Night of the Vampire King Read online

  Night of the Vampire King

  A short Story

  Bella Kaus

  Copyright © 2020 by Bella Klaus.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  www.BellaKlaus.com

  Chapter 1

  Copyright © 2020 by Bella Klaus.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  www.BellaKlaus.com

  Chapter 1

  I strained my muscles pushing the heavy wooden door. It creaked open, sending tiny goose pimples skittering over my skin. If Valentine found out I was sneaking about without his permission…

  Shaking off a bout of nerves, I slipped through the gap in the door, stepped into the library, and tapped the flashlight icon of my smartphone. The bright beam illuminated glimpses of wood panels decorated with gold brocade, gilded candlestick holders atop mahogany desks, and a black-and-white-tiled floor that looked and felt like marble.

  Behind me, rusty metal hinges groaned as the door closed, encasing me in what was beginning to look like a library. I couldn’t tell if I was Hermione walking into the restricted area or Belle stepping into the library of the beast. Probably neither, considering my long, red hair.

  This abandoned mansion held a hundred secrets. My only way to survive being trapped here with Valentine was to uncover something to secure my escape.

  I took a left, passing one of the mahogany reading tables, and reached a tall shelf. The scent of leather and parchment filled my nostrils, making me sigh. Libraries were always special, containing thousands of windows into different worlds, but this one in particular sent shivers along my nerve endings. Maybe what excited me most about being here was that it was forbidden.

  The shelves stretched up as far as the smartphone’s flashlight could reach, containing leather-bound books with worn but legible spines. I continued along the width of the bookshelf, running my fingertips along the tomes. They seemed to be arranged at random—A History of Aberdeenshire Wives stood beside Blacksmithing For the Enlightened. Some had their author’s name stamped into the leather as well, but the majority did not. How peculiar.

  I passed tomes with French titles, Spanish titles, Italian and Latin, some written in what looked like Arabic script. There were even a few in Chinese.

  “How many languages does Valentine speak?” I whispered to myself.

  My gaze caught a book with a spine written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. My brows rose. This had to be fake. Pursing my lips, I pulled the leather tome off the shelf and opened it at a random page. It contained rubbings of stone tablets. Images of birds and eyes and other Egyptian symbols lay in straight lines on pages yellowed with age. A gasp slipped from my lips. Was this taken from a tomb?

  Not wanting to damage such an old and precious record, I closed the book and slid it back into place on the shelf. Every tome on that shelf looked centuries-old, yet there wasn’t a spec of dust or so much as a cobweb. Did that mean someone used this library frequently? Apart from Valentine, I hadn’t seen any signs of servants.

  Something thudded on the other side of the room, making my heart leapfrog into the back of my throat. Spinning around, I clapped a hand over my mouth, forcing myself not to squeak.

  A light flickered on the edge of my vision, making all the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  I froze in the semi-darkness with my smartphone pressed against my belly to muffle the light. Valentine hadn’t exactly told me not to come in here, but he had ordered me to stay in my room. I held my breath, waiting for something, anything to come out of the dark and admonish me for straying where I didn’t belong.

  My pulse pounded in my ears, and my breathing became ragged. A cool draft drifted around the back of my neck and curled around my ear like a caress. Maybe I was imagining things. The thud probably came from the hall, or it was just something in the old mansion moving on its own.

  But I hadn’t imagined that light.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I took a deep breath and held it for a count to five, making sure to drag out each number for a couple of beats. When my lungs felt like they would burst, I let out a smooth, slow breath and managed to slow my pulse.

  If I was going to escape this mansion I would need to be brave. I’d need to take risks and stop letting my imagination get out of control.

  I opened my eyes and pointed the smartphone’s light in the direction of the flicker, a shelf holding the similar leather tomes as I’d seen before. All the trepidation left me in a relieved exhale. Maybe I would find a clue to explain why I was stuck in this crumbling mansion with Valentine. I hurried across the darkened room to peruse the titles.

  The scent of freshly polished leather filled my nostrils, making my heart quicken. Something about these books was more vibrant than the others, and I was sure one of them would contain the answers I needed.

  I whispered the titles beneath my breath. “A History of Alchemy, Necromancy and the Rise of the Church… Ritual Spells for Novices?”

  My brows creased into a frown. The titles were written in a way that suggested they were academic tomes like the others, but the titles were laughable. Had they been written as a joke, some long-dead academic deciding to have a bit of fun?

  That was possible. And if that was the case, I could understand wanting to have a copy of them just for amusement. And yet, something about the books nagged at me, and I reached out, my fingers grazing one at the end.

  Vampires During the Reign of Henry VIII.

  My pulse quickened, and every fiber of my body urged me to pick up the tome. I glanced over my shoulder into the dark, turned back to the shelf, and pulled down the book. The parchment inside glided against my fingertips like silk, and I stared down at the calligraphic script. It was clearly written in some form of English, but while I could make out most of the words, others were foreign and spellings that could have been taken from the works of Shakespeare.

  How old was this book?

  “Do you often invade a man’s privacy?” A deep voice curled through my senses like a caress.

