Rogue Prince, page 1
part #3 of Vampire Princess Series
Praise for Cameron Drake
Edge of the seat good! This book was a great read. I am waiting for the next book to see what happens to the Princess. This author has quite an outstanding take on vampires and teens. Good luck Cameron on your next book, I am waiting for that book on the edge of my seat.
-Amazon review for Vampire Princess
Maxim or Dyl? I’m always looking for good PNR and this took me by surprise. I can't wait to find out what happens. Dylan is the good guy that she falls for. But then when she meets the rogue vampire, Maxim, wow! Tall dark and dangerous doesn't begin to cover it. He teaches her how to be a vampire and how to feed and it is very exciting. I love the humor of it, and how Sasha stands up for herself! Really good!
-Amazon review for Vampire Princess
I love fairy tales, and i love how Drake made it a Cinderella mermaid story. I love Beazil more...big great white is like a fluffy stuffed teddy bear or a little puppy. This was the first book I read by Drake, and i loved it
-Amazon review for The Mermaid Trials
I love PNR and this book didn't disappoint. I loved the vampire princess in high school angle and especially that she is strong and can kick butt. A very enjoyable read. I will absolutely be looking for the next book.
-Amazon review for Vampire Princess
Royally Cursed is a mix of something a little sweet, fun, snarky, crazy and magical! It's like the perfect blend of that spicy and sweet mix that has all your senses roaring to life when it hits your tongue! The first book had me wanting more and this second book has me begging for it so I can see where the series and characters take us. It was surprising to get into a different type of book than I am use to and enjoy it this immensely, but that's is exactly what happened! The characters are fabulous, the story is amazing, the humor so much fun and the intensity of what is about to happen, what does happen or what could happen has you on the edge of your seat! Love it, can't wait for book three!💕
-Amazon review for Royally Cursed
Rogue Prince
A Vampire Princess Book
Cameron Drake
Copyright © 2018 by Cameron Drake
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For all the readers out there with a little bit of Fairy dust in their blood
Contents
Rogue Prince
Vampire princess Series order
Cameron Drake's Owlettes
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
End of book three
Sneak Peek Of The Mermaid Trials
Mermaid Trials Excerpt
Turn the page for an excerpt of DreamShifters Book 1:
Original Witch Excerpt
Acknowledgments
About the author
Also by Cameron Drake
Also from Pincushion Press Young Adult
Rogue Prince
Vampire Princess Book Three
A war between Vampires is looming. The future of Vamp and human kind rests on my teenage shoulders. And I still need to get a good score on my SATs.
My guardians have done their best to keep me hidden until I grew strong enough to defeat the New Leaders. The same leaders that destroyed our Kingdom and imprisoned my father. It is nearly time for me to reclaim the throne and set my father free so he can rule once again.
But now there is another claim to the throne. A Prince who hid himself in shadows for centuries. A Prince who let me think he supported me.
A Prince who let me believe that he loved me.
That betrayal cuts the deepest. We are connected by blood so I am constantly aware of Maxim, the so-called Rogue Prince. I know he has not yet revealed my location or sent for the New Leaders. I know I am safe from the ultimate betrayal.
But for how long?
Rogue Prince is the third book in the Vampire Princess series.
Book one: Vampire Princess
Book Two: Royally Cursed
Vampire princess Series order
Vampire princess
Royally Cursed
Rogue Prince
Book four to be announced
Cameron Drake's Owlettes
Join my readers group on Facebook for the inside scoop and sneak peeks!
Prologue
You can never go back, except in dreams.
I’m there again. In the backyard of our house. The house I still live in and the only true home I’ve ever really known. Though I doubt we will be able to stay much longer. Not now that my secret is out.
Sometimes in my dreams, I have useful visions. Glimpses into the future. This time, I’ve traveled back to the exact moment in time that my heart broke.
I’m dreaming and I know I’m dreaming. It’s like a lucid dream on steroids. I can’t change anything. I can’t do anything. I can only feel. Feel the breeze on my skin, a piece of my long hair that gets caught on my lip, feel the sun glinting in my eyes. I can do nothing but wait for the axe to drop, reliving that horrible moment for the hundredth time since it happened. Maybe even the thousandth. The moment I found out the truth. The moment I found out that one of my greatest allies was, in fact, my greatest enemy.
