Hey guys,
So here's chapter 5, enjoy! I hope you all like it so far. Please VOTE and LEAVE COMMENTS, so I know what you think about it.
Thanks for reading!
=)
Chapter 5: The Kingdom of Fire, Victor's Family
I woke up feeling the slight burning sensation still eminent in my chest. I felt very cold, and looked around to find a blanket to cover myself. Where was I? I really hated the feeling of waking up not knowing where I was. It was too much coincidence waking up three days in the row and not knowing where I was. I looked around to find a clock, it was still 3 in the morning. Wow, I never woke up this early. How long was I out for? And where exactly was I? I closed my eyes once again and left them shut for five minutes. Then I opened them again to adjust myself to the darkness. I wasn't wearing my wedding gown anymore; I had been changed into a nightdress. Whoa, who changed me? I looked around the walls to find my C shaped windows and relaxed a little. At least I was in my room. Where the hell was that dufus Victor? I quickly turned around to check my bed and started patting my bed around to see for any signs of a sleeping body. Phew, no one was there. I quietly got off my bed and tip toed over to the door to turn my light on. It became extremely bright in my room the minute I flicked my switch on. I found all of my belongings; dress and all had been placed on the dresser right next to my bed. Wait a minute, something looked a little different. This was not my room. It was created to look like my room. Everything was perfectly angled as if it was my room, yet it was not. I quickly went over to the windows to look outside. My mouth hung to the floor as I gasped. I was somewhere else. Where was I? And why was I in a room that was mimicked to look like my room? The same peacock and bird design all over the wall, the same painting of the half sunrise and half nighttime on the ceiling. I looked outside the window again to see a beautiful lake in my view. I never had any lakes behind my room near the palace. There was one here. I saw a reflection of the almost full moon on the still river, while the trees surrounding the lake appeared dark in the background. Where was I?
I slowly went back to my bed and sat down. None of this made any sense to me. It was as if I was home, yet I was not. Who had done this? Was I dreaming? I pinched myself twice to make sure. The pain surging up my arm proved that I wasn't dreaming. I heard footsteps approaching my room and quickly stood up as the door opened. It was a shirtless Victor with a pair of black pajamas on. For the first time, I actually was able to observe how toned his body was. His abs appeared as if they were chiseled in this perfect sculpture. I looked at his stomach enviously and absentmindedly touched mine. Mine was toned, but it wasn't as toned as his. That bastard, he thought he was better looking then me huh? Must have had to run an extra mile or something
"So I see that you are awake beautiful," he spoke, grabbing my attention towards his eyes. He shut the door behind him and walked over towards me. I started walking backwards and was leveled against the window.
"So do you like it? What do you think?" he asked, gesturing towards the rest of the room. So he was the one that had done this. What did he think he was, trying to win me by playing a sick joke like that? He needed to be more creative; this stupid boring bloodsucker was getting on my last nerves.
"Where am I? And why does this room look like mine? Where are my parents, and my sisters?" I replied back to him while giving him a glare straight in his eyes. He walked away from me and sat down on the bed. Relaxing himself against the pillows, he took his shoes off and put his feet up.
Smiling with his eyes closed, he replied, "Welcome to the Kingdom of Fire, my princess. You were passed out for quite a while, so I took you back with me. Your parents and sisters were worried and asked me to have you contact them when you woke up."
"WHAT? When..how...? Wait a minute, how long have I been out for?" I asked.
"A full two days, my love. I took you back home with me and had the maids get you changed and put you in your room. Just to let you know, you have the whole east wing of the Palace as yours. I had this room made the day I had won that match against you in the arena. Pretty accurate isn't it?" He asked, slowly opening his eyes. Man, this guy was really ticking me off. He was so confident of himself, that he had already gotten this room made before I had even married him. What if I had refused to marry him and ran off? How was he so confident? Where did he get this confidence from?
I looked up at him again, and spoke, "I want to go back home. This place is not my home. I agreed to marry you, but I didn't agree to come over to your hellhole. I need to go back home."
