Chapter 3
CYAN'S P.O.V.
Cyan: 11 months until awakening
I was terrified. Maybe it was because of the situation I was currently in... but I was pretty sure it had more to do with the situation I knew I would be in soon. And I wasn't talking about the guys currently driving me solar knows where.
"Why don't you have the brat gagged?" Kidnapper number one hissed to kidnapper number two. Kidnapper number one seemed the least friendly so far... His eyes were glaring at me from the rear view mirror, prompting me to return a glare just as icy. "He's a cocky little shit isn't he?"
"He hasn't screamed and it's not like we have to worry about him biting us. He's just a human." Kidnapper number two explained, turning in his seat to smile at me. I resisted the urge to gag when he winked at me and said, "he's got a nice pair of lips too."
"Yeah well this seems too easy." Kidnapper number one grumbled. "What kind of a person just lies there and let's you tie him up and force him into a car?" I looked away from his scrutinizing gaze, knowing full well why I didn't struggle.
I was a human and they obviously...weren't. I wasn't exactly sure what they were but I had an itch telling me they were definitely of the shape shifting variety by the way they seemed to growl all their words. Anyway, I already knew they wouldn't get too far. A car couldn't outrun Michellie even if one of her legs were broken and I was certain Michellie wouldn't be the only one retrieving me this time.
See, I wasn't scared of the two feral looking men currently muttering about how proud their leaders would be when they returned with me. I was scared of what would happen once I was brought back to the safety of the palace because not only had I broken the rules by leaving the palace walls and getting kidnapped, but I had screwed up ten times worse before that.
I had brought a boy into the tunnels.
It seemed harmless enough in the moment, I thought, as blood rushed to my cheeks. I knew that no one but myself and those who had pledged themselves to King Elijah's service were allowed in the tunnels, but it just didn't seem like such a big deal to invite one of the handsome vampire guards down to my room. Technically, he wasn't a guard yet. He was here with a number of other warriors to pledge their loyalty to King Elijah, and I figured it would be the same thing as inviting someone already pledged. After all, about to be in the King's service and already being in it is basically the same thing right? Apparently, It wasn't.
When I got him down the multiple stair cases and long halls, my confidence as to why I brought him down had dwindled. Suddenly, I was alone with a tall, gorgeous soon to be guard and I couldn't even remember why I had broken the rules to bring him down there. And then...
His lips felt like marble. One second I was nervously trying to smooth out my bedspread and the next I was pressed up against my bedroom wall, experiencing the first kiss of my life. His arms were wrapped around my waist and lifting me up to better accommodate himself, something I was all for as long as this kiss never ended. My brain felt fuzzy and even if I wanted to formulate a rational thought, I knew I wouldn't be able to.
Why had I never kissed anyone before? I was seventeen years old for solars sake. Every moment of my life spent not experiencing this had become a wasted moment. It didn't even matter that in the back of my mind I had only invited him down here to paint him. It didn't bother me in the least that although this kiss was spectacular, something about it felt... Off.
"Oh my god." And with those three words I was pulled from the wonderful fog of hormones and falling shakily onto my own two feet. Whatever his name is was no longer pressed against me and I was staring into the startled and disbelieving eyes of Michellie. "I-"
"You couldn't have knocked?" I spat out, feeling my face turn tomato red. I knew blaming her for this situation was dumb, but the words were out of my mouth before I could even rethink
"Excuse me?" Michellie hissed, her red eyes darkening. I sure knew how to make a bad situation ten times worse.
"Calm." Bruftus stated, alerting me of his presence beside her. I blushed even darker, realizing that my embarrassment now had an audience.
"You!" Michellie spat at the guy standing shell shocked a few steps away from me. "How dare you leave the main hall!" The vampire fell quickly to his knees, baring his wrist to her. I had learned that this was an involuntarily sign of submission within people of the sun. If your body recognized that the threat was stronger than you, it would force you to present a vein which was the equivalent of handing over your life.
"I invited him down here! I told him King Elijah wouldn't mind!" I intervened.
