The Vampire Wish: The Complete Series (Dark World)

by Michelle Madow

  I was speechless, shocked by his confession. It didn’t add up. If what he’d said about me to Laila and Camelia had been true—about how he’d been toying with me and would have eventually killed me—then why was he saying all this now?

  He was either lying to them, or he was lying to me.

  From the intensity burning in his eyes as he spoke, every bone in my body told me that right now, he was telling the truth.

  Annika

  “Well?” he said. “I meant it when I told you that if you wanted to leave now, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” I said, this time meaning it for completely different reasons than before. “I want to stay. If you’re serious about wanting to help the humans, then I want to help.”

  Of course, I highly doubted that his idea of helping the humans meant figuring out a way to kill the vampire queen, but I was beginning to get the feeling that Prince Jacen and I might not be on such different sides as I originally thought.

  Or was I just falling for him—again—and trying to convince myself that he was the person I originally believed him to be?

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “And like I said, I want you to be my chosen princess. But Queen Laila won’t allow that without proof of the Seventh Kingdom’s existence.”

  “This is your choice,” I pointed out. “Not Queen Laila’s.”

  “You clearly don’t know Queen Laila.” He chuckled. “She may look innocent, but she has centuries on both of us. If I went against her so blatantly, she would kill me in my sleep and not blink an eye.”

  “I thought you wanted her to kill you?” I asked. “You said earlier that you would have welcomed it if she had.”

  “That was then,” he said. “This is now. Things have changed.”

  “You’re so sure that none of the other princesses would help your cause?” I asked, still confused about why he’d eliminated them so quickly.

  “Not entirely,” he admitted. “But their main concern would have been fighting off the wolves.”

  “And that isn’t your main concern?” I asked. “It sure seemed like it when you fought them in the square.”

  “The wolves are certainly a concern,” he said. “They murdered innocents—that can’t be ignored. But I don’t believe that waging war with them is necessarily the best approach.”

  “What do you believe is the best approach?” I asked.

  “Talking to them,” he said simply.

  “I thought that wolves couldn’t be reasoned with?” I asked, since that was what everyone said. I’d also seen them firsthand enough times to know that they attacked without hesitation.

  The only time they’d hesitated was when that wolf had stopped before attacking me in the square. It had to have been because he’d been caught off-guard by my human scent—it didn’t mean that the wolves weren’t killers.

  “So they say,” he said. “But centuries ago, when Laila first came to this land, she reasoned with them enough to sign the treaty that allowed her and her kingdom to live inside the agreed upon boundary in peace. If the wolves could reach an agreement with vampires all those years ago, who’s to say they can’t do the same now?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Everything I’ve seen from them has been violence. But if it’s possible to reason with them, you should definitely try.”

  “I knew you would agree with me.” He smiled, and my heart leaped at the way he was looking at me—full of respect and admiration. And something else… I almost wanted to call it love, but that was impossible. He didn’t know me well enough to love me.

  “So that’s why you kept me here?” I asked. “To help give the humans back their rights and to support your quest to reason with the wolves?”

  “There’s also another reason why I want to choose you.” His eyes turned serious, and I braced myself for whatever was coming.

  “Why?” I asked, unsure of what it could possibly be.

  “Because you remind me of someone I once knew.” He glanced out the window that looked out toward town, his eyes distant. “Someone I could have fallen in love with, if she hadn’t died so soon.”

  “Someone from back when you were a human?” I held my breath, since he had to be talking about someone he’d known from before.

  He couldn’t be talking about me—the human version of me.

  Could he?

  “No,” he said. “Someone I met fairly recently, actually. A human from the village. She was spunky and fiery, and getting to know her made me realize that brooding around the palace because I’d been turned into a vampire was pointless. She was defiant—she even wore wormwood to protect herself, despite it being illegal for humans to do so. She made me want to create change in the kingdom. When I learned that the guards were coming for her to bring her to the dungeons, I knew I couldn’t let that happen. So I helped her escape.”

  I froze, stunned into silence. He was talking about me.

  After seeing how unaffected Jacen had been after learning I was dead, I’d thought his caring for me had all been an act.

  But from what he was saying now, it hadn’t been.

  “You seem surprised,” he said. “After I saw you helping the humans in the square, I thought you would like that I’d tried to help a human escape the Vale. If I was wrong, I meant you no offense.”

  “None taken,” I somehow managed to say. My voice didn’t sound like my own. It felt like I was watching all of this from above—like I wasn’t actually here.

  Until tonight, I hadn’t thought Jacen had truly cared about me when I’d been Annika. Yet here he was, saying the exact opposite.

  How could I have been so wrong?

  Maybe he wasn’t talking about me? After all, I hadn’t been wearing wormwood. I never would have done anything so stupid. Yes, I’d stolen forbidden food, but that helped the others in the Tavern. Wearing wormwood would have helped nothing.