"I'm afraid I cannot allow that. You will need to be around me, I've already marked you as mine." He replied, looking at me again with humor in his eyes.
"What do you mean marked me?" I asked back.
"When we shared our first kiss as husband and wife, I kissed you releasing my blood inside your mouth. That was me marking you as mine. Do you not remember tasting something that was metallic in texture?" He replied softly.
"WHAT? You put your blood in my mouth? You freakin filthy piece of shit! How dare you put your blood in my mouth? WHY? I don't want to be turned into a vampire!" I was practically shouting. I didn't want to be something that I completely abhorred. Who would want to be a vampire? Then I would be no different then these blood sucking freaks. What if I attacked one of my own people? I was already shivering at the thought of that happening.
Victor got up and came near me again. I backed myself towards the window and quickly glanced around to see if I could find something sharp lying around somewhere. He was so close that I was practically touching the windowsill with my butt. I swear, if this idiot comes any closer he's going to get kneed again. He picked my chin up with his finger and looked into my eyes. I smacked his finger of as he chuckled once again.
"The reason I put my blood in your mouth is for your protection. I marked you as my own, so that when I brought you back, no one would attempt to steal you away from me." He said softly. Now this guy had it all wrong. First of all, I am a human being, not a thing that gets stolen from one person to another. Second of all, I do not need protection, I am completely capable of protecting myself, and hence I do not rely on others. Third, steal? Seriously? This idiot thinks that people can steal me? I'm not a two inch doll, I am 5.4." I don't care if others are bigger than me, I still get all the attention, and in the end, I steal the spotlight. Not that I was attention crazy.
"Look, I've told you many times, I don't need your protection, and I really don't want to be marked as yours. You've already pissed me off so don't test my patience. You seriously think people will kidnap me? Really? What do I look like, a small toy to you?" I pushed his shoulder and moved him out of the way. I did not like the way things were going, and I really needed to do something about this, or else I would be stuck here with this idiot forever.
"Hmm, still angry and upset aren't we?" He pursed his lips together. "Here, I have an idea. I will not say anything anymore. You will see for yourself, when you come to meet the rest of my family members. All I can tell you is this, you life is going to change tonight." With this he winked at me and turned to go out the door.
"Wait! What the hell is this change business that you're talking about? Oh and why are you trying to scare me about your family? You know what, tell everyone to bring it on! I can kick all your asses. You just got lucky that day, but trust me, you can't get lucky all the time!" I screamed all of this on top of my lungs, with my hands balled up in fists to contain all my fury. He gave me a big smile, revealing his perfect white teeth, including the two monstrous canines on the side. I bet they would grow out whenever he saw food walking around. He turned around and walked out the door, leaving me with nothing but pure silence. I looked outside the window to notice a little bit of color filling the sky. Hints of pink, red, and orange became visible while the darkness slowly seeped away. I sighed and lay back down on the bed. Pulling the covers over me, I decided to go to sleep. There was nothing that could be accomplished at this point, so all I could do was wait. They say that opportunities come first to those who patiently wait. This is something I had to do: wait.
I awoke again to the sounds of birds chirping. I turned my head to look at the clock. 9:30AM. The hot sensation in my chest was still there, but it was very mild. The pain appeared periodically, as every now and then I felt a sharp stab. I got up and walked over to the dresser to find a note with a cell phone there. I opened the note to read its contents.
Dear Genevive,
I'm giving you this cell phone so you can keep in touch with all of us. Your sisters packed your belongings for you, so don't fret, everything that you want, is already with you (weapons and all lol). Please give us a call when you wake up, we really want to hear your voice. We were really scared when you passed out on us like that. I feel it has to do with no chocolate in your system ;). Don't worry, I had Gia pack some chocolates for you, so do pig out. We really miss you and want to hear from you ASAP.
Love ya,
Father
ps: Please forgive me if you can, I know you're still angry at me. I promise to make it up to you.