"Oh King Elijah wouldn't mind?" Michellie scoffed, still glaring at the man before her. "He could level an entire battlefield with how much he-"
"Return to the main hall. Your services will no longer be required. A maid will be there to escort you from the palace." Bruftus said calmly, pulling my guest up by his collar. "To prevent the telling of what you've seen while here, you'll be required to debrief with the palace guardians at the front gate.I'll escort you out of the tunnels." Bruftus declared, yanking his collar. A second later they were gone, most likely having ran from the room at a speed I had grown used to not being able to perceive.
"Cyan-"
"Don't!" I cried, turning away from Michellie. "I- I need some air. I'm going into the gardens."
"over my dead body are you going anywhere! You are in so much trouble cyan! How many times do I have to tell you-"
"'No one should enter your room in the tunnel but you.'" I finished quoting for her. "I know Michi, but it's not fair. It's a stupid rule and I'm old enough to have company."
"you're seventeen. That's hardly old enough to be hooking up." She insisted, her annoyance leaking into her words.
"And how old is old enough?" I questioned. "Should I wait twenty years for half my lifespan to be gone? I'm not a blood angel, remember? I'm human and in human years I'm old enough to kiss and even go out into the gardens by myself."
"Stop being so melodramatic." She insisted, ignoring my questions. "You're not allowed into the gardens, not with an escort and sure as hell not alone!"
"Why not?" I pushed. "Actually, just give me one good reason why I can't go out into the gardens aside from having been kissing a boy, which is none of your business anyway!"
"Because I said so!" She answered. "You're staying in these tunnels until I tell Elijah what happened and then you'll stay down her even longer! You'll stay down here for the rest of your life if you don't stop doing reckless things!" Her almost always red eyes swirled with a color I barely even recognized as she finished her rant. "I'm trying to protect you Cyan. Just stay in the damn tunnels."
Needless to say, the second she had left the tunnels I did too. I headed straight for the garden right outside the palace walls and once I had convinced two new guards to let me out alone, I was captured by my scruffy captors.
"It's weird seeing a human this up close." Kidnapper number two mumbled, still staring at me. I snorted, trying to adjust my arms that were bound behind me into a more comfortable position.
"Idiot, you were a human yourself." Kidnapper number one replied.
"That was a hundred years ago. I haven't actually seen a human being in maybe ten years." Kidnapper number two defended. "Why do you think the parasites left him a human anyway? You'd think the bloodsuckers would've drained the weak thing by now."
"They're not animals like you." I spat, defensive of my family. While Parasites and bloodsuckers were derogatory terms for people of the sun, I was more angered by the fact that he seemed to assume I was being held as a captive within the castle. I was not some weak thing. For whatever reason, the people of the sun were going to make me a king. His question, however, struck a nerve in me. Keeping me a human definitely seemed idiotic from where I was standing. So why was I, to my knowledge, one of the last humans on earth?
"I told you, you should've muzzled that thing." Kidnapper number one groaned.
"Ha! You would know all about those, huh poochy?" I taunted. The longer I sat in the back seat, the more apparent it became that they were wolves. Not only was the stench of wet dog overwhelming, but the identical bite marks on their throat told me they were middle level, unmated wolves from the same pack.
"What did that little shit call me?" Kidnapper number one growled. Kidnapper number two seemed to find humor in this situation, however, and chose to outright laugh.
"I called you Poochy, you overgrown flee ball! When King Elijah catches you, I'll make sure to put in a good word. I hope he lets me keep you chained in the back yard. I'd push for keeping you as an indoor pet but I'm pretty sure you're not housebroken." I continued. Kidnapper number two seemed to lose it, guffawing loudly as his counterpart ground his teeth. If looks could kill-
"Yeah well I wouldn't hold on to that dream for too long princess." He teased back, eyeing my long hair with a mocking raised eyebrow. I would've been offended if I hadn't heard it before. Lots of the Warriors teased me about my long hair and frail features. It was nothing I hadn't already learned to embrace. When you looked this delicate, people always underestimated you. "We're only a few minutes from headquarters. Once were there, I'd change my tone. I doubt my fellow flee balls would be as good humored as I am."
