The Transformed Box Set: Books 1, 2, 3, 3.5

by Stacy Claflin

  "That's so exciting!"

  "I know. I can't wait until we're on the throne. We'll make the time to figure out all of the secrets of these passages."

  "Why don't our parents know about them?"

  "They might," he said. "I've never asked. I would like to find out the history of them, but I love having them as our secret too much to say anything."

  I smiled.

  "This castle is very old. It's been here since long before the European humans discovered the continent. It's entirely possible that our parents have no clue about these passages. They may have been designed by the Fyrsturae and kept secret from everyone else."

  My eyes widened. If that were the case, Alrekur would know about them. He hadn't acted as though he recognized the castle when we'd arrived, but he didn't say that he'd never been there, either.

  "Are you alright, my princess?"

  I smiled. "Of course, my prince. I can't wait to explore these tunnels; they're so mysterious. Let's go see the gardens for now, though, before anyone misses us."

  He grabbed my hand and led me through many twists and turns. When we got to a certain wall, he pushed yet another tiny button and the wall slid open. The light was almost blinding because we were now looking outside. After our eyes had adjusted, we stepped outside into the fresh air. He closed the wall while I was looking around. "This way," he said, and led me around a corner to the entrance of the massive garden.

  I recognized it from my dreams, but it was a different entrance than we'd passed on our way in from the jet. "How big is the garden?"

  "It's actually a series of gardens," he said. "They wind around this whole side of the castle and about half of another side."

  "There must be a team of servants that only take care of the gardens," I said. "I've never seen any garden so impressive."

  "You're right about that," he said. "They've changed since you were here last, but I think you'll still recognize them."

  "I do. I already do."

  He smiled at me with a look of excitement and adoration. "I knew you would." We walked through the grounds, reveling in the beauty of it all. It was so romantic and sweet to stroll along without a care in the world. It brought back many dear memories from my childhood.

  After about ninety minutes, we exited the other end of the gardens. "Everything about this castle is so…." I searched for a word that would adequately express what I was trying to say.

  "Big?" he asked, laughing.

  I laughed with him. "Yes, big."

  "It's enormous," he said. "I've often wondered how long it took to build. In those days, it could have taken a decade or more to build a mansion. Twenty or thirty mansions could have fit into the castle alone. It's always been a dream of mine to be able to ask a Fyrsturae about not only the castle, but the grounds as well. So much thought went into everything, and there are always new things to discover. There are hidden cottages in the woods, and there must be treasures buried there too. I've always felt it and believed it to be true."

  "It would definitely be interesting to ask a Fyrsturae about this place," I said with pangs of guilt. I wanted to tell him everything, but I feared that it would end badly. What if Cliff wouldn't want to be with me after hearing about the true meaning of my mark?

  "Are you okay, my sweet?" he asked with a look of deep concern.

  I burst into tears. The thought of us not being together was too overwhelming.

  He wrapped his arms around me and stroked the top of my head as I cried into his shoulder.

  "I don't want to be apart from you again. Please don't go on those errands your parents have set up for you. They came to my room around the time that you left. Your mother dislikes me and wants to keep you away from me. She only wants you to become king. They called you here just to keep us apart. Then they arranged for you to be gone as soon as they found out that I was on my way to the castle."

  He pulled back, looking at me with his eyes ablaze. "This has gone too far. I'm sorry that you've had to deal with this. I thought that she was done. They may be my parents and my advisers, but I am an adult and it's time that I have an adult-to-adult conversation with them. They will respect us!"

  TWENTY SIX

  I was lounging on my bed, Skyping with Natalie. She said that our parents were beginning to have a change in heart about my travels. They kept saying how they didn't know how they had ever agreed to let me go so soon after being abducted.

  She knew enough about the vampires that she figured out everyone had been given false memories. She'd guessed correctly that I was with my natural family. I couldn't tell her much about my trip, but it was nice that I could at least talk about my other family to her.

  I felt bad about putting them through that, but I had to be at the castle. There was no getting around that, nor was there any way of explaining that to them, either.

  There was a knock on my door. I told Natalie that I had to go, and I closed my browser.

  The same servant as earlier walked in and gave me a little bow. "Rekur is requesting your presence in the sitting room in the Northeast wing."

  I sighed. "Give me a minute, and I'll be ready to meet Rekur."

  She gave me another small bow and walked out of the room. I put my laptop in a drawer, locked it, and then ran a brush through my hair.

  The servant was waiting for me in the hall. "To the Northeast wing," she said and started walking. Gracie and I followed her in silence through yet another part of the castle that I hadn't seen. It was like a maze of halls and rooms. Every room was filled with expensive treasures: artwork, intricately patterned rugs, chandeliers, furniture, and much more.

  Just when I thought that my leg might cramp from the walking, we entered a room full of more ornate couches and chairs. The servant bowed once more and extended an arm to the back corner of the room where I saw Alrekur sitting. He was looking out a window and didn't appear to have noticed our arrival. I nodded to the servant and walked to the sofa across from Alrekur and sat down.