I sighed. He must have been drinking when he wrote this letter, because it sounds to laid back to come out of his mouth when he is fully alert. Chocolate? He would die of a heart attack if I ever opened a bar of chocolate in front of his face. Yep, he must have been extremely drunk. Well, I don't give a crap, the last person I wanted to talk to was him. However, I did want to call all my sisters, I missed them terribly. I put the phone down and tucked the note underneath of it. I opened the first drawer in the dresser and pulled out a pair of navy blue genie pants along with a white t-shirt. Grabbing my toiletries out of the second drawer, I walked over to the bathroom. I chuckled at the sight of the bathroom, because it was a perfect clone of my bathroom back home. The same blue and white walls with golden shower cubicle and toilet. The mirror was outlined in gold while the knobs for the faucets were made to shape like the sun and the moon. The sun knob was for the hot water while the moon shaped knob was for cold water. It even had the same jasmine flavored body wash and shampoo. I locked the door behind me and undressed myself. I turned the water on and jumped into the shower, letting the hot water drench me completely. I scrubbed myself with the jasmine flavored body wash and used the shampoo for my hair. After what seemed like an hour, I decided to turn off the water, and walk out. I pulled the towel that was hanging on a hook outside the glass doors of the shower and wrapped myself in it. Walking over to the full body length mirror, I observed myself.
My brown hair was tousled from being wet; yet still fell straight down to my waist, with all the layers curving in and out in different directions. My blue eyes were still bright, but looked a little worn out and tired. My nose was just the same medium shape as it was before while my lips had a little bit of pink going on in them. My tan complexion shone under the bathroom lights, while I had hints of pink forming around my cheeks due to the heat from the shower. I looked down at my neck and noticed a red circle on the side. Wait a second, was that a bite that I was looking at? I took off the towel to observe the rest of my body. I had the same red circle on top of the area where my sternum was and a little above my belly button. I also had a red circle on my left wrist. I turned my wrist around to see a red circle on the other side as well. I turned around and tilted my head back to see mimicking red circles in the same area on my back and lower back. It was as if someone had taken a red pole and shoved it through my body, leaving a red circle from where the pole entered to where it exited. I counted the red circles to notice that there were seven of them. What the hell was all this? Did Victor do this? I pulled my wrist up closer to look at it. There were no bite marks on it. I checked my neck, chest and the area above the belly button to see for bite marks and found none. What was going on with me?
I quickly dressed into my clothing and walked out of my room. If Victor was the cause of this, he would have to answer to me. I needed to find him right away. I walked out of the bathroom and went towards my dresser. After applying moisturizer to my legs, hands and face I walked over towards the door. I opened it and shut it quietly. Wow, this place was big. It was bigger than my own palace. I looked to my left to see a long hallway with multiple doors on it. I looked over to my right to see three doors and the hallway curving to a flight of stairs. Deciding to go with my instinct, I chose the right side and went down the flight of stairs. There was a big living room downstairs with paintings of many other beautiful pale looking people.
I walked on the red plush carpet and stopped to look around myself. I must have been staring off into space for a while, as I felt a small tap on my shoulder. Turning around, I saw a beautiful girl, no younger than me smiling at me. She had auburn hair with light green eyes that twinkled.
"Are you lost?" She asked.
"Yeah." I softly replied.
"Where do you want to go? Actually, who are you looking for?" She asked.
" I need to find that bast- err, I mean Victor. Do you know where he is?" I asked.
"Yes, I do. To go the prince's room you will have to go straight down this hall and take the last door on your right. Cross the bridge and you will arrive at his end of the palace. When you get there, take the stairs to the second floor and the first door on your right is his room." She replied.
"Whoa, that is a lot to digest at the moment. SO let me get this straight. Down the hall, last door on the right, cross the bridge, second floor, first door on my right, am I correct?" I quickly ranted out.
"Yes!" She laughed.
" Thank you very much for your help. If you don't mind me asking, what's your name?" I questioned.
