The Dark Prince's Captive • Complete

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 - 𝑨𝒍𝒆𝒙

Each of the men had been fucking loaded. Three guns apiece. More knives then Alex had been able to count. They were all strapped to the fucking hilt. One had even had grenades.

What the hell had they thought they’d been walking into?

They were all dressed in black, no other markings. Alex didn’t recognize any of them and couldn’t tell anything else about them other than that they were very much human.

But it didn’t make him feel any less uneasy that they’d chosen darts for Savannah and Mihai, seemingly also had wanted River alive, yet had come with bullets for him.

Did they know enough about his family to realize that he was the only Țepeș currently susceptible to bullets? Until he fulfilled the calling of his Crisis, bit, and impregnated a woman, he was as mortal as any man.

So the question was: who the fuck wanted him dead or even knew enough about him to want him dead?

The list of his Uncle’s enemies was long.

Uncle Vlad guarded their family secrets well, but some still knew or at least suspected. Those who floated around the periphery of the world of divination knew of their family’s immortality, but Uncle was clever in the intervening centuries after the whole Bram Stoker incident in relegating the stories to myths and fairytales. Bram got enough details wrong to help with that. Vampires became just scary stories to tell in the night and not something any rational person would believe in.

…Except for the diviners who knew a little something about the world beyond this one where other, mostly unknowable powers dwelt. Sometimes humans could tap into that world and borrow a little special for themselves. Other times it backfired horribly.

One thing was sure.

No one had known they’d be here except for himself and the three people in front of him.

“Alex,” Sav murmured, lifting a hand to her head, and sitting up wobbly. “W-what happened.” Then she jolted into a sitting position, wincing and holding her head with her other hand now, too. “Bad guys! What happened to the bad guys that attacked us?”

Alex crouched near her, flashing the light from his phone screen into her eyes. Her pupils were large and dark but otherwise she looked okay.

Then he glared at Mihai, who was also groggily sitting up. “Who the hell did you call and tell we were coming here?”

Mihai blanched. “What? I d-don’t know what you’re—”

“Cut the bullshit.” Alex grabbed Mihai by the front of his shirt and lifted him up off of the ground. Mihai shrieked as his feet scrabbled for purchase on the ground.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Alex dropped him abruptly to the ground and he crumpled where he stood.

River yelped in surprise at his rough treatment, but she couldn’t see the obvious.

“Who did you call and tell we were coming here?” Alex shouted.

“Nobody!” Mihai shouted back. “I mean, they’re nobody!” He threw his hands up in the air as he scrambled back to standing, taking several steps back from Alex as he did. “They pay me a little monthly stipend to give them a list of who comes to me inquiring about Dracula’s resting place, that’s all."

Jesus. “Who?” Alex demanded.

“I don’t know,” Mihai said.

“Who?” Alex shouted louder, stomping closer to Mihai, but he just repeated, his hands up, paralyzed and with obvious fear of Alex, “I don’t know! Cash just shows up in my mailbox on the first day of every month, along with a piece of paper with a new burner number. It changes every month.”

Alex couldn’t fucking believe this.

“So you called and snitched on us?” Savannah cried.

“It wasn’t like that!” Mihai said, turning to Savannah. “We’ve always reported to the state. My father did and his father before him. It was more of the same.”

“That was during Communism!” Savannah said. “It didn’t strike you as strange that even though there was a revolution you were still being asked to call some shadowy entity and keep reporting on your potential neighbors?"

“You aren’t even Romanian. You’re Americans. You have no idea how things run around here. I was just being a patriot.”

“We aren’t at war,” River said, looking exasperated.

“Tell that to the guys with automatic rifles in there,” Alex muttered. Then he shook his head. Standing on the top of this mountain arguing about shadow government agencies wasn’t doing any of them any good. Especially when their enemy obviously knew where they were.

“We need to get out of here. Now. Sav.” She snapped to attention when Alex addressed her. “Help me get this useless sack of shit down the mountain.” He nodded to Mihai. “We still need him.”

So, silently, arduously, they all made their way the 1480 steps back down the mountain in the pitch dark of midnight, the moon long sunk behind the mountain.

It was slow, and Savannah slipped once, almost taking all of them down with her. Mihai unhelpfully informed them that a visitor had died making it up the mountain just a few years ago. Alex refused to let any ploy from Mihai slow them down, even though about this, he suspected Mihai was telling the truth.

When they finally got to the bottom, there was only one other vehicle in the parking lot. Obviously, it belonged to their attackers. They couldn’t tell any more from the outside of the black SUV. It was a common enough car for Eastern Europe and looking through the windows didn’t reveal anything else. It was spotless inside.

Savannah was nervous about hanging around anymore and Alex agreed. Alex checked Mihai’s car for trackers, then they got on the road and drove for an hour through the pre-dawn darkness until Alex finally stopped at a small, out-of-the-way, country inn.

It was run by an older couple who seemed far more interested in the TV than Alex. When they asked for ID, he handed over extra cash. Without another word, they just smiled and gave him the two room keys he requested.

Savannah and River took one and he shoved Mihai into the other one, following right behind him. They’d never untied his hands. They were still zip-tied behind his back.

Now for a good night’s sleep. Well, a good day’s sleep, anyway.

Alex drew back the heavy light-blocking curtain right as the sun crested the horizon, a new day dawning.

Tonight.

Tonight they’d finally get the answers they’d come here for.

But for now, sleep.

While I wrote this chapter, Itzy's 'Shoot' was playing on repeat. It was really good inspo.

Now. Click on the star, or the story ends here.