Page 62 of Eternal Captive

She’s going to get me killed.

The puzzle pieces started to click into place, each painting a more gruesome picture of what they had done right under my nose.

“You’d get your own wife killed?”I spat, turning back to him. The dress felt too tight. It constricted my movements and my breath. The longer it stayed on me, the more panicked I got.

“You’re not my wife yet,” he said with a shrug. “You made that very clear when you refused my blood bond. It could have saved you from all this, Aurelia.”

He didn’t get his way with me, so he decided to just…get me killed instead? But, of course, not before he could get what he needed out of me.

For once, the prince had outwitted me, and I could think of nothing other than the need to slaughter him.

But my hands were tied. I needed to retreat. Needed to get out of the stifling ballroom before I caused even more of a scene.

I needed to escape.

I backed away, running into the sides of the vampires around us. He tried to follow, but I held up my hand and turned away from him, beelining to the door.

Vesper

“Don’t let her leave,” Cedar said, the first words she spoke to me all day.

I jumped at them, but my eyes were already on the runaway princess as she pushed through the crowd.

I had been watching her the whole time. Watching as the vampire who had sunk his teeth into her neck paraded her around the room.

It caused a nasty feeling to swirl in my stomach. Especially when I caught her multiple times looking like she might just kill him right then and there.

It shouldn’t have. Just like I should have never felt enough pity for her to intervene when they were in his room.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I couldn’t wrap my brain around how I had gone from the good little contractor my family created to some sort of caring, lust-filled teenager that couldn’t keep her hands off the royal vampire.

I hated it.Hated her.Hated how she made me feel. Hated how she was making me rethink things that had been taught to me for over a decade.

…but if that were the case, would you even have covered your tattoo when you got here?The small voice that whispered the damning statement had been far too loud after the night of my failed assassination attempt.

Nothing in my training demanded it. Nor was it deemed appropriate by the secret organization’s standards.

It wassupposedto be visible at all times. But even if they assumed the general population wouldn’t connect the dots between my tattoo and my job here, it was too risky.

And I valued my life too much for that.Hers too, apparently.

Enough to not kill her. Enough to not be able to take my eyes off her.

But in a situation like the gala, it wasn’t strange. Others were watching too. The room was filled with vampires, highly important vampire councilmen, politicians, billionaires, some of whom I had only heard rumors about. All of them gathered to watch the new couple.

Those on the lowest rung tried to smoke them. Tried to hold their attention as long as possible before they were forced to be handed to another.

But she handled it. Maybe poorly at times, but it was likely no one else noticed and instead just saw the perfectly dolled-up, well-behaved vampire princess Aurelia wanted everyone to see.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” I grumbled to Cedar. We had strict orders to watch the perimeter, regardless of what our previous stations had been.

That’s how Cedar and I got stuck together. But still, I hadn’t been able to stop watching the princess.

Curiosity burned at me from the inside. I wanted to know what the bastard said to make her flee like that. It even angered me a bit, knowing what he had done not long before.

But I couldn’t control the princess. If anything, her fleeing would help me. And no matter the confusing feelings andthoughts happening on the inside, I couldn’t let myself continue to fuck up the job.

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