"My name is Raye, and I am a one of your chambermaids. If you ever need anything, please do not hesitate in asking me. I know this is a big palace, and it's easier to get lost no matter how much time you spend in this place. As a matter of fact, I would be very happy to give you tour on your free time." She replied.
"That would be wonderful, thank you." I played with my fingers debating if I should ask her the next question that was forming in my mind. I decided to ask anyways, chances are, I was probably going to be right about my suspicion towards her. "Um, are you also, you know, a vampire?"
"Yes," She smiled, revealing her pearly white teeth along with those canines.
"Well, thank you for your help, but I better be going." With this I quickly turned around and started walking towards the end of the hallway. I turned over my shoulder to see her wave and leave as well. She didn't seem too bad, and for once, I actually was very comfortable with another vampire. Maybe there was more to them then what met my eyes. I shrugged my shoulders and continued walking towards the end of the hall, which was illuminated with two beautiful oval shaped lamplights. I opened the door to see a beautiful bridge made of red colored wood stretch to the building across from me. There were white roses entwined all over the bridge while the sun shone right over it. It was very enchanting, almost as if out a fairy tale book. The funny part was the irony behind it, instead of belonging to a fairy, it belonged to a monster. I walked over to the other side of the bridge, and opened the door. There was yet another large living room in front of me, very similar to the one that was in the other palace. I walked up the stairs and went to the first door on the right. Turning the knob handle I was about to say something but stopped flabbergasted.
There was a woman in Victor's arms, who had her hands twined around his neck and was glued to his body. His head was bent over to her neck and a line of blood was trickling down her neck, spoiling her light blue gown. My immediate response was absolute shock until I found the strength to grab the nearest object in my peripheral view (a big book on a shelf) and threw it straight at Victor's head. The book hit his head making and dropped to the floor, making a huge thud sound. Victor dropped the woman on the ground and growled very loudly. He turned around and crouched, looking at me dead in the eyes. His eyes had this pinkish color and were glowing. He snarled at me and took a slow step towards me. I started walking towards him in a slow pace, while he was still snarling at me. Getting closer to his face, I could smell the woman's blood on him and saw that he had dripped blood all over his chin. I raised my hand in the air and slapped him.
My hands turned red in response to the contact it made and Victor growled even louder, jumping on top of me. "Umpf, get off me you stupid bloodsucking freak!" I screamed and kicked him in the stomach, causing him to roll off me. I got back to my feet and started kicking him left and right, screaming profanities.
He stopped struggling under me and closed his eyes. Wow, it couldn't have been that me merely kicking him in the stomach could have killed him. I took my toe and pushed it towards his stomach again, to see if he would respond. He grabbed my ankle and tripped me, causing me to land on top of him with a thud.
"Ouch! Let me go you stupid jackass! He opened his eyes to reveal the mesmerizing neon green and started laughing at me. I pounded his shoulder and tried to push my self off him, but his grip was too hard. I felt his hands closing around my arms, and could feel my circulation stopping. Any minute now, and I would be dead. Without thinking I bit his shoulder with all my power and caught him by surprise, causing him to release me. I quickly got up and rubbed my shoulder, wincing at the pain that it caused me. I looked at my arms to see red forming around them, in the shape of his hands. It felt like a burn mixed with muscle cramps. I looked up to see him staring at my grimaced face. All of a sudden, he started laughing.
"What's so funny you moron?" I asked angrily.
He stopped laughing and looked at me thoughtfully, "I didn't think that even you would have it in you to bite. I guess we do make a perfect pair. If I could rearrange the alphabet, I would put U and I together."
"Cliché. But guess what, if I could rearrange the alphabet, I would put F and U together. So shut your smart mouth up and go do something better with yourself. Aren't you even ashamed of yourself, draining an innocent woman like this? You are so cowardly, all you do is live off others, by taking what's rightfully theirs and use it for your own sustenance." I turned around to look at the poor woman on the floor, moving around a little and moaning.