It was the moment I discovered that Maxim had his own claim to my father’s throne. He had secretly planned to betray me. Had always planned to betray me. And it was worse than that. He hadn’t merely earned my trust and affection with false pretenses. He’d weakened me at my core. He’d tricked me into taking his blood. Now we were forever bonded.
Now, I was an open book to him.
Just as he was to me.
That’s how I knew, I knew, how badly it had hurt him when I banished him. He might want my crown, but he also loved me. Truly and deeply loved me. I never really knew how he felt before that moment, but I was too angry to care. And now, the depth of his pain haunted me. He had always flirted, yes, but I’d thought it was a reflex, a habit for him to get his way with his good looks and charm. But it was more than that. He had sacrificed for me. He had comforted me in my darkest moments. He had made me laugh when I doubted I would ever smile again.
But it was so much worse than that. In that moment, I felt it all. Every drop of his feelings for me. And it was excruciating.
Maxim loved me.
And he lost me.
All at once.
My eyes opened with a snap. I always woke up at this point. I always seemed to stay asleep just long enough for that last dagger to find its mark. Long enough to see him turn and walk away.
None of this did me a bit of good, of course. It was the past and could not be changed. Should not be changed, no matter how desperately I wanted to go back to the way things were before. I didn’t want to know how he felt. I didn’t want to know his secret. It was childish but true. The dream did nothing for me except to nail home that I’d been fooled. Duped. That I was a freaking idiot, particularly when it came to the males of the species.
The males of any species, apparently.
Especially when that male wore leather jackets and worn-in jeans like he’d been born in them. Especially when that male was a gorgeous, arrogant pain in the ass. Especially when I’d nearly given in to him. Nearly given him my heart.
The dream told me nothing useful, not a damn thing that could take away the sting, reorganize my army, or break the blood bond we’d shared against my will.
I was bound to him and to Dylan, and there was nothing I could do about it. I rolled onto my stomach and tried to escape back into sleep.
Chapter 1
Everybody has their limit.
“And… start.”
“Did you set the timer?”
“Yes, but it’s pointless. You’ll be finished far too fast for a human. You need to learn to slow down or your cover will be blown.”
“Show me.”
Bernard gave me a long-suffering look and a deep sigh before holding up the vintage kitchen timer. He collected them. Said the new ones were garbage. As a result, we had a row of brightly-colored vintage timers from all over the world on our kitchen window sill. Even I had to admit they were cool.
“Okay.”
I nodded. I gave myself an hour to complete the practice test, but the truth was, even if I took the entire hour, it would be conspicuous, to say the least.
Not that I was all that smart. I was convinced I was, in fact, a dumbass much of the time. But my brain worked a lot faster than the average human’s. I could read and absorb facts much quicker.
I was still as prone to teenage stupidity as the
Maybe I’d outgrow that in a hundred years or so.
“This is pointless, you know,” Caleb said sternly. He crossed his arms over his chest and raised an arrogant brow.
“This is life. We promised we would not deny her a moment of normalcy, remember?” Bernard argued.
Bernard was the peacemaker between us. He could always soothe Caleb, especially now that they were together. I was so relieved that they’d gotten past that whole unrequited love thing. Caleb’s handsome face softened as he looked at his boyfriend, for want of a better word. He arched his brows when he looked back at me.
“Fine, but you are practicing with me after.”
I nodded, holding up my hands. I was wearing gloves. I had to wear them all the time now. If I touched something—anything, really—there was a very good chance it would ‘change.’
Large glowing plants and animals were kind of conspicuous. Caleb had already destroyed an entire grove of trees I’d inadvertently altered. I was careful not to make that mistake again.
I bent my head to the paper as Bernard shooed Caleb from the dining room. The windowless room was filled with pulsing, otherworldly houseplants. Or rather, former houseplants. Now they were something else entirely. They curled around me as I worked without getting in my way. These were the last few, the ones I had forbidden Caleb from destroying.
I shuddered at the thought. I’d felt it every time he had to get rid of a plant or tree I had touched. They were alive. They wanted to live.
I knew now that plants were sentient beings even before I accidentally put my weird Angel-Demon juju on them, something I had found very uncomfortable to discover. I wondered what vegans would say if they knew plants had feelings.
Let’s just say I was feeling a whole lot more conflicted about eating my Brussels sprouts.
As usual, I sped through the majority of the questions with ease. But there were always a few questions that confused me, questions with odd phrasing that didn’t quite make sense. I couldn’t imagine how a human would manage them when they were already using their imperfect memory to answer so many questions.
