Three days alone on the ocean with Darius was enough for me. When he wasn’t biting me or learning as much as he could about me, he drove me to the brink of wanting to rip my hair out. There are so many layers to Darius and getting to know him seems impossible. Not in the timeframe I have in mind.
I learned more about the resistance from Darius. The leaders of the resistance were rumored to be both human and night-dweller sympathizers. Only no one knew who the night-dweller sympathizers were because for the most part, they‘d gone to great lengths to remain hidden.
When Darius and I returned from our trip we barely got an hour to ourselves before we were being groomed for yet another appearance we had to make at the capital. Conditions took a turn for the worse while Darius and I were away. A group of humans attacked a night-dweller neighborhood, setting homes on fire, looting and trying to kill as many night-dwellers as possible. On Viktor’s order, they were all slaughtered. Their voices suppressed. Their agenda undermined by their actions. Now Darius and our fathers wanted me to convince them to be peaceful.
I was shoved in front of flashing lights, shouting human reporters, and a camera to betray my people. My blood went cold. Betray Darius and our father’s or speak the truth. I looked down at the teleprompter in front of me, but the words displayed across that screen…I couldn’t speak them. Taking a deep breath, I decided to speak from the heart.
“Good afternoon ladies and gentleman of the press. I know many of you have a lot of questions about where I stand on what’s happening to the human population and…and I want you to know that I see your suffering.”
What the hell are you doing Giselle…? Darius spoke to my mind. I stuttered my next words at the invasion inside my head.
Still, I pressed on and said, “I am not blind to what you are going through and I want nothing more than to end your suffering. I’ve been working tirelessly to implement new laws that I’m hoping will do just that. With my future husbands support, I hope.”
I turned to Darius who had a smile planted on his face. A smile that concealed the rage simmering inside him. His eyes flicked over to mine and issued a silent threat. I’d disobeyed him. In speaking up for my people I undermined both him and his authority.
“Is this true?” The human reporters all began to buzz.
Darius stepped to my side and laced his fingers with mine. He squeezed so hard that keeping a smile on my face took everything I had in me. It felt as if he were going to shatter my bones.
“My future wife, while very concerned about the plight of her people, does not have the political power to make such bold statements. Nor does she have my support in these endeavors. In fact, I believe our three days at sea may have exhausted her more than expected. Please address any further questions to my brothers while I see to it that my future wife gets some much needed rest,” Darius nodded and walked me off the stage.
It only took passing one pair of frightened eyes for me to realize the full weight of what I’d done. As Darius walked me back to the waiting car, waving at the people calling our names, I kept my head down. He glared at me the entire ride home and practically dragged me into the house he was walking so fast. My heart pounded in my chest.
He’s going to kill me…
Once in our room he closed and locked the bedroom door. With his chest heaving up and down, and his eyes wild with rage, he gripped my by the neck and asked me, “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
“Yes. I made you and our father’s a man of your word,” I dared to stand my ground.
“My kind will come for you! Is that what you want? Every night-dweller in the fucking world will come for you!” He tightened his grip on my neck.
“I don’t care. My people deserve hope Darius. Even if it’s futile. They deserve a better tomorrow and-”
He cut off my circulation and I stopped breathing. I kept expecting him to release me, but minutes later I was still struggling to breathe. He was crushing my larynx. My body kicked into survival mode and I began to fight him. It only seemed to anger him even more. I wouldn’t win either. He’s stronger than me.
The only way out of this was to appeal to his feelings for me. Pleading with my eyes since I couldn’t utter a sound, I gently caressed his face. Almost instantly he let go of me and I collapsed into him, fisting the collar of his suit jacket, gasping for air. When I could finally breathe without coughing I met his gaze. There was so much anger-so much fire behind his eyes. His lips moved like he was going to speak and then there was excruciating pain. He sank his teeth into my neck and for the second time he drained me until I was paralyzed.
