The Vampire King's Captive

74

But he could have it, couldn't he? He could have her and have his sister too. He could make it work.

He could meet with a witch that would help him scry for his sister's location and he would go there, taking Ariti unaware. Hopefully, that powerful sorceress wouldn't be with Ariti—and even if she was, he didn't fucking care.

It would work.

He'd been thinking about it ever since he woke up, wondering how he could keep both Maria and his sister and he'd finally settled on a brilliant idea.

He was the king. He would seek the ruler of the witches and make peace with them. Then, he would be able to get one of them to work for him.

Letting Maria go wasn't possible. He didn't want to have to choose between her and his kingdom. Not when she was so valuable to him.

She stirred then and her raised knee brushed his cock, eliciting a sharp hiss from Bran. He should wake her up with his mouth—

A knock rang out.

Bran blinked, confused. Then when he heard another knock, he carefully—albeit very reluctantly—slid out from under Maria, not wanting to wake her, shoved on his clothes from the previous night, then hurried out to meet the knocker. He didn't want them waking Maria.

"What?" He barked when he saw that it was one of his guards.

The guard stepped back and bowed. "Your Majesty. Your uncle is banging on the gates, demanding entrance."

Bran sighed and dug his hands into his eyes. He didn't make it a habit of showing signs of tiredness or weakness in front of his men, but there were just some reactions that couldn't be hidden and when it came to Bran's uncle, he did a terrible job of hiding it.

Fucking Elijah.

"Ignore him," Bran waved his hand, already turning to go back into the room. "Let him keep knocking."

"We have been ignoring him, Your Majesty. He's been out there for over two hours now and he's not just knocking, he's yelling and telling everyone that you are keeping him out."

Fucking fuck.

Elijah wanted to have an audience with him at all costs and Bran would happily ignore him, but if the people saw that he had locked his 'uncle' out of the castle, it wouldn't be good. Also, he could only imagine what he was telling everyone.

He wanted an audience with Bran?

Then he was going to fucking get one.

"Let him in." Bran finally said. "Escort him into the throne room and make sure he waits for me." Then, on a thought, he added, "I don't want him alone in there. Not even for a second."

Bran was deliberately making him wait on purpose. He could go to him now, but he wanted to anger Elijah, to make him stand and wait until he was bristling with anger and only then would Bran show up.

But he didn't know what to do to bide his time. If he went back into the room and he saw Maria, he was not sure that he would be able to make himself leave her for a second time. So instead, he traced into several parts of the castle that he hadn't been in for a while.

By that time, almost an hour had reached and it was only then that Bran traced into the throne room, a smirk on his face—too piss off Elijah, of course.

His smirk almost turned into a full blown grin when he saw how red Elijah's face had gotten. Add that to the fact that two of Bran's guards were waiting behind Elijah and they hadn't even bothered to give him a chair or stool, Elijah was livid.