"Haha, you just perfectly defined me, the heinous creature I am. Well, guess what? That woman on the floor is one of my personal slaves, just made for me to feed from. She serves no other purpose then that." Victor replied, smiling at me.
"Just what I could expect from a bloodsucker like you. Now tell me something, why the hell do I have these red spots everywhere?" I asked, pointing to the red marks that were on my neck and arms. I wasn't going to show him the one under my clothes, but I figured, that if he knew what they were by looking at the ones outside, the same theory would probably apply to all of them.
"Hmm, what red spots?" He asked.
"Oh come on, don't be so fuckin blind don't you have accelerated senses due to your stupid vampiric nature? Can't you see this fuckin red mark on my neck and my arms?" Now I was really pissed.
"Honey, you don't have anything on your neck or arms." He grabbed my hand and took me to a mirror in the bathroom. I pulled my hand out of his to touch my neck. There was no red spot there, and none on my arm as well.
"What the hell? I had just seen them this morning when I had gotten out of the shower." Now I was confused.
"How many spots did you see?" He asked.
"Seven. All of them were same in diameter. Six of them came in pairs while the seventh one, which was on my neck was by itself." I replied.
"Oh, I see. Like I told you, you will find out the answer to your question tonight. If I tell you right now, all you will do is argue with me. Now let me get cleaned up, and come with me, I am taking you to meet my family members." With this, he tried to grab my hand and I smacked his hand before he could grab mine. He shook his head in disappointment and zoomed out of the bathroom. He zoomed back in a second later and was already dressed in casual jeans with a white t-shirt. He motioned with his hand and beckoned for me to follow him. I rolled my eyes at him and followed him out of the bathroom. The woman on the floor was long gone and all traces of blood had already been removed. Damn, this guy was pretty fast, within a few seconds he had all his mess cleaned up. My blood boiled when we passed the place where the woman had been on the floor. I was utterly disgusted, not to mention extremely angry with myself for not being able to protect her. I clenched my hands into fists and gave the finger to Victor's back. Ugh, I was going to kill this guy, I just needed to play my cards right.
We walked over the bridge back to my palace and were back in the living room. There were 4 people sitting there already, out of which 2 were elegantly dressed, and 2 wore casual clothing. The elegantly dressed man spoke first, "Welcome Genevive, my dear, I am Victor's father, King Zachary. You can call me Zack for short." The man walked up to me and gave me a very formal embrace. I flinched at his touch and mentally rolled my eyes. I was going to have to take a shower later because this filthy guy just hugged me. He got out of the embrace and looked at me straight in the eyes. He had very firm features, very similar to those of Victor's, however, something was different. He had brownish blonde hair and neon blue eyes, which stood out on his face, in contrast to the pale skin. He was a little shorter than Victor, but his movement demanded far more respect than Victor's. The woman who was sitting with them stood up as well, and approached me. She was slim and petite, about an inch shorter than me. She had shoulder length light brown hair, which flowed gracefully, as if she was a Pantene hair model. She walked up to me and also gave me a hug. Releasing me from the hug, she looked deep into my eyes with her neon green eyes. So that's where Victor got his eye color from, his mommy.
"Hello dear, I am Queen Elizabeth, Victor's mother. I am so happy to see that Victor finally decided to marry and found himself such a beautiful bride. I am very glad to have you as part of my family," she said in a beautiful song-like voice. She turned and gestured for the other two boys who were sitting there to come over. She pointed to the boy with blonde hair and neon aqua colored eyes. He was pretty built and muscular, and stood up to be an inch taller than Victor.
"This is Zalen, Victor's younger brother." Zalen walked over and gave me a quick hug and released me. He looked at me and smiled, and went to stand next to his father. Next the queen pointed to the other boy who was there, who had a mischievous smile tugging on his lips. This boy was also very built and had fine muscles. He was probably more toned than Zalen, but not as toned as Victor. He had neon purple eyes and brown hair with natural blond streaks coming out. His hair was gelled to appear messy and flowing in different directions, yet it looked very well set. Before the queen could say anything, he put his finger to her lips and shushed her. He walked over to me with the same mischievous smile and gave me a big hug, lifting me off the floor. I felt like my whole body was crushed and coughed a little to get my breathing back on its rate.