I still hadn’t figured out how I would be able to take the test without arousing suspicion. Still, I was determined to do it. Not that I was going to college anytime soon.
In a perfect world, with my father on the throne, I would have loved to take part in as many human rights of passage as possible. Attending college would have been amazing, just for the libraries alone. I could read and study to my heart’s content and experience a bunch of other human stuff too. But that wasn’t the world we currently lived in. And I had no choice but to accept that and move on.
Maybe someday…
My fascination and affection for (most of) humankind had been with me since I was a child. Mortal lives may be fleeting, but they were meaningful and full of dramatic highs and lows. I wanted to be one of them, or at least pretend for as long as possible.
Perhaps it was because I’d always believed my mother to be human. Now that I knew she was half Angel, my feelings should have changed. But they hadn’t. So I was going to take my SATs, no matter what Caleb had to say about it.
I felt a rumble down the bond as Maxim weighed in. It was impossible to ignore his existence when he did that. Apparently, my ex-friend also thought I was being stupid. I shut him down using the technique Caleb had taught me.
Basically, it was like lowering a garage door on the bond. Cutting it off. Although Caleb’s description had been more… medieval. He’d told me to close the drawbridge, or use an axe or even a guillotine as a visual aid to sever the bond. He’d told me to imagine slicing Maxim’s head off. Or at least, part of his head.
As appealing as that was, I preferred a more modern, and less gory, visualization.
The troubling thing was, the bond seemed to be getting stronger. With both of them.
As if on cue, a moment later, I felt Dylan’s concern over the bond as well. I sent him a visualization of what I was doing and he went silent again. He’d been walking on eggshells since I sent Maxim away. I think he was afraid I would do the same thing to him.
I could reassure him that since he had no claim to my father’s throne, that was impossible. But I didn’t. The truth was, I was keeping my distance from everyone except my guardians and my familiars. I might know in my mind that Dylan and Karen would never betray me, but I didn’t feel that way.
I still felt too raw. Exposed. Like anyone might try to cut my heart out at any given moment.
The truth was, that was probably true. I was in constant danger, and it was only getting worse. My head or heart on a platter would be priceless to the New Leaders. I knew that wasn’t exactly what Maxim had in mind. He didn’t want me dead. But he’d betrayed me all the same.
And who knew what his ambition might do in the future? The saddest part was that I didn’t even want to be the princess. I just wanted to free my father and stop the evil Vamps who were running the Kingdom of Night. They were dangerous, and besides, they had really pissed me off.
I felt a wave of intense sorrow that wasn’t mine. Sorrow and regret and wordless protestations. Only Maxim could act like he was the one hurt in this situation.
Dammit. I’d let my guard down again and he’d snuck in.
This time, I used the guillotine method when I shut down the bond. I did it so hard and so fast, I was pretty sure it hurt.
I hoped it did, anyway.
I couldn’t feel him all the time at first. Just when he was thinking of me, which was surprisingly often. I also got a jolt when his senses were elevated. Basically, I felt it every time Maxim fought or fed.
The bond with Dylan was different. Softer. Less intense. And a whole lot friendlier. And it was changing. It was getting harder to avoid them both. Still, the bond with Maxim was far more intrusive.
Then again, Dylan wasn’t going around getting into senseless bar fights or feeding on stock brokers.
Yeah, Maxim had moved on from bikers and criminals to captains of industry. He did his best to leave them alive, at least. Not that anyone had told me in words. I just knew.
I saw visions of what he saw. I felt what he felt. Not all the time, but often enough to reveal more than I wanted to know. Lately, he’d often stare into a mirror during these flashes, sometimes even while drinking blood from some drunk stock broker in a Wall Street bar’s bathroom.
He did that so I could see him. And so he could see me reflected back at him. I shivered. There was literally no getting away from Maxi. Prince Maxim, I corrected myself. Caleb was researching ways to break the bond, but he couldn’t do it fast enough to suit me.
Meanwhile, my thirst was under control. The bond was potentially dangerous, but I knew it wasn’t that high a price to pay. I had suffered and caused others suffering when the thirst consumed me. I was free from that . . . except when Maxim didn’t drink. Every time he went too long between feedings, I felt the thirst return.
So even though he had cured me of my bloodlust, I was still getting his by proxy. Of course, his was not as out of control as mine had been.
I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. The vines twining around me pulsed bright with light. I put my pencil down. I couldn’t concentrate. I needed to do something physical. Something other than this.