"You'll never make it to your little hide out." I countered, catching sight of a strange movement out the car window. Safe in my assumption that I would be rescued very soon, I finally slipped my sore wrists from my loose binding and began to untie my legs, something I knew my kidnappers were too cocky to notice. "You'll be lucky to make it out of this car."
"Oh yeah?" Kidnapper number one chuckled, finally joining his friend in laughter. "We made it away from fort bloodsucker okay. If your little leech owners haven't caught up to us yet, what makes you think they'll show up anytime soon?"
"This is how it always goes. They're just waiting until you're within tracking distance of your base. Then they'll stop the car." I explained, just as the car came to a screeching halt. By the sound of it, someone had nearly ripped the back bumper off. "They'll send the Warriors ahead to take care of your men, while they bust the headlights. Of Course, you guys can still see in the dark but the purpose isn't to blind you. It's to set you up for what's going to happen next." I paused as the sound of smashing echoed within the car. While my eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark, I continued. "Now if King Elijah is in a good mood, he'll rip off the car doors, grab me, and take me home." I waited, noting that the doors remained firmly closed. "However, if he's angry, he's going to rip the roof off and you'll have maybe five solid seconds where he's handing me off to Michellie before he sets his sight on you. I'd make the most of those five seconds. Oh, and before I never see you two again, there's no hard feelings right?"
They never got to answer. In a second, the sound of screeching metal was soon followed by cold night air biting my cheeks. Smiling, I looked up, trying not to look utterly amazed as I locked eyes with an absolutely furious King Elijah. "There are absolutely going to be hard feelings." He seethed, tossing the roof of the car away.
"Long times no see King Elijah." I breathed out, feeling a shiver go down my spine as his perfectly sculpted mouth quirked up at the sides.
"Can't stop being a naughty boy, can we cyan?" He asked, lifting me effortlessly and tossing me to a waiting Michellie. She hadn't told him yet then. He would definitely not be in a joking mood if he knew I had almost compromised his tunnel system. "While I'd love to hear all about that guilty look you're giving me, we'll have to save it for later. I'll be a bit busy for the next twenty minutes or so. Michellie will take you back home."
The men who had taken me had long since ran, but King Elijah seemed pretty confident in being able to catch them. I knew I wouldn't be around to see it though. I was never around when people were punished. He placed a gentle hand on my cheek before Michellie took off into the sky. I tried not to think about the fact that King Elijah was quite possibly killing men with the very hand he had just so gently caressed my face with. I tried not to think about the fact that my supposed best friend still wasn't speaking to me. I did not succeed.
"You didn't tell him yet?" I asked, trying to get her to speak to me again. She only gave a huff of acknowledgement. "Why not?"
"I was going to, but the second I find him, news reaches us that you went into the gardens, which I told you not to do, by yourself, which I also told you not to do and you were gone." She stated. "We had to rush to fucking find you,but don't think this means I'm not going to tell Elijah the second he gets back to the castle."
Of course it doesn't.
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Michellie sure was true to her word. She marched me right down to my room and then set guards at the entrance with specific instructions not to let me out without her permission and then went back upstairs.
Years of living in the tunnels had taught me certain things. One was when I heard a very distant but recognizable creak from the hallway, it meant someone had opened the front door of the house. I knew when there was a rustling of metal outside my door, it meant that Elijah had come home and the force of his power had hit the guards.
And I knew she had told him when my entire ceiling seemed to tremble and shake with the force of a roar I heard loud and clear even from within my room. When King Elijah was angry, everyone knew. I had never gotten to see him during a fit up close, but no matter where I was in the palace I would always hear it. His rage was nearly unmanageable, Michellie had told me, because his power was the same. All I knew for sure was after an episode like this, the palace upstairs always had new furniture.
The mini earthquake was quickly followed up with loud crashing and screeches, but these didn't last nearly as long as they normally did. There were footsteps coming down the stairs and loud hissings.
