Protect My Love ~ Book 4 ~ The Royal Blood Collection

Chapter 1

The sound of a baby's cry woke me, making me jump with fright. At first, I could not recognize where I was. The warm, muted light didn't seem familiar to me.

"My lady, are you alright?"

Frowning, I turned to the sound of her voice.

"Yes, thank you."

Farren gave a smile as she stood from the edge of my coffin. I was not used to this situation, even after a month of being here. Yes, my parents and my entire family were vampires and slept in coffins but I was not a vampire. I was something else.

The only one who could relate to me easily was my aunt Emmeline. She was the same as me. The vampires didn't have a name for us yet, we were a new creature that had surfaced just after the humans ripped a gouge in the land. Their attempt at getting away from the vampires had failed.

That gorge was nothing to the creatures, though I had not done anything more than look at it. There were two types that the vampires had seen, alphas and betas. For a long time, they believed that the alphas were the males as they were large and wiry builds and the betas were females, short but powerful.

It was not the case, now proven that both creatures had males and females. So, that meant that there were two types of unknown creatures. As for the betas, they could jump the gorge. To me, it seemed unrealistic until I saw it. The video was taken at a distance but it was enough to prove that nothing would stop them.

And that's how come there were betas on this side of the gorge. Emmeline was born here, her mother died shortly after her birth and she was put into an orphanage. Little old me, my mother jumped the gorge to escape an alpha. I was bundled to her chest as she risked our lives to get away. When she reached the other side, the man that would become my adoptive father watched as she climbed the brick wall and handed me over to him. She knew that she was dying and in her final moments, she spoke one word to him. Otanawa. It's the name that they gave me but for all they knew, it could mean that I was an annoyance or that it meant keep her safe. No one knew because we did not speak the language.

I called them my parents, they'd taken me in and loved me from the very first moment. As a bonus, it's been a very good life. Aside from their love and constant support, we also happen to be royalty. I had no claim to the throne which was just as well, I didn't want the damned thing. My mother's older brother, a twin no less, happened to be king. He's been in power for a long time now and so far, it's been good.

Of course, my opinion on that was a little jaded considering that dear old uncle Alaric asked me to be his representative and go north to the gorge. My task was to make first contact with the betas. We're not talking about the efforts that my father started before I was given to him, nor was it the food that the army bases constantly threw over the ridge. This was talking. Like cross the bridge and try to say hello. My parents were not happy vampires and there had been a lot of fights about it.

In the end, I accepted the request because I knew that someone had to do it and honestly, I was the best person for the job. I was one of them, even if I hadn't been on the other side of the ridge in eighteen years.

So, here I was. In the middle of a heat wave in province three. It was six o'clock at night and the sweat is pouring off me. I had to be in this province because it's where the bridge was built.

"Can I fix your breakfast for you, my lady?"

"Sure," I grumbled.

Trying to push the coffin lid back so that it wouldn't fall down on me again was a complete nightmare. It didn't help that I was irritable from a lack of sleep due to the insufferable heat and lack of air conditioning. I wanted to wail that as a princess, I should be granted such a luxury but life in an army base was not a luxury. Dad said that I had to suck it up and get used to it because there was no air conditioning on the other side of the ridge. There wasn't even any electricity.