Darius lay me on our bed and walked over to his desk where he began to work as I lay there dying. Occasionally he would meet my gaze as if he was having an attack of conscious, but then that icy gleam in his eyes would return.
“I should kill you for what you’ve done,” he finally spoke to me. “A smart man would kill you and then be done with you. But now that we’ve presented you to the world as my companion I can’t simply kill you. It’s too risky. I’d be labeled a monster. And according to my father my image needs to be…softened.”
“I’m sorry,” I breathed.
“Are you? You made me look like a fool out there.”
“I just want to help my people.”
“If the situations were reversed, do you think they would help you?” My vision was starting to deteriorate yet again. I had to squint to see him now as he said; “You humans leave your kind out on the streets to fend for themselves. You fight amongst yourselves even, dividing yourselves up by skin tone, gender, and economic stature. For years we’ve watched your kind butcher each other. We’ve watched your human government act on behalf of economic interests with treachery and corruption, not caring about its affects on the populace…on its own people. Your corporations took human jobs and gave them to robots for the sake of greed. You humans suppressed an entire race of people out of fear that they may rise to their true potential and take what you have. You slaughtered them like animals as if you were putting down a dog…not a human being. You humans have killed mother nature for the sake of your own ego, only she comes back with a vengeance, flooding your towns, causing the ground to tremble, and birthing deadly predators to take you out. You humans, with all your hate and all your plotting and conniving nature have single-handedly destroyed the world with your egos.”
“Not all of us are like that,” tears fell from my eyes.
“Knowing all of that about you, we still tried to coexist. And do you know how your kind repaid us, time and again? They repaid us by trying to wipe us out. So forgive me if I am merely trying to return the favor. For all the suffering your kind has caused Giselle…they deserve to die.”
“Including me?” I swallowed hard, “Do I deserve to die as well?”
“No. You’re the only human I’ve come into contact with that I haven’t wanted to kill after spending five minutes alone with you.”
“And my father?”
“I’ve wanted to kill him for quite some time now, along with your stepmother.”
“Why?”
“Your stepmother sold you to me to pay off a half a million dollar debt and your father bartered you to me as if you were cattle. Both times you were freely given for less than a million dollars in promises. You’re worth more than that. Your father has spent 0most of his life trying to grow and maintain his wealth, when his most precious commodity is his seventeen-year-old daughter. It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Darius’ voice sounded closer now. The bed beneath me sank and I knew he was sitting next to me even though I could no longer see him. “I knew the moment I saw you I would’ve given them anything they would’ve asked for just to have you. They could have been set for life if they’d valued your life more.”
“I thought you didn’t like me when I first came here.”
“I shouldn’t have. I didn’t want to. I tried to be mean to you but I couldn’t. One look at you and being the prick you seemed to think I was became the hardest thing in the world to do.”
“Why?”
Darius placed his wrist to my lips and without having to be told I drank his blood. “You’re pure, uncorrupted, and you’re a fighter.”
Swallowing the last mouthful of blood, I turned to him and asked, “Then why punish me for standing up for my people? They may be flawed and misguided, but they can be reformed Darius. They can learn to coexist.”
“Do you really believe that?” He asked.
“Yes. I do,” I nodded.
“A wager then,” he offered, “I will support your cause, your mission. If they are redeemed, I will let them live. But if they are not redeemed, and if they should rise up against us, I will give the order to slaughter them all.”
“All of them?” I sat up to face him.
“Give or take a family or two who support the night-dweller agenda. A few we find… useful.”
He was testing me to see if I believed in my people enough to risk their lives. He wanted to see just how deep my faith in humanity would go.
“I accept your offer.”
“Good,” he smiled.
“Why make an offer like that after what you said to the press this afternoon?”
“Because I don’t like being called heartless and I definitely don’t like the implications of our little incident.” Darius pulled out his phone and showed me a news article. In it, he’s accused of being insensitive to my needs. Domineering. In other words…not soft enough.
“And here I thought you were trying to do the right thing,” I scoffed, shaking my head, “You’re doing what’s best for your image. You don’t care about what happens to us.”
