Property of the Vampyren Prince

by Seth Eden

  "Then why should you be rewarded? I believe you were even subject to disciplinary action within the last moon turn."

  Kiera mentally made note of that. Maybe Loren was a loose cannon or a weak link in the chain of killers. Maybe she could use him somehow. Maybe – but he was going on again.

  "I may be far from the throne – "

  It must have been an old argument, like Kate's repeated attempts to convince their parents to let her get a dog. The council leader seemed to sigh. "You are."

  Loren drew himself up, standing more proudly. "And yet, I am a Vampyren prince." He watched the council leader, clearly expecting something.

  Tilting her head, Kiera watched as the leader slowly and grudgingly inclined his head in acknowledgement. "That is not, however, sufficient to grant you your request. Do you have further argument?" His tone was dismissive. He was preparing to end their audience with the council.

  "I left a mate at home," Loren said plainly.

  Kiera was surprised by a small twist there. Sympathy? Jealousy? Either meant she should get her head examined. If it were only a good time to be contemplating therapy.

  "I see." The leader considered. Something about his voice sounded old to Kiera, though he looked no different than the other invaders.

  Give away that secret to Hollywood and the rest of the world, and they wouldn't have to be invaders – Earth would welcome them with open arms.

  "Were you prepared to breed?"

  Something about the way Loren hesitated made Kiera apprehensive. Heart pounding, she waited for his answer.

  When it came, she didn't think it was what he had wanted to say.

  "No. We were not. She had service to fulfill."

  "Then she goes to the crèche. You may be one of the ones to breed her. If you so choose." The leader had already looked away again and this time when he looked back, there was nothing in his face that Kiera could understand. He was alien, dark, swarthy, with full beard and those weirdly gold eyes, beautiful as the others but somehow all the more malignant.

  "Go, now." His voice was utterly cold and all the more frightening for its alien lack of emotion.

  "Before I have her for dinner."

  He was the one to lead her out. She now understood from what the council had said that his name was Loren Vassilynt and apparently he had some kind of pull with the council, enough, anyway that they listened to him and didn't send him packing the minute he asked for something other than whatever the party line was.

  That information wasn't anywhere near enough to keep her from trembling with fear. All her life she'd longed for over when it came to things that were terrifying. Raised by active, vocal parents, older than her brother by two years and her sister by seven, she was fairly confident anyway, but faced the normal terrors of life: Like book reports and her first and only track meet where she learned that loving to run didn't equate at all with having people cheering and jeering at her as she did so.

  Those events, though, standing in front of a class to speak or running in front of a crowd when what she wanted to do was run away from them, those had taught her that for Kiera, the time before something she dreaded wasn't useful. She wasn't someone who could put things off or, rather, she could, if she had the ability, but there was no comfort in it: She spent the entire time dreading what was to come.

  Only now, the only thing left to her was dread. Dread of the crèche. Dread of actually being touched by Loren Vassilynt, whether or not he was using pheromones to pave the way.

  Whether or not she found him lust-worthy without pheromones.

  And dread of whatever Vampyren might come to her in the crèche. She doubted that once she was marked as potential for child-bearing that he'd be able to simply claim her and leave her to collect later.

  What the council had just done was make her into a breeding whore. Available, possibly, for whoever came first. She'd be well treated by Vampyren standards once she was pregnant – well fed, cared for medically, allowed to exercise or possibly forced to.

  But she hadn't even been thinking of having a child yet. She was scared of the idea. Scared of the idea of being dumped into what had to be a horrifyingly competitive and vicious mass of females all of whom found themselves in the same horrible place: Her worth had just been determined by her ability, potentially, to get pregnant and carry an alien child to term.

  Her body had just become the thing that protected the lives of her mother, father, sister and brother and possibly her best friends. That was her worth in this new world, and though she might be headed for a crèche, she was, to some extent, going there as Loren Vassilynt’s, because she thought she understood he had some kind of rank and privilege above the others.

  Basically, she'd just been bought by a Vampyren prince.

  Kiera

  He hadn't won the right to be the one to take her to the crèche. But he did find a way to accompany her, maybe simply by the fact that he outranked all the guards taking her there. It was a silent group of four of them, two guards, Loren and Kiera, waiting for a downward elevator, something so prosaic as to be surreal.

  She hoped the crèche would be somewhere off the property they were already at. Any place where she had a chance to slip away. She didn't think they'd go after her family then. Her being sent here was to keep them safe, but Kiera was willing to risk getting away because she didn't think the crèche would be informed of that. The Council had made its decision and that kept them from hurting her. Past that, she was breeding stock. She didn't think one cow would be singled out in a dairy farm.

  The comparison wasn't quite accurate but it still made her want to spit. The idea of keeping her family safe by allowing herself to be pimped out. More than that, really. Bred. Like an animal.

  Idiotic then, that she kept sneaking glances over at Loren, blushing when she'd find him looking and accidentally catch his eye. She was acting like she was back in high school, like the time she developed a crush on a football player every single one of her friends said was bad news.

  That hadn't come to anything. This had.