  I jumped, unable to contain a loud squeak. Every muscle in my body stiffened at the heavy presence at my back. The pulse in my throat fluttered—I didn’t dare turn around, didn’t dare face the man whose library I’d entered without permission, but without meaning to, I twisted my head to the side.

  “Sorry…” The words died on my tongue.

  Valentine stood three feet away, his dark eyes glowing in the artificial light. The contours of his high cheekbones and perfectly straight nose contrasted with the deep shadows of his angular face. It was as though he’d been lit in the style of Hollywood.

  “I hope for your sake that disobedience isn’t a habit,” he said in a cool voice. “You may not appreciate my punishment.”

  A glint in his eyes told me that he would enjoy punishing me. A thrill of terror tingled down my spine and settled between my legs. His nostrils flared, and he inhaled a deep breath as though savoring my excitement.

  I lowered my lashes, my gaze skimming the form-fitting black shirt he wore open to the sternum. The shimmering fabric skimmed his prominent pectoral muscles and curved over bulging biceps. A tiny moan reverberated in the back of my throat. Even his pants were tight, giving me hints of strong muscular thighs.

  Valentine was the only person I’d ever met who made being frightening look so seductive. He was dark, enthralling, deadly.

  “What are you reading?”

  My gaze snapped up to his face.

  He stepped toward me, the shadows seeming to meld and twist around his muscular form.

  I shook my head, blinked hard, tried to push away the optical illusion, and focused on his question. “I wasn’t reading anything. Just exploring the library.”

  Before I could put the book back on the shelf, Valentine appeared at my side and plucked it from my hands.

  He glanced down at the cover and frowned. “Vampires.” The word curled around my senses like a silk scarf. The kind I once read about in a book that the hero used to tie up the heroine. “Quite an interesting topic. Is it one you find fascinating?”

  A nervous laugh bubbled up from my throat. I’d watched True Blood and read a few steamy novels featuring immortal lovers, but that was the extent of my interest in vampires. My throat spasmed, and I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice. “No, not really. I just picked up this book by coincidence.”

  Valentine’s eyes bore into the side of my face, urging me to turn and face him. “Do they frighten you?”

  I shook my head. “They’re not real.”

  “Oh?” he said with a throaty chuckle.

  I gulped several times in quick succession. What did he want me to say? Why were we even having a conversation about creatures that didn’t exist?

  He stepped back, loosening the tension in my throat. “Do you know that every tale contains a drop of reality?”

  “Not necessarily.” I turned my head and met his gaze.

  Amusement danced in his dark eyes, and the corners of his full lips curved into the tiniest of smiles. I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or working up to something shocking.

  I shrank into the bookshelf, waiting to see if he would reply. Mythical creatures didn’t exist. Did he want me to say otherwise?

  “Perhaps they just
want you to think they’re works of fiction,” he drawled.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “So they can hunt from the shadows, away from the angry crowds and pitchforks.”

  A laugh huffed from my throat. But why did I think he wasn’t teasing?

  Valentine took another step forward, leaving a mere foot of space between our bodies. Somehow, I’d backed myself against the bookshelves, and his broad frame seemed to fence me in on three sides.

  Every drop of moisture left my throat, and breaths became shallow. I held the smartphone limply between my fingers, its light making his skin appear luminescent. It only added to the tension humming between us the way air seems to wriggle in extreme heat.

  “Why are we even talking about vampires?” I asked.

  His smile broadened but didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  His eyes.

  Instead of the deep indigo I’d grown to admire, his irises glowed red.

  My heart rate quickened, bringing with it an uncontrollable trembling across every limb. It had to be a trick of the light. Red-eye or something from the smartphone’s light. Or a trick of the mind. No matter how many times I blinked, Valentine’s eyes stayed red.

  Impossible…

  Wasn’t it?

  Triumph gleamed in those eyes, and memories whizzed through my mind, in a rapid kaleidoscope of images.

  Valentine sitting at the head of the table, sipping a deep red wine he’d poured from a decanter. He’d had it with each meal, no matter what we’d been eating, but he’d never once offered me a glass.

  And how many times had he snuck up on me, seeming to have just stepped out of the shadows? He walked with such precision and grace, never making a sound as he moved throughout the mansion’s creaking hallways.

  Valentine never seemed to sleep. He was always up when I’d go to sleep each night and no matter how early I awoke, he was always already awake.

  My pulse fluttered in my throat like a trapped butterfly as more and more of these strange coincidences assaulted my mind. His unnatural stillness, the coolness of his touch, the way he seemed to know what I was saying, even before I’d so much as parted my lips.

  Triumph flashed in Valentine’s eyes, and they roved my face, daring me to speak. I stared into his widening pupils, the pressure of my panic mounting until it was ready to burst. Valentine wasn’t—he couldn’t be—such things didn’t even exist.

  “Ask me….” His whisper swept over my skin like a caress. “Mera.”

  The challenge in his voice when he said my name sent a shiver down my spine that settled between my legs. I gulped. That it hadn’t been a challenge, but a demand.

