“Well, I didn’t expect that. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you my dear?” The voice of the man standing over me is far too refined to belong to anyone other than an aristocrat. I know I’m up shit creek the moment my power flares. Whoever the guy was, he won't be a problem for me anymore.
The smell of his flesh burning is akin to the smell of burning pork, but it’s the hiss and crackle that I hear that has me bending over and retching everything within my stomach which isn’t much since I never got to have breakfast with the guys.
The car is a total wreck, only a shell is left, even from here I can see blood coating the passenger side. I doubt anyone could have survived the impact with the tree the car is wrapped around.
Fumbling for my phone, I finally punch in the name of the person who I think can help me the most. Just my luck though, the reception dies before I can make the call. I try loading the map of the island, trying to figure out the best route to take to return to the main section of the island, but once more lack of reception forces me to give up.
Falling to my knees, I scream at the stupid phone, “Work you fucking piece of shit!” To my shock the signal blinks into existence. I quickly dial the first number that shows in my list, Mr Carr’s emergency line he gave me that day at school.
It rings for far too long before his voice finally snaps out, “Hello?” It’s crackly and hard to hear but I say his name as a question anyway, “Mr Carr?”
“Alissa, thank fuck. We’ve all been so worried, where are you?” He fires the questions off faster than I can respond, which makes me freeze in place.Wait, what? Why would they all be worried about me? It’s not like they’re my boyfriends or anything….“Worried? Why?” I ask, forgetting the urgency of my situation.
“We woke up and you were gone.” He really does sound worried about me, but why?
“Oh, sorry, I was going to make breakfast but realised we didn’t have enough food to feed everyone. Sorry to have worried you all, but um, I need your help.” I look around me at the destruction I caused with my uncontrolled power. I really do need help, but I don’t have time to explain everything, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll have signal for.
“Where are you?” He asks, but it sounds like he’s talking from too far away.
“Well, that’s kind of why I need your help. You see I was walking to the shops when I was grabbed from the side of the road. I’m not sure who they were but um, well, I think I killed them.”
“Where are you?” He snaps.
“I’m not sure, but it’s not somewhere I’ve been before. They had a car but I kinda blew it up.”
At this he asks, “What can you see around you?”
“There’s a mountain behind me, a dirt track in front of me and what looks like a forest to my left. I tried using my phone’s location but the area I’m in isn’t on the map.”
“I think I know. Stay where you are. Swear to me you won’t move from that spot.”
“Where would I go? I’m pretty lost right now.”
“Just stay there, I’ll come and get you.” I’m not sure which shocks me more; the fact that he hung up on me or the fact that he swore he was coming to my rescue. These last few days have been strange. I’ve gone from a loner who prefers her own company to someone who wants to rely on others. If I didn’t know better I would swear they’ve put some kind of spell on me.
Sitting down on the sand I wait for what feels like forever, finally I hear the sound of buggies coming up on my left. I’m tempted to hide just in case, but I’d recognise the sound of the three engines coming towards me anywhere. After all, one of them is mine.
Instead of leaping to my feet, I simply stay seated with my head down. I’m ashamed at having been kidnapped but I’m more ashamed that I took the lives of the two men who did the deed. In our world, Vampires can kill to defend themselves, and Royals can kill to satisfy their demonic needs; my dead mother is proof of that, but there’s still punishment that is met out if you kill someone of a higher station than you and that aristocratic voice proves that I killed someone important. I just don’t know who he was.
Due to the fact that I’m neither a royal or anyone of importance, I’m not sure if I’ll be punished for the deaths of these men, but I don’t regret my actions. Well, truthfully, I regret the loss of control of my powers. I didn’t actually mean to kill them, merely incapacitate them, but oh well, not the first life I’ve taken, most likely won’t be the last either.
“Oh my god!” Braxton is the first to reach me. His words I assume are meant to convey the gravity of the situation I found myself in. His dark eyes are filled with relief which I find a little more unsettling than the crispy man on the ground not far away. I still can’t get past Brax’s god-like appearance, he’s so perfectly put together all the time, except right now his shirt looks wrong. It takes me staring at it for far too long to realise the reason it looks weird is because his buttons aren’t done up properly. The top three are mixed up, making the material bunch up and gape open between said buttons. I don’t mind the small glimpse of his broad chest that affords me, but the mismatched buttons will drive me crazy if I don’t fix them.
The moment he’s within reach, I grab his shirt and begin unbuttoning the messed up ones. He jerks back the second their undone. “They were buttoned wrong.” I mutter reaching for him again.
“She’s in shock, just go with it.” Mr Carr calls out from over near the remains of the car I was trapped inside.
Am I in shock? I don’t feel like I’m in shock. Do you know if you’re in shock?The questions bounce around inside my mind as I fix the buttons on Brax’s shirt. I’m just finishing the last one when Princess barrels into my side, literally sweeping me off my feet. For a second his scent reminds me of something but no sooner do I have the thought than it’s gone again. “Bring her over here, I’ve got a first aid kit in my buggy. Kal calls as Princess carries me like a helpless child. I’m surprised he’s capable of holding my weight for this long, then again, he is a vampire, maybe part of his power allows him to have extra strength without the need for flashy muscles.
Okay, maybe the Professor is right. I’m all over the place and struggling to keep my eyes open. Perhaps this is what shock is like.
“So are we not going to talk about the fact that the king, my father, is lying dead at your feet Wesley?”
“What? How can you tell, all I see is charcoal and bone.”
I grab a stick off the ground and poke the seared hand closest to me. The flakes of ash fall free, revealing the signet ring my father has worn since the day he became the king of the vampires. I can’t really say I’m sad to see him dead, but there is a part of me that wishes things had been different between us. That we had had the chance to be a family. As it is, he died before he could be more than a stranger I saw less than three times a year in person. The truth is that to me, my father died the day my mother did. The man I came to know after that was just a stranger walking around in my father’s skin.
“Guess we won’t need to be betrothed after all.” Brax laughs as he peers at the ring as well. “Seriously though, why would the king try to kidnap Alissa?”