“I do care about what happens to you.”
“Well if you did Darius, you’d know that caring about me means caring about the things I love most. Like my people.”
I climbed out of bed and stormed into my old room, closing and locking the door behind me. Darius has tunnel vision and at the end of the tunnel there’s nothing but me lying naked in his bed. That’s all he cares about.
Brute…Ass…Prick…
Lying back on my old bed, I rolled over onto my side and pulled my knees into my chest. Darius has had lifetimes-lifetimes, to drum up clever ways to get what he wants, to screw with my head. He’s bested me at every turn, and the more time we spend together the more it feels like I’m sinking deeper and deeper into an emotional prison of his choosing.
Don’t even get me started on the biting…
When he bites me, it’s not out of malice. Not the way he does it…it’s sensual in nature, seductive even. Lustful…not angry. Like how a male lion bites the neck of a female lion during their mating ritual. She submits and allows the male lion to copulate. Darius would have no such luck no matter how many times he bites me.
A knock at my bedroom door broke through my thoughts. “Giselle its Cara. I’m coming in,” she announced. She came inside and closed the door behind her. Her eyes went to the door separating my room from Darius’ and then back to me. “Darius sent me to tell you he’s sorry. He wants you to join him and his family for dinner in the dining hall. He also wanted me to tell you that your family will be there.”
Damn him. He knew how much I missed Eliza and Lucas. He’s using it against me.
“Lord Darius also said that if I cannot convince you to join him for dinner he’ll be having me for dinner,” Cara smiled nervously. It was an empty threat. He wasn’t going to touch her, but he knew threatening her would piss me off.
“Tell that Neanderthal I’ll have dinner with him.”
Cara nodded and left my room, closing the door behind her. Darius is insufferable. Especially when he wants something he can’t have. God forbid anyone tell him no. It’s like the word has no meaning to him. To him, it’s a starting point for a negotiation.
Drifting from one part of my room to the other I noted that everything was as I left it. All of the toiletries Darius afforded me were still there, but my closet had been rearranged. There was jewelry-expensive jewelry, displayed in a case built into the wall. There were expensive gowns with the tags still on them, all in my size, and shoes that had never been worn. They were also in my size.
Dear God his attention to detail is very astute. He’s literally thought of everything. I have no doubt that every single one of my needs would be met if he ever learns what they are. Control freak. Darius is a control freak. Great. I’m marrying my father.
After pacing the closet and cursing Darius’ name, I went to join him at the dinner table. Cara was waiting outside my bedroom door and kept pace beside me as I stormed down the halls.
“You seem angry.”
“Darius is impossible,” I spat.
“Yes, but he seems to be nice to you.”
I stopped walking and narrowed my eyes at her. “He’s drained me of my blood within an inch of my life twice.”
“But he hasn’t killed you yet, which means he likes you.”
Rolling my eyes I whispered, “Whatever.”
We entered the dining room with the God awful extremely long dining table the Draven’s ate at, the floral arrangements and candleholders. I had to cross half the room before anyone even noticed me.
“Gizzy!” Eliza ran to me, wrapping her arms around my waist.
“Liza bear!”
Lucas stood up to hug me and my father did the same. Elizabeth sat in her seat barely looking in my direction. “As the woman of the house, you must rise and address her as Lady Draven,” Darius fixed his eyes on Elizabeth.
“But the two of you aren’t even married yet.”
“I’m sorry, have I given you the impression that you have a choice?” He glared at her. Clearing her throat, Elizabeth stood and greeted me. I flashed her a quick smile and took my seat next to Darius. “From this day forward Giselle is to be addressed as Lady Draven. Anyone who does not comply will meet an early demise.”
Eliza clasped a hand over her mouth and her eyes grew wide with fright. “Including me?”
“No. You can call her Gizzy all you want,” Darius smiled.
I motioned for Eliza to come sit next to me. She moved just in time. The wait staff came bearing drinks and informed us our meal wasn’t too far off.