  My lips parted to murmur a denial—to ask what the hell he was talking about, but no words rose to my tongue. No matter how many times I tried, the best I could do was stammer out a few meaningless syllables.

  Valentine’s unmoving gaze fixed me against the shelf, his stern features not betraying a single thought.

  After several moments of gazing into each other’s souls, my pulse slowed, and the words spilled from my lips, “Are you a vampire?”

  The corner of Valentine’s lips curled into a smile, which morphed into a grin of gleaming, white teeth. I would have smiled back, had it not been for his incisors, which extended farther than the rest and ended in sharpened points.

  A palpitation reverberated through my chest. Those teeth hadn’t been there before. Valentine had fangs.

  Every nerve ending in my body thrummed to action, screaming at me to run, to get as far away from this man, this creature—before he could slide those sharp teeth into an artery and feed. I tried moving, but my muscles wouldn’t obey my commands. It was as though staring into Valentine’s eyes had rooted me to the floor. I couldn’t even tear my gaze from his wickedly handsome face.

  A sob caught in the back of my throat. In the old horror movies, this was where the heroine died. Then in the next scene, she would rise from her coffin as a creature of the night, only to get staked by a man with an Austro-Hungarian accent and his plucky English sidekick.

  Valentine drifted toward me, seeming to glide the few inches to close the distance between us. He stood so close, I could almost feel the press of his full lips against the shell of my ear and the fan of his cool breath against my skin. Valentine smelled of red wine, rich cacao, roasted coffee, and underneath that, something dark and decadent and utterly dangerous.

  “Perhaps we should expand your education.” His deep, melodic voice danced into my eardrums, filling my head with his sounds. “A vampire can offer a woman unimaginable pleasure and sensual delight.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting back a shudder of arousal, and the muscles of my thighs clenched to contain the thrum of sensation awakening between my legs. My traitorous body didn’t know we were in the biggest trouble of our lives. Neither did my mind because a mix of terror, trepidation, and anticipation kept me listening to Valentine’s words.

  “All you have to do is consent to one bite. One bite, and I will have you crying my name for more.”

  His fingertips skimmed down the column of my neck, sending a line of sparks continuing down to my tightening nipples and staying there until it felt like those fingertips had slipped down to caress my breasts.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and released a shuddering breath. Even as Valentine’s fingers left my neck, the ghost of his touch traveled across my skin. The sensation rippled down my belly, over the tops of my thighs, circling trails of pleasure over my sensitive flesh but never venturing where I needed him most.

  Sweat beaded across my brow, and a puff of hot breath escaped my lips. Valentine was doing this on purpose. Giving me a taste of what I could enjoy as his lover but none of the satisfaction.

  He stepped back, watching me with the intensity of a cat stalking a wounded bird. “Your answer.”

  “Valentine,” I whispered. “Please.”

  In the blink of an eye, his hard body pressed into mine, pinning my wrists against the wooden shelves. I wanted him to kiss my neck, flick his tongue over the sensitive flesh, just so the sensation could wander where the touch of his fingers had missed.

  My core heated, and moisture flooded my folds. I rolled my eyes to the back of my head, unable to take the incessant teasing.

  “Please,” I rasped. “Kiss me.”

  The softest caress of his lips landed on my neck, and he traced a trail of kisses down to my collarbone and back up to my ear lobe. “What do you want?” he murmured. “Jewelry, designer clothes, international travel, a life of unbridled luxury and pleasure? I can give it to you. Everything you desire.”

  Somehow, his cool breath fanned over my folds, and my lips parted to release a low, needy moan. A tiny voice in the back of my head screamed at me that this was a vampire—a wicked, dangerous, preternatural creature of the night.

  “All you have to do is say yes.” Valentine sucked my lobe between his lips, and a burst of pleasure exploded between my legs.

  “Yes!” The word flew from my mouth before I could stop it, and my body trembled with wave after wave of ecstasy, urged on by the twitching and spasming of my core.

  My body trembled against the bookshelf, and my knees threatened to collapse. It was only Valentine’s strong body pinning me in place that stopped me from melting into a puddle of satisfaction on the library’s marble floor.

  Before I could explain myself, his lips moved back to my neck with forceful, open-mouthed kisses. The hands encasing my wrists traveled down my sides, and he hooked his forearms beneath my thighs, lifting my feet off the floor.

  With a happy moan, I wrapped my legs around his hips, enjoying the press of his hardness against my core. The shadows closed in around us, blocking out all the light until all I could see were Valentine’s glowing, red eyes. I bucked my hips, riding out my climax as he exposed his fangs again and inched toward my neck.

  Anticipation rippled through my core. Would Valentine take me right here against the books?

  As soon as his fangs grazed my neck, I let out a gasping scream. The library faded into a swirl of lights and parchment and deep red eyes before vanishing with a pop.

  My eyes snapped open, and I thrashed within the confines of a heavy comforter and silk sheets. The pulse between my legs pounded in sync with the rapid beat of my heart, and I breathed hard, trying to sort through the tumble of sensations coursing through my body.