While I was coughing he took his hand and smacked my butt with it. "Come on baby, it was just a hug." He winked at me and gave a me a kiss on the cheek. He had me so pissed off that with my other free hand I smacked him straight on the face. Silence filled the living room atmosphere and all of sudden, everyone started laughing, including the boy himself. He had a surprised look on his face, which broke off as he laughed.
"As I was saying, this is Zero, Victor's third younger brother. He is very mischievous and likes to introduce himself with his own style." The queen smiled warmly at me and turned to Zero. "I think you should apologize to her for your rude behavior sweetheart."
"I'm sorry baby. Let me fix this up." He came back and gave me a softer hug than before. I still glared at him and he winked at me again. Great. Just great. This house was filled with idiot. This guy just sexually harassed me and all his mom did was sweetly tell him to say sorry. I swear if this was my home I would have already chopped his hands off for committing an atrocity like that. Like that was every going to fix him. His name definitely suited him, Zero. While he had a hundred percent on his body, his brain definitely ranked as zero percentage. This is what we called all beauty and no brains.
"Let's all go for lunch now, since it's noon already," the queen suggested. We all started walking towards left side of the living room and went into the kitchen The kitchen was simple yet elegant and had the same color combination as the rest of the house: red. There were bits of gold in the floral designs here and there, while most of it was outlined black. They had pasta with salad and Italian bread on the side. Everyone was drinking some red wine (which I assume was blood) except for me. I stuck to a simple glass of lemonade and stared off into space again. They kept on chit chatting with each other, all appearing to have the time of their lives, while I just nodded every now and then, pretending to pay attention. The plates were cleared off the table and everyone relaxed, drinking their "red wine." I got up and excused myself and walked back up to my room. This was going to take a lot of time for me to register. I went to my room and changed into a pair of black basketball shorts. I put my shoes on and decided to go explore in my backyard. Going out the balcony steps, I went towards the lake that was there. It looked even beautiful up close. I sat there under the tree and watched a pair of ducks swimming lazily in the river. Taking in a deep breath, I closed my eyes, committing the image to my memory. It was the only sight in this dreadful palace that kept me at complete peace. Without realizing, I slowly drifted off into sleep.
I awoke peering into a pool of neon green eyes. I was laying on something soft, a bed was it? Suddenly, afraid of my positioning I completely opened my eyes to see Victor hovering on top of me, caging me to the bed.
"Wakey wakey sweetheart. It's time" he sang. His cold breath made me shiver involuntarily and I tried to push him off. He got off me and went to look outside at the window. The moon was full at its best, but it was a little different. It was bigger than its usual size and had this reddish, orangish color, as if it had been bathed in blood. Moonlight started falling into my room and eventually fell on top of me. All of a sudden, I felt this bright light emanating from my body and felt sharp pain on my neck, left wrist, chest, stomach and back. The light disappeared leaving me fallen to the ground, crouched over in pain. What the hell was this pain? And where did it come from? Was it from something I ate? Was it the pasta? Last I recall, everyone had eaten it, so why wasn't this dumb ass falling over? I saw him standing away from me, his eyes changing colors, faltering between a pink to green color. He zoomed over to me, picking me up in his arms, bridal style. Lifting me to sit on his lap, he moved my hair out of my face. I looked into his pink eyes, biting my lower lip to balance my sense of pain. Tears started streaming out of my eyes involuntarily. I fought to keep them back, but they wouldn't stay. I was in so much pain and it felt like my insides were being slashed into million pieces and acid was being thrown on me. He pried my legs apart and brought me closer to him, pulling me into a tight hug. His cold body gave me some relief, but I still felt the pain.
Moving all of my hair to one side, he leaned in and whispered in my ears, "sorry sweetheart, this is going to hurt a little." With that his fangs grew and he bit the side of my neck.