Viktor and my father spoke politics, while Jackson and William took turns prying stories about me out of my family. Darius slid his hand under the table, placing it on top of mine. I turned to meet his gaze and forgot to breathe. His allure knows no bounds. I don’t know whether to hate my stepmother or thank her.
Darius suddenly dropped my hand and his head whipped towards the doors of the dining room. “We should get them out of here,” he told the others.
“There’s no time, besides, I’m pretty sure they smelled her a mile away,” William added. They all had their eyes on the entry to the dining room.
“William is right,” Viktor sighed.
“All of you do not move, do not say a word,” Jackson ordered.
My father, Elizabeth, Lucas and Eliza quickly exchanged worried glances. Mere seconds later the doors to the dining room swung open and in walked four of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. Three were men and one was a girl. All had that same chocolate brown hair, and all were built like athletes. Each of them was stunning in their own rights.
“I’m pretty sure your days of visiting my home have been revoked,” Viktor stood to greet them, “Why are you here brother?”
“I’ve come to renegotiate terms,” one of the men stepped forward. His resemblance is similar to Viktor’s, but where Victor has dark hair, his brother’s hair is a lighter shade of brown.
“You have nothing I want Lucien.”
“You need allies. War is coming. You stand a better chance with me by your side than you do alone, brother.”
“Even if that were true, you’d be the last person I’d ally myself with. You want my wife and removing me from the picture is too much of a benefit for you.”
While Viktor and Lucien spoke, Lucien’s sons took in the rest of us. One of them fixated on me. I quickly looked away. Darius noticed his attention on me too and flashed his fangs.
“My-my-my,” the male who fixated on me, slowly sauntered over to Darius, “You have exquisite taste in women cousin,” he smirked. His eyes flicked to mine and then back to Darius.
“Asher, that’s far enough,” Darius warned. Jackson and William both gave Asher a warning glance of their own.
“What’s going on?” Eliza asked.
The tension in the air was starting to make her nervous. It made us all nervous. “Nothing sweetheart. Just a little family business,” A wicked grin spread across Asher’s face. The second younger male walked up next to Asher and his sister followed. Asher’s eyes fell on me again and Darius responded with a hollow growl that shook the room. Eliza gasped and quickly hid underneath the table.
Eyeing him incredulously, Asher said, “Darius Draven, A human sympathizer…who would have thought?”
“I can care less about humans,” Darius replied.
“Then let me have the little girl. The blood is sweet at that age.”
I rose from my seat and all eyes were on me now. “Come near her and I don’t care how old or how ancient you are. I will make it my dying wish to take you with me to the afterlife,” I threatened him.
Amused, Asher laughed and clapped his hands, “You found a feisty one cousin. On second thought maybe I’ll take her.”
“Touch , a hair on her head and you’ll have me to deal with. We all know what happened the last time you tried your luck with me. How long did it take for your limbs to grow back? A month?”
“I can smell her blood from outside. I bet she tastes sweet.”
“State your business and then leave,” Jackson lost his cool.
“Is that any way to talk to family?” The girl addressed him.
“Now is not the time for this,” Darius’ temples flared.
He hadn’t looked in Asher’s direction but he was so unnaturally still that I knew he was aware of every move Asher made. Asher must be the biggest threat then. Darius hadn’t even bothered to keep an eye on the other two and the girl was moving closer to me.
“Darius,” I swallowed hard.
“She won’t touch you. If she does her brother will die. Anya, don’t take another step.”
Anya stopped inching towards me. She looked me over from head to toe and licked her lips.
“Why don’t we take this into another room?” Viktor suggested. “William and Jackson, you come with me. Darius, tend to your fiancé and join us when you can.”
Darius nodded. Viktor escorted the others out of the room with Jackson and William in tow. As soon as they were gone, Darius turned to me and told me to take my family to my room. They didn’t protest. Dad grabbed Eliza from under the table and we headed to my room as fast as we could.
I locked the door and waited in panicked silence.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