  He continued to stare out the window for a few minutes. Then, he looked over at me and appeared startled by my presence. "This wing was mine," he said, as if still deep in thought. "I designed it and spent a great many hours decorating it."

  "It's beautiful," I said. "The entire castle is very impressive."

  "Each wing once belonged to a Fyrsturae, even though it was rare for all of us to be here at the same time. Now the wings are only named for their location. There's even a wing that was designed for you. We thought that the tenth Fyrsturae would have arrived three thousand years ago."

  "Wouldn't it be expected that we would share a wing? Given the true meaning of the Sonnast?" I asked.

  "We knew that there were supposed to be ten of us and we knew what the Sonnast meant. We didn't know that one of us would be the Sonnast. The prophets never made that connection."

  "I see. Do you feel like you're home? Is this the place that you consider your home?"

  He nodded. "We built this castle to be our central residence. We have mansions and castles all over the world, but none so impressive as this one."

  "I believe it," I said.

  "We all wanted only the best," he said. "We couldn't agree on what that was, so we decided we would design our own wings, each big enough in and of itself to be its own castle."

  "Did you and the others disagree a lot?"

  "Just like any other siblings, we argued. We also fought to the death against others in defense of each other."

  "But you killed Halldor," I said.

  "Halldor and Dagur," he corrected.

  "What did they do to you?"

  He crossed his arms. "I don't want to talk about them right now. I can tell you about what happened another time."

  "Why did you call for me?" I asked.

  "You're my Sonnast and you spent the entire afternoon pretending to be engaged to my enemy's offspring. One would think that you two really are in love. You're very convincing." He said, looking into my eyes.

&
nbsp; I considered telling him the truth, but feared for Cliff's safety. "We've been best friends since the day I was born," I told him. That much was true.

  "I spent the afternoon looking into some other matters. His parents are second in command only because they were the only ones who had a son available to become prince. Before you were born, they weren't second in command. It wasn't until your parents had you. Did you know that?"

  I shook my head. "I assumed that they had been in their position for many centuries."

  "They'd like everyone to believe that, no doubt. That woman is as devious as Halldor himself; she'll stop at nothing to get what she wants. I believe they paid off a prophet to declare what they wanted him to. I'll need more time to prove it, but that would be enough to get them out of the castle."

  My mouth nearly dropped open, but I kept it closed. Was the prophecy about Cliff and I really fake? It couldn't be! I recovered quickly and said, "That wouldn't surprise me at all. She's gone behind my parents' backs to threaten me multiple times. Wouldn't we just have to wait for my parents to give you…their blessing and then the Montgomery's would be out of here anyway?" I would have loved to get Cliff's parents away from the castle, but I had to stall in order to keep Cliff there!

  "Yes, they'll definitely be gone then. I'll escort them off the property myself." We sat in silence for a little while. He looked outside again. Something kept his attention.

  "What's out there that has you so interested?" I asked.

  "The view has changed so much. Those gardens were very different when I was last here. I'm not exactly complaining. I'm glad that someone has tended to them all these centuries. It's just that everything is so different. Have you ever woken up one day to find that everything in your life has changed from the way it was the day before? That's what it feels like. I am aware that it has been a thousand years, but to me, it was only a nap and now nothing is the same." He looked so sad.

  "I have actually experienced that. Not waking up a thousand years later, but everything changing practically overnight. My parents hid me among the humans to keep everyone believing that I was dead so they could search for you without interference. I spent most of my childhood believing that I was human. I never had any reason to believe that my human family wasn't my real family until I started going through my transition. Then, when I found out that I was turning into a vampire, my whole world turned upside down. I thought any mention of vampires was a fairy tale until that day."

  "Those faeries do come up with some strange tales at times. Do you mean that you didn't think that vampires really existed?"

  "Yes. Today's humans don't believe in anything magical. That's how I came to forget about my early years growing up here in the castle. Once I was with the humans, they told me that it wasn't real. Eventually, I came to believe them. When I found out that I was turning into a vampire, I had a hard time accepting it. Not only that, but I had so much to learn, because the human stories about vampires are so far off."

  "What was your life like when you lived among the humans?"

  I shrugged. "It wasn't anything spectacular. I loved learning and I focused on my studies more than anything else."

  "Didn't you fall in love? I find it odd that you'd make it to seventeen unmarried."

  I smiled. "People don't get married young anymore. Well, not usually. People usually get married when they're in their twenties or thirties."

  His eyes grew large. "That really is unusual. What do they do with themselves in the meantime?"

  "They have fun, and they build their careers. They grow up."

  "They grow up? In their twenties and thirties?"

  "I've heard it called an extended adolescence. People just want to have fun as long as possible. Not many want to jump into the responsibilities of marriage and a family when they're teenagers or even in their early twenties."

  "You didn't answer my question. Did you ever fall in love with a human?"

  He didn't ask about a vampire! I started talking before I had thought about what I was saying. "There was one human."

  His face became serious. "Tell me about this one human."

