wasn’t even sure why I was acting that way.” Then she gasped and put her hands to her mouth. “Oh, no. Logan.” She gripped his arms. “I did something horrible.”

  “What?”

  Elise dashed up the stairs and returned a moment later, holding his bottle of mouthwash. “I poisoned you.”

  “You what?” Logan snatched the bottle from her and cast a spell on it. “Oh. It wasn’t a deadly poison. Still. It would have made me really sick. Why would you poison me?”

  “Just to get back at you. I don’t know. It didn’t really make sense, I guess.”

  Thea put her hand to her stomach. She’d been using Logan’s mouthwash for weeks. She’d assumed her sickness was all just morning sickness. But maybe it was more.

  “Good thing I don’t use this stuff anymore.” Logan opened the cabinet and dropped the bottle in the trashcan.

  “You don’t?” Elise asked.

  “It makes my mouth burn,” he said. “So I stopped using it.”

  “But I didn’t,” Thea said.

  Logan’s head whipped toward her. “What?”

  “I’ve been using it for weeks.”

  His eyes widened and he went to her side, putting his arm around her. “It won’t kill you or anything, but…” He put his hand on her stomach. He looked at her and gulped.

  “It might hurt the baby?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  “The baby?” Elise asked.

  Thea nodded. “I didn’t want to tell you when you were so mad. I thought it would make things worse.”

  Elise stared at her with a horrified look etched into her face. “You’re pregnant. With my brother’s baby.”

  “Yes.” Thea put her hand over Logan’s. “Would that potion do anything?”

  “I’m not sure,” Elise said.

  Chapter Nine

  The three of them sat in the living room, huddled around Logan’s laptop. They’d been searching frantically in the shifter and witch secret forums to find an answer. So far they didn’t have anything concrete. It was too early to call their parents.

  Elise got up and started pacing. “I think we can wake them up for this. I mean, what if it did hurt the baby? We might need to act fast.” She put her hands on her face. “I can’t believe I did this. My own niece or nephew. My best friend’s baby. I’m horrible.”

  Thea got up and hugged her. “You were under the effects of the potion. We know you wouldn’t do anything like this otherwise. It’s why we were so concerned. You were acting completely out of character.”

  She shook her head. “No, but before the potion, I was upset about it. I did think—” she paused to look at Logan. “I thought you would hurt her. I really did. You never said anything about having feelings like that for her.”

  “Obviously.” He looked up from the computer for a moment. “Are you telling me that if I told you, you wouldn’t have told her?”

  “Not if you said not to,” Elise said.

  “Liar. You would have told her and I wasn’t ready to. But then, when I found out she gave me love potion and had feelings for me, there was no reason to hold back.”

  “You gave him a love potion?” Elise asked.

  Thea nodded. “That’s why I made it in the first place. That night of the party on Fifth, when you met Paul, and we slept together for the first time? And, apparently, made a baby. Well, earlier that day when we were all in the kitchen drinking coffee, I spiked his drink.”

  “But I barely drank any,” Logan said.

  “But you did drink plenty of alcohol later, which increased the effects,” Thea said.

  “But it wouldn’t have worked at all if I didn’t have real feelings for you, which I do.”

  Thea chuckled. “I’m not questioning you or your feelings.”

  “No, but Elise might.” He looked at her for a long minute.

  “No,” Elise said slowly. “I don’t think I do. I’ve seen how you are together. You are different with her.”

  Elise squeezed Thea in a tight hug and there were tears in her eyes. “I love you guys. I want you to be happy. And if you’re happy together, then that’s even better. I’d just hate to be stuck in the middle if you guys ever broke up.”

  “We are having a baby together,” Thea said. “That means we’ll be part of each other’s lives forever no matter what.”

  “And we’re in love, Elise,” Logan said. “We haven’t really discussed it yet, but we’ll probably get married someday. We’ll already have a family.”

  “Is that your proposal?” Thea asked, chuckling.

  “Not officially.” He pulled his mouth into a half smile. “I’m sure there’ll be a ring and all. Someday.”

  Thea grinned back at him.

  “I’m calling Mom and Dad,” Elise said. “It’s late enough. I don’t care if I wake them.”

  “Wait a minute.” Logan got to his feet and looked to Thea. “Are we going to tell them?”

  Thea bit her lip. “I guess we have to.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “They’ll all know eventually anyway, right?” Thea said. “In a few more months? I haven’t told my parents yet, but we’d have to soon.”

  Logan nodded. “Call them.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Logan!” Thea called out to him.

  “I’m right here.” He took her han
d and she squeezed tightly.

  “It hurts,” she said.

  “I know.” He kissed her forehead and smoothed the hair from her face. “You’re doing great. It’ll be over soon.”

  Elise came into the room. “The midwife is here.”

  “Hello, Thea,” the midwife said. “I’m just going to check your progress, okay?”

  Elise took her other hand and smiled at her. “All of our parents are here.”

  “Thanks,” Thea said.

  Elise squeezed her hand again before leaving the room.

  “Won’t be long now,” the midwife said.

  Logan bent down to kiss her again.

  Over the next few hours, he stayed by her side, holding her hand and helping her through her contractions. The midwife coached her in breathing, and when it was time to push, guided her through that part, too.

  “One more big push, Thea,” the midwife said.

  She gripped Logan’s hand tightly and pushed with all her strength. A shrill cry broke into the room and Thea sighed in relief.

  “It’s a girl!” the midwife said, and held up the crying baby. She placed her on Thea’s stomach and laid a blanket over her.

  Thea looked up at Logan, then down at the screaming baby. She looked mostly human but had several patches of purple scales on her arms, legs and stomach.

  Logan’s parents had explained to them all the reasons why they couldn’t have the baby in the hospital, and this was one of them. If she was a shifter, which she clearly was, then right from the start there would be signs. Over the next hours and days, the scales would fade and she’d appear to be a normal human for several years. But, sometime in toddlerhood, she’d start to understand and grow curious about her other nature, and she’d start to shift.

  For now, she looked perfect in every way, healthy and vibrant. The effects of Elise’s poisoning hadn’t hurt her at all, though Logan’s parents had also made a potion for Thea to drink to make sure the baby would be fine, and to help make the pregnancy and birth easier.

  Thea couldn’t get any pain drugs because she was having the baby in their home, but they had provided potions that did the trick.