  And if she was to be bred, if the Council had put her up for grabs, then maybe Loren first…

  Her mind snapped back into clarity. She had no intention of making the trip to the crèche. Something had to distract the attention of the guards, maybe even Loren himself. So far he'd surprised her repeatedly. Maybe he could do it again.

  And as for her family, like she'd been thinking before her thoughts had wandered off into a lustful muddle, the crèche undoubtedly didn't have a purchase order, she thought bitterly. They probably just ho-hummed and accepted new girls, tossed them into the pool of flesh which in her dazed and overwhelmed mind, looked exactly like that – a hotel swimming pool full of nearly naked women struggling to keep their heads above water. Or each other.

  If she ran, the crèche would never know.

  Neither would the Council, now she was off the table, so to speak. The only one who would know would be Loren, who would have to help her if she was going to get away.

  Only there was one glaring flaw in the plan. Sav. Loren's brother. He was bigger, darker, meaner, his beard more full and to Kiera, who wasn't big on beards, more threatening. He wasn't going to forget her or that she was being taken to the crèche. She imagined he was even now waiting for the end of his shift or whatever it was Vampyren did before their free time started up.

  He would come for her.

  She shivered. She had no doubt he would hurt her. Maybe he couldn't kill her, but he didn't have to touch her gently.

  The guards stood on either side of the doors at the front of the elevator as it descended. Loren stood to her left, holding her arm in a tight grip. With the guards standing in front of the panels, she couldn't see the floors light up and the display over the door had burned out or been dismantled for whatever reason. But the elevator went down and down, dropping until she shivered with anticipation. When they opened, there would be the glass and steel lobby of the building and beyond
the banks of windows, the snow-covered city. She could almost taste the bite of cold air.

  But when the elevator doors opened she faced a floor of office building replete with banks of hallways and doors to offices, some open, some closed. And in the center, facing the elevator, what would have once been a typing pool, a sort of bullpen but now full of women, some as scantily dressed as her imagination had conjured up. It was blisteringly hot for someone still dressed in Chicago winter outdoor wear.

  Of course it was. Vampyren males came here and took off at least some of their clothes. Their comfort would be important. And moreover, the women stuck here would dress in less and less as they sought anything to cool down.

  The heat felt like a slap in the face. Like proof of what had happened to her. The crèche was not off-property, there would be no chance to run, and Kiera was pretty certain she had just been delivered to Hell.

  "I'll come back," Loren said in a low voice, standing a distance from the guards who remained at the elevator. There was a stairway, but it was probably either locked or guarded at the bottom and top floor exits. There was nowhere else to go.

  She saw a wizened woman standing nearby waiting, her face a mask of wrinkles but her body hard with muscle even if she was older. So someone had known she was coming.

  Everything she'd hoped hadn't come to pass. Everything she had dreaded, had.

  Not true. My family is safe.

  So they said. Why was she taking the word of the alien invaders?

  Because she had nothing else.

  Loren had pulled her aside and now he repeated himself. "I know you don't care. But this is the best I could do. Believe me – " He stopped as if realizing that probably wasn't an option, cleared his throat and said, "Mahn? The leader of the Council? He's dangerous."

  "You all are!" she spat.

  She wanted to hit him. The urge to batter his face, to kick and claw, rose hard. At the same time, she identified it as the same force that had been behind her dropping out of college and ending up an unemployed waitress before the invaders had come.

  When the going got tough, she didn't just run, she often made certain that she identified every other course of action she could take, and systematically destroyed them so she didn't have to deal with almost being successful, almost surviving whatever it was, and knowing that she hadn’t.

  If she sent him away, if she made him her enemy, he might rape her but then he'd be done with her and she wouldn't have to hope.

  Hope, she'd discovered long ago in her own twisted, scared world, was often far more terrifying than its opposite.

  Loren, meanwhile, only nodded at her words. "Generally an invasion of sweet talking and gentle beings fails fairly quickly."

  He said it so straight faced it took a second before she began to giggle. He'd made a joke! The big strong, everyone-of-them-an-alpha Vampyren male had made a joke.

  She laughed because she couldn't stop herself, and his expression didn't change from menacing space vampire – except for one corner of his mouth. Which twitched.

  When she subsided, he leaned in close again. "I'd wanted to keep you with me. I know that's not a comfort to you, but I won't hurt you. I admire your courage. But while you're here it won't serve you well. Survive, Kiera. This is not your story forever."

  It would be if she became pregnant.

  It would be until she became pregnant.

  For someone who prided herself on taking care of herself and on being independent, it was every bit of horrifying and every bit forever.

  He leaned down and stroked her hair one more time and Kiera felt the wash of flowers like something in her blood. There was no way to stop herself leaning into his touch, or leaning after him as he joined the guards and went away.

  The older woman came toward her. When she was close enough she took Kiera's arm, the way apparently everyone was meant to do. "I'm Marybeth. Matron of this crèche. Come with me and we'll get the intake exam taken care of and – "

  Kiera instantly pulled away from her, yanking her arm free and taking several giant steps backwards. "You're not going to touch me!" Bile rose in her throat.

  Instantly women behind her had hold of her, by the arms, by her hair, there had to be three or four of them, and the matron was moving up close again.