  The image of Tanner kissing Hailey and then glaring at me popped into my mind. "There really wasn't anything special about him. I was depressed and overwhelmed; he was being nice to me so I fell for him." I shrugged my shoulders.

  He was looking intently at my face. "You say there's nothing special about him, but it seems to me that you feel otherwise. He angered you. Was it another woman?"

  My mouth dropped open. "How, what…how did you—"

  He scowled. "I knew it. You love the human. How did I know that it was another woman? Because he's a typical scoundrel. That's what they do."

  "I want nothing to do with the human, so you have nothing to worry about."

  "Typical woman," he said, rolling his eyes. "You say one thing, but clearly mean another."

  I gasped. "How dare you! You have a lot to learn about society today. You can't go around talking like that. Women are men's equals now."

  "I called that human a typical scoundrel and you had no issue there. But, I called you a typical woman and you're all puffed up. Like I said: typical woman."

  I stood up and put my hands on my hips. "You know, if you're trying to win me over, you're going to have to find a new method!"

  He laughed.

  "You find this funny?" I demanded.

  "You're the Sonnast, darling. You'll end up with me whether you like it or not."

  "Don't be so sure of yourself!"

  "I do like my women fiery. You're full of fire." He smiled.

  "You're infuriating! I should have never pulled that stake out of you."

  "Ah, but you did."

  "That was my mistake!"

  "You're definitely a Fyrsturae," he said, looking amused.

  "What are you talking about?" I demanded.

  "Your eyes." He got up and stood inches from me.

  "What about my eyes?"

  "Our eyes become much redder than those of any other vampire. Even our children's eyes don't compare at all. There's no hiding a Fyrsturae, our eyes give us away."

  I remembered that when I had first been exposed to blood, Cliff, Steve and even Tanner had all said that they'd never seen eyes so red. Cliff and Steve had been dumbfounded at the time and couldn't figure out what it meant.

  "You know that I speak the truth," he said, still looking amused.

  I glared at him. How was he able to read me so easily?

  He smiled, grabbed my chin and kissed me. My eyes opened wide with shock, but then I was overcome with electricity that ran through me. It reminded me of when our hands had touched in the cave, when he had taken the stake from me. I put my hands on his chest to push him away, but then I was met with even stronger electricity. I wanted to kiss him back, but thought of Cliff and refused.

  He stood back and smiled. "That, you can't deny. You can feel it, and you know there's something there."

  I just stared at him, unable to get out even a hint of a sound.

  "You can go back to whatever you were doing, Sonnast. Servant!"

  A few seconds later, a servant entered the room and escorted me out of the wing. When we reached a part of the castle that I recognized, I asked, "Can you take me to the dungeon?"

  "What do you want to do there?" he asked, surprised.

  "There is someone that I want to see."

  "I will take you there if that's what you wish," he said.

  I nodded. He led me through yet another part of the castle that I did not recognize. We descended some creepy stairs and arrived in a dark area; it reminded me very much of the place where Adam had held me when I'd been abducted, only this was much darker. There were several thick doors locked up tight and halls going in all directions.

  "How many prison rooms are there?" I whispered.

  "More than I've ever cared to count, Miss. Would you like me to take you to see someone in particular?"

  I nodded. "Please
take me to see Mattie."

  "You wish to see Mattie?" He asked. He looked surprised at my request, but then started walking down the hall when I nodded. He found a servant sitting, bored, at a desk. "M'lady wishes to see Mattie."

  The other servant looked just as surprised by my request. But he got up and led us to a door, pulled a key from a very large chain full of other keys, and then opened the door slowly. "Mattie, you have a visitor. There are several of us waiting out here, so don't try anything."

  My heart sank. Was I making the right decision to visit her?

  "You may go in," the servant said.

  I gulped and walked in the tiny, dark room. I looked around and saw someone lying in a corner of the cold stone room. "Mattie?"

  She looked up at me. Her face and clothes were caked in dirt and her hair was a wild mess. "Who are you?" she asked with disdain.

  "Mattie, I'm…Marguerite."

  Her eyes widened and her face softened. "Marguerite? You're back. Wait. Are you here to hurt me?"

  "No, Mattie. I mean you no harm. I just wanted to see you."

  She didn't look convinced.

  I stepped closer. "I remember you vividly, Mattie. You used to take very good care of me, and you spared my life when your family had been threatened."

  "It was all an act."

  "What was?"

  "Your parents. Have they told you yet that they were behind all of this? It was all their idea. They even knew that I wouldn't have had you killed. They used me. I did what they wanted and sent you to humans that I knew would keep you safe. And yet, they still sent me here. All to keep up the image that they hadn't been behind it."

  "I want to find a way to get you out of here," I said. "I don't know much about how the castle works, but I doubt that I could just walk out with you."

  "Don't expect any help from your parents. They want to keep me down here."

  "They're going to be exposing some even more surprising truths soon. I'm sure that along with those changes, they would be willing to let you go."

  "Are they going to tell everyone what they really are?"