Page 44 of The Depraved Prince
My head whips left, right, behind, and finally, a pair of familiar crimson-red eyes is right by me. About fifty feet from me, he looks at me with ferociously determined eyes, like I’m his prey. His deer. His little Bambi.
Suddenly, a southern vampire launches forward, blocking his tight vision of me. He raises his hand at Hayden, but before he can attack him, Hayden grabs his throat and tears it out. Red sprays everywhere.
I close my eyes again, praying and hoping it’s a nightmare. He’s killing each vampire that tries him, one by one, with ease. I tear my gaze away from the deadly battle he and his group of guards are engaged in.
“You know I love a good chase, Bambi. Especially when it’syourunning from me.”
Hayden’s voice echoes into my head like a fever dream. How is he doing this? What the hell is going on? How’s he talking to me? Why does he sound so far, and yet it feels like he’s inside me? Inside my head. Inside my fucking soul. I cover my ears as I continue my journey through the crowd.
“But you know what I love more?”
I don’t answer. I feel like if I respond, I’m feeding this nightmare I’m so desperate to deny because I’m still trying to convince myself that monsters aren’t real.
“Sending damned souls to Death himself. Granting mortality to immortality. The lives I get to take who try to look at what’s mine, never mind steal. How does it feel knowing youwill never escape me, little Bambi? Even when you close those pretty brown eyes to sleep, I’ll chase you.”
I continue to run as he continues to wreak havoc on vampires that get in his way to capture me—killing them one by one as I get closer to the travel buses.
“How does it feel to know I will never let you go? To know that I’ve engraved my obsession into you like cattle? The teeth marks on your neck were me branding you, little Bambi. It’ll scar like a tattoo you’ll never be able to get rid of.”
Tears fall down my cheeks, blurring my vision.
He’s in my head.
His enchanting voice taunts me. He’s amused by the fact that he’s in my skin. He’s in me, and there’s no way to get him out.
“How does it feel?”
His ominous tone paints his words as he repeats his question. His crazed voice echoes and bounces off the walls of my mind. It’s soft, daring, and profound, making my cold blood spiral into fire. A riotous skip in the rhythm of my heart consumes me, and it beats all the way down to my core.
As soon as I emerged from the crowd, my feet hit the pavement—a straight road to the exit of the concert arena. I wipe the tears away, and my lungs constrict with that false hope again—a beacon of light in the darkness that has been thrust upon me unwillingly.
Suddenly, I get pushed up against a tree with hands around my biceps, pinning my back into the rusty bark.
I meet intense, bright blue eyes.
Cal.
“I wanted to take my time with you and bring you to the rightful, soon to be only, King in the country. But fuck, you’re too good not to take for myself.” Cal pushes my hair to the side, digging his knee in between my inner thighs, and he snakes hishand into my underwear. “I’ll make it quick,” he declares with a snarl.
I call the only one who can possibly help me at this moment. I’ll probably regret giving in to the man who has taken me against his will, but I have this weird, sick sense that he might grant me mercy, unlike these men.
“No!” I shriek, my voice trembling with disheartenment. My hands and eyes dart anywhere and everywhere but his cruel, uncomfortable infatuation halo. “Hayden!”
Cal backhands me when I spill his name, causing my face and hair to whiplash. I’m seeing stars while the ground spins simultaneously. Cal’s fangs grow abnormally long and his mouth opens wider than humanly possible. I brace myself for the final chapter of my short life, closing my eyes and waiting for the final impact.
But it never comes.
Cal is off me, but I can’t see anything because I black out from the havoc I refuse to acknowledge.
I fall to the floor and cradle myself in a fetal position by a tree that’s right behind us. I tune everything out just as I cover my ears and stare at the ground. All I see are snowglobes while the sounds of snarling, blood splattering on the ground, and bodies hitting the floor linger above my head. I open my eyes when a pair of bright blue eyeballs with veins attached gets flung near my feet. They roll with a layer of blood and dirt.
Oh, I’m definitely going to be sick now.
I palm my quivering lips to stop the high-pitched shriek that wants to pour out of me. My brows narrow down at the organs, blinking away my horror. I close my eyes again.
I escape into my mind, creating my own snow globe. I travel back to the day of my high school graduation. I don’t know why this memory consumes me, but it does.
It had been a year or so since I’d been living with my father, but I would swing by to check on my mother every now and then. Unexpectedly, it was another dreadful start to her morning with Santiago.