  It seemed unlikely he was referring to anyone else, but the prince had sneaked out the palace and pretended to be human. Who was to say he didn’t do it often? Who was to say he hadn’t played this trick on others?

  There was only one way to find out—I needed to learn more.

  “How did you know this girl was wearing wormwood?” I asked.

  “I tried to compel her to forget we ever met,” he said. “My compulsion had no effect on her. As you know, the only way a human can resist compulsion is by wearing wormwood.”

  The memory hit me suddenly—of Jacen and I standing together in the attic of the Tavern, and his telling me to forget that we’d ever met. At the time, I’d thought he was a human. His trying to use compulsion on me hadn’t seemed like a possibility—after all, only vampire royalty could use compulsion, not humans. Not like I would have known what it looked like when a vampire used compulsion, since I was only a lowly blood slave. I’d never been close enough to vampire royalty for them to notice me, let alone use compulsion on me.

  Now it was all adding up.

  Jacen had tried to compel me to forget him.

  It hadn’t worked on me.

  I might have thought he simply hadn’t mastered his compulsion yet, but he’d compelled those guards in the alley when he told them to let us go. Compelling vampires was harder than compelling humans.

  The compulsion should have worked on me.

  Why hadn’t it?

  Perhaps I was getting ahead of myself. I might just be seeing what I wanted. This human he was talking about could be someone else.

  I needed to find out the truth once and for all.

  “Does this human have a name?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “Her name was Annika.”

  I shivered as my name—my true name—left his lips.

  I never thought I would hear him say my name again.

  But why hadn’t I been able to be compelled? I knew I hadn’t been wearing wormwood. Something wasn’t adding up.

  That was something for me to figure out another day.
Perhaps the answer would be in a book. Right now I needed to hear more of our story—from his perspective. What had made him say those awful things about me once he thought I was dead?

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked him.

  “Because I know you also want to help the humans,” he said. “I saw it when you saved their lives in the square. I want you to trust me, and telling you this story is the only way I can prove I’m on your side.”

  “Tell me more,” I said, still unable to believe this was happening. “You said you helped her escape. What happened from there?”

  “I gave her some of my blood so she could keep up with me and survive the cold, and sneaked her out of the Vale,” he continued. “We barely made it beyond the boundary before we were attacked by wolves. We held our own in the fight, but the commotion brought Camelia and the vampire guards straight to us. They’d come armed with wormwood, and despite us fighting them as well, they sedated both of us. By the time I came to, I learned that Annika was dead. She’d been ordered to be drained dry by vampires. Camelia claimed she was killed as an example to the humans—apparently she’d been stealing food from vampires, which was why she’d been wanted in the first place—but I knew better. They’d killed her because they thought she was my weakness. And they were right. At the sight of her corpse, I wanted to take out my anger on everyone in that room. But that would have gotten me nowhere. Instead, I decided I would do everything I could to fight for the rights of the humans in the village. So much needs to be changed in the Vale, and I want to create that change. But if I wanted that sort of power, I also needed freedom. So I pretended I didn’t care that Annika had been murdered. I acted nonchalant about it and told Laila that I was ready to meet the princesses from the other kingdoms so we could form an alliance—an alliance meant to help us stand strong against the wolves. At least, that was why they wanted the alliance. I wanted to find a princess who would help me further my cause. I’ve found that in you.”

  My heart was beating so quickly that I was sure he must hear it. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I could barely breathe.

  This was what I’d wanted, but at the same time it was devastating. Because all of this lying about who I was… none of it had been necessary. If I’d known Jacen’s perspective from the start, I would have gone about this completely differently. We were closer to the same side than I’d ever believed possible. I doubted he wanted to kill Queen Laila and take down the Vale completely—that goal was something I would have had to keep to myself no matter what—but he believed the humans deserved rights, just like I did.

  I should have told him I was alive from the start.

  Now, I’d been lying to him for so long that there was no way out of this hole I’d dug myself in. I’d lied about who I was, and what I was. I’d lied about the existence of an entire kingdom! I was so deep in the web of lies that sometimes I wasn’t sure what was true or not anymore.

  If I told him the truth now, how would he ever be able to forgive me?

  He wouldn’t be able to. Even worse, he would probably hate me if he found out how much I’d deceived him. I hated myself for lying so much, and I was the one who had done it.

  Yet, he wanted to marry me—as Ana. He wanted to marry an imposter princess from a kingdom that didn’t exist.

  I was stuck between two impossible decisions.

  Tell the truth and lose Jacen forever, or marry Jacen but live a lie.

  I didn’t want either of those. What I wanted was to go back in time and stop myself from getting into this disaster in the first place. But that was impossible—time travel was beyond the limits of Geneva’s powers.