  Kiera didn't think. She heaved herself up against the arms holding her and kicked the older woman, getting her in the face but with less force than she'd attended, because Marybeth was already backing off.

  "It's all right!" she snapped at the women who held Kiera. "Let her go. Let her go!"

  The hands fell away from her. Kiera turned fast but she couldn't tell which of them had snarled a fist in her hair. It had hurt. She owed whoever it was a good hair pulling.

  The older woman ran a hand over her face. "I'm not going to touch you." She held up a device like they used on Star Trek for medical and scientific scans, only she thought this one probably worked. Vampyren technology, then, because she didn't think humans had anything like it. "I'm just going to scan you."

  Kiera jerked her head angrily to indicate the world beyond this prison. "The assholes already did. That's how I ended up here."

  Marybeth nodded tiredly. "Yes. I scan for more. I won't touch you. Just need a few key facts." The machine hummed as she waved it around Kiera who stood tense, every muscle fighting back against a touch that truly didn't come. "But if you'll take a piece of advice without literally trying to take my head off?"

  Kiera was surprised to find herself blushing. She nodded, mouth closed tightly.

  "Two things. First, we have classes late at night, dawn, really, when the Vampyren don't come often, teaching us the metaphysics of soul and body, divine and flesh."

  Kiera blinked. "Why?"

  The older woman nodded, as if finding Kiera and her question reasonable. "Because they will come for you and they will fuck you and breed you, and the more you can divorce yourself from the idea that your body is yourself and not your spirit, the better your mind will hold together."

  Kiera shuddered again and swallowed down rising nausea.

  "Learn as fast as you can to get past the embarrassment and humiliation and outrage at what's happening to your body. Exist in your mind and spirit. That way, neither will break."

  They were already breaking, Kiera thought, and her heart as well. But all she said was, "And the other thing?" Hoping she hadn't just heard both.

  "Be careful of the other girls in here. This is like being thrown into a beauty pageant with no way out and the crown doesn't mean scholarship and it doesn't mean money.

  "The crown means, you get to live."

  A girl named Lily took her to one of the offices decked out with beds. "We sleep four to an office," she said, and plopped down on one of the beds that was sprinkled with stuffed animals. She had long, almost white blond hair, done up in ponytails, a sweet face and enormous boobs that were somehow perky even under the t-shirt she wore. "It's friendlier."

  "And safer?" Kiera asked but Lily shook her head.

  "There's no safe here. Most of them are – " She started like she meant to say something comforting and gave up. "Actually, a lot of them are mean. Some on purpose and some because they're just so fucking big." She cut side eyes at Kiera. "You know what I mean? It hurts even if they try not to."

  Kiera nodded. "Who else is in this room? Are they nice?"

  "Kind of. There's Michelle, she's tall and has dark hair and the tattoo of a butterfly on her neck. And there's Davida, she's African American and could probably hold her own against a vampire, but she's scared." She took a breath and looked thoughtful for a second. "I'm scared of the vampires, too."

  Probably anyone who said they weren't afraid of the Vampyren was either lying or psychotic, but Kiera didn't say that. She didn't say anything. She just pointed at one of the two beds that looked open and when Lily nodded, chose it. "How do things work here?"

  Lily's eyes opened very wide for a second, making Kiera blink, then she blushed hard
and said, "You're not asking how – " and trailed off.

  "No. I know that how. But the Vampyren – do they come in and take a number? Is there a room where you go? Or does everyone just – " Because surely there was more civilized behavior than that.

  Lily didn't back up her hope, though. "Depends on the Vamp. Some just go for it, but most girls will leave the room." She sat down on the bed with her hands under her thighs, then squirmed around instead and reached for a stuffed panda.

  "Most?" Kiera asked.

  "I'd warn you who to avoid," Lily said. "But it would take too long. Probably humans will have taken the planet back before I finished."

  Kiera considered that. She hadn't known that many bitchy females in her life but that didn't mean they didn't exist and this was a situation where anyone would want to watch her own back and look out for her and hers first.

  So instead she said, "You think we're going to get the planet back?" and got a funny look from Lily.

  "Of course so. Don't you?"

  She didn't know. But the thought was out of her head before the dinner hour was called. They fixed their own, a list of chores up on the white board in the kitchen area and Kiera's name at the bottom, there for cleaning the bathrooms.

  She'd forgotten how much fun it was to be the new girl.

  She opted to clean them before dinner, and to shower, which meant she ate with wet hair, already back in the clothes she'd been wearing. There must be access to other clothes. She'd learn all that sort of thing later.

  She ate with Lily, Michelle and Davida, trying to adjust to the idea of having roommates again for the first time since college. After dinner, Davida went off for dish chores and Michelle went off to watch some show she wanted to see, though Kiera saw her blocked before she got to their room, a broad, scarred Vampyren appearing and taking her hand. She seemed to go willingly.

  Kiera went into one of the common areas, wondering if there were books anywhere and if her phone would have enough reception to try and reach her family. After the invaders came, cells became largely good for holding down piles of paper or throwing at people or using as a timepiece. Otherwise, they were useless.