Prince Darrius

Chapter 34

“Leah,” Darrius says and I look over my shoulder to see her winding her way through the crowd. She shoves a couple of people out of the way, dressed up in black fighting gear. She comes to our side with a tense look in her eye. She comes up so close that it looks like she is about to hug us, but she just whispers so only the two of us can hear.

“We’ve been infiltrated,” she explains, looking more at Darrius than at me, “Not just by her parents and not by any other supernatural creatures. We forgot about one other threat, completely over looked them,” Now her eyes flit to mine and hold mine steady, “You need to get out of here, quickly.”

“Who is it?” Darrius snaps, holding my arms tighter. For the moment my ring has cooled down. But it doesn’t make me feel any safer.

“Humans,” Leah explains, “Some are with the media that came along.”

“Humans?” I repeat, “Why would they want to hurt me?” I ask.

“Exactly,” Darrius snaps, “The humans should want to protect Jennifer–”

“They want her blood,” Leah explains, “She’s a weapon, against us. If they get their hands on her, they’ll use her against us. Both of you need to leave the palace, it’s not safe for either of you.”

“Darrius will be fine,” I say simply.

“No,” Leah cuts me off with a scowl, “He’s their second target.”

“But…” my voice trails off as I realise what she is getting at.

“They want to take you alive. But there is no point using you as a weapon if Darrius’s own blood counteracts yours. They want to get him out of the picture.” 

They want to kill Darrius.

“Why haven’t you killed them yet?” I ask harshly. 

“We don’t know how many there are,” Leah explains, guiltily, “But we think there’s a lot of them.”

“What do you want us to do?” Darrius asks. 

“You need to leave right now, leave the palace and get somewhere safe. A neutral location. Both of you. Until we rat out all the spies and eradicate them.” 

Another wave of nausea hits me and I feel my grip weaken on Darrius’ arm. My finger starts tingling with warmth again and I sway backwards, about to faint.

“The food…” I say as Darrius pulls me in against his chest and his hand comes up to cup my cheek.

“Damn it,” Darrius snarls, glaring at Leah, “The food was drugged.” 

“Get her out of here,” Leah steps back and Darrius tells her which human served me. Leah stalks off towards the waiter and Darrius keeps his eyes focused on mine.

“Are you going to pass out?” Darrius asks. 

“I don’t know,” I say, “I thought I was, but I just feel weak now. And numb… Darrius, they want to kill you. We have to get out of here.” He picks me up so he has an arm around the back of my knees and one behind my back. He holds me to his chest as he starts off towards Claudia and Johnathan.

“You’ll be safe with them, sweetheart. I’m going to find every single one of these humans and rip all their heads off,” he growls.

“No,” I glare up at him, but before I know it I am being passed on into Johnathan’s arms and I hear some people laughing around us, like Darrius was pretending to give me away and I was pretending to look sick. 

“We’ve got you,” Claudia says, looking down at me with concern. She looks to Darrius, who nods at her before walking off, “Where are you – Damn it, Darrius,” She hisses, stalking after him. I look up at Johnathan, too weak to even talk now.

“Jennifer,” He says, holding onto me protectively, “Everything will be fine, trust us.”

I hoped so. His arms are as strong as Darrius’, and I definitely feel protected. My head lolls back a bit and I see a slight mist in the air, a silvery mist that looked pretty and shiny. It looked like glitter and I smile up at Johnathan to see if he has noticed it too. 

When Johnathan’s eyes roll to the back of his head, his arms slacken and we both drop to the ground. I lie beside him, my head had banged hard against the marble flooring. 

Then all the other vampires around us also start collapsing to the ground.

Oh shit.

My head throbs with pain and I try and look around to see what else is happening but my eyes are already closing.

I’m not too sure if everything is going to be fine like Johnathan said. 

In fact, I highly doubted it would ever be the same again.