  I was stuck in this awful mess I’d created. Because even if I continued along as Princess Ana, it was impossible to prove the existence of the Seventh Kingdom. Jacen wouldn’t even be allowed to marry me.

  I would have to figure out a way to kill Laila before being eliminated from Jacen’s selection process and asked to leave the kingdom forever.

  “You can trust me,” Jacen said, clearly unaware of the hurricane of thoughts storming through my mind. “Someone inside the boundary is working with the wolves. If it’s you, I won’t turn you in. I want to work with you and the wolves—or at least speak with their leader so we can try to reach an agreement.”

  “I’m not working with the wolves,” I told him, since at least, amongst all of my lies, that was the truth.

  “You don’t trust me.” He sighed. “I suppose I can understand that.”

  “I do trust you,” I said. “But I’m truly not working with the wolves.”

  “How about a blood oath?” he asked. “If you get me in contact with the leader of the wolves, I promise I won’t tell anyone about your connection with them.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said, desperate for him to believe me. “I would if I could, but the only contact I’ve ever had with the wolves was when they attacked the square.”

  And a few other times as Annika—but obviously I couldn’t say that.

  “I had nothing to do with them getting inside the Vale,” I added. “I swear it.”

  “Okay.” He looked at me skeptically. “I know I just threw a lot at you at once. If you have any questions for me, I hope you know you’re free to ask. Nothing we discuss will ever leave this room. I promise.”

  There was so much I wanted to tell him—he had no idea how much.

  Maybe I should come clean about everything.

  Except he trusted Princess Ana—not Annika the blood slave. Sure, he’d trusted me when he’d known me as a human, but we’d barely known each other. It was far more likely that he’d idealized the person he thought he knew. Once he learned of my deceptions, he would realize I wasn’t the person he’d thought I was.

  He would never trust me again.

  But I wanted to tell him the truth so badly.

  If I stayed here any longer, I wouldn’t have the willpower to keep up this façade for a second more.

  “I have to go.” I stood up suddenly, the chair screeching against the floor.

  He looked at me in alarm and stood as well. “You’re leaving the Vale?” he asked. “Just like that?”

  “No.” I shook my head—how could I leave when I hadn’t finished what I’d come here to do? “I’m going to my room,” I said, pressing my fingers to my temples as if I had a headache. “This was all a lot to take in… I have a lot to think about.”

  “We barely touched the pizza.” He motioned to the pie, which must have been cold by now. “What about our contest?”

  “Another time,” I said quickly.

  “Did I do something wrong?” His brow crumpled, as if my words had been daggers in his heart. “You can tell me if I did. I can take it.”

  I wished more than anything that I could throw myself in his arms and kiss him, and that all the drama between us would vanish and we could be the same people we’d been when we’d first kissed back in that alley.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. He was being so open with me that it killed me to leave him like this. “I’m just not feeling well—I think I need to get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I hurried out of his quarters before he could say any more, not looking back until the doors closed behind me.

  Jacen

  It took everything in me not to chase after Princess Ana.

  I’d thrown too much at her too quickly. But I had to believe she would come around eventually. Trying to force her to open up before she was ready would only set back any progress I’d made on gaining her trust.

  Meanwhile, I couldn’t stay in my quarters for a second longer without thinking of her. I wanted to go on a run through the forest—the outside air might clear my head—but the sun was rising, so that wouldn’t be possible.

  Instead, I went to the library.

  I was determined to learn more about the Seventh Kingdom. I already had a huge hi
nt—it was in Antarctica. There had to be something in one of these books that would point me to a more exact location within the giant ice continent.

  But I could barely focus on the words as I scanned through the books.

  All I could think about was Princess Ana.

  Why had she left so suddenly? I’d thought our conversation had been going well. I’d thought she would have been thrilled to learn that I also had the interests of the humans at heart. Of course, I couldn’t reveal my true goal of killing Queen Laila—at least not yet. Saying such a thing would be treason. But I’d hoped telling Ana I wanted to work with the wolves and speak with the leader would have made her happy.

  Instead, she’d left.

  I’d wanted so badly to convince her to stay—to push more to get her to open up to me—but I’d resisted. Because if she wasn’t ready, pushing her certainly wouldn’t help.

  Perhaps I’d been too quick to reveal that I suspected she was working with the wolves. She might have thought I was trying to get her to confess so I could turn her in.

  In that case, I understood why my questions had put her on edge. Who wanted to be accused of being a traitor to a kingdom while on a date with its prince?

  Then again, I’d offered to make a blood oath that I wouldn’t tell her secret. The blood oath would have held me to the promise—if I’d broken it, my blood would have turned against me and killed me.

  Something wasn’t adding up. I was just confused, staring blankly at the pages of the book I was reading in the hope that I would find something about the mysterious Seventh Kingdom.