"No!" Michellie screamed from just outside my door. "You need to calm down Elijah! Go back upstairs!"
"How dare you let that man leave this castle!" Elijah growled. "I want him brought back here! I want him strung up by his toes!"
"No!" I cried, banging against my locked door. "He didn't do anything wrong! I brought him down here!"
There was another loud crash after my words. King Elijah snarled and I could practically envisions the guards in front of my door falling to their knees and baring their wrists when he demanded they move out of the way.
"Stop talking cyan!" Michellie chastised, before turning her attention back to calming King Elijah. "His memory has been wiped Elijah. It's like it never happened."
"But it did happen!" He yelled.
"And so what are you going to do about it?" Michellie yelled right back. "Are you going to punish cyan? Are you going to string him up? It's an unfortunate accident and I suggest you stay away from him when you're like this Elijah!"
There was a long stretch of silence before Elijah slammed his fist against my door, making me scream and jump back. "You are not to leave this palace until your coronation! If you step one foot out of this castle before you turn eighteen ill hunt down that vampire of yours and drain every last drop of blood from his body!"
I only started breathing again once I heard the footsteps climbing back up the steps. I could sense Michellie outside my door. Her hesitation to come in to speak to me was almost a physical manifestation. I didn't know if I was relieved or disappointed when I heard her sigh and dismiss the guards. Her light footsteps trailed behind the men until I was down here alone once again.
Finally, I could reflect. My reflections, unfortunately, were anything but repentant. I felt anger boiling just underneath my skin and if this was anything like what King Elijah felt, I couldn't understand why he didn't just pound the entire palace into dust. My empathy only lasted a few seconds though, before my frustration turned on him as well.
Stupid king Elijah and all his stupid King rules. Stupid Michellie, some best friend she is. All she does is run back to Elijah to tattle on me. Stupid palace, stupid servants, stupid war...
Who goes to war for almost eighteen years anyway? Stupid people, that's who. "Why is everyone so stupid?" I yelled aloud, my frustration finally getting the best of me.
"And what's got you all riled up little prince?" Bruftus chuckled, making his presence known. Bruftus was one of Elijah's most trusted allies in the war. In exchange for pledging his eternal loyalty, or so I've heard, Elijah was able to lift the curse on Bruftus and his people, which supposedly had once made him hideous.
Now all I saw was a hulking guy, nearly seven feet tall with skin the color of charcoal and eyes the color of pomegranate juice. Aside from that, he was relatively attractive I suppose. I wonder what he could have looked like before, but I knew it was too rude a question to ask. "King Elijah has prohibited me from leaving the castle until I turn eighteen." I finally said, anger turning to burning tears.
"I'm sure it is only for your well being that he does that little one. The war has taken a rather violent turn. It would be too dangerous for you to go out now." Bruftus explained, only serving to infuriate me more.
"Everyone else goes out! Michellie and you and Marie and Marco and Vincent and everyone!" I argued. "King Elijah just hates me and so he keeps me locked up here for no reason!"
"Elijah worships the ground you walk on cyan." Bruftus sighed at me, patting my head reassuringly.
"Ha! Some guardian he is! I've seen him all of five times since I could remember!" I spat, glaring down at the floor. Why doesn't Elijah want to see me?
"Then this should come as good news. King Elijah has asked me to inform you he will be joining you in your room for dinner, since you refuse to eat in the dining hall." Bruftus practically sung out. I frowned, wondering what the all powerful Elijah would want with me.
"Why?" I finally asked as Bruftus made his way toward my door. "King Elijah doesn't even eat."
"We all must eat, young one. Sustanence is the basis of survival." He declared in his normal wisdom filled way of speaking. "Sustaining our way of life is what links every species together."
"Then maybe I just don't want to sustain this way of life anymore." I mumbled, knowing he heard me anyway.
"The King will not be pleased to hear you say such things." Bruftus answered.
"And maybe I don't want to live to please the king." I continued, but stopped when I saw the confused look he was giving me.
"We all must live to please someone." He said solemnly. "If not him, then who?"