Eternal Captive: A Dark Enemies-to-Lovers Sapphic Vampire Romance, page 1
Eternal Captive
Elissa Emory
Contents
Elle Mae
Prologue
1. Vesper
2. Aurelia
3. Vesper
4. Aurelia
5. Vesper
6. Aurelia
7. Vesper
8. Aurelia
9. Vesper
10. Vesper
11. Aurelia
12. Vesper
13. Aurelia
14. Vesper
15. Aurelia
16. Aurelia
17. Vesper
18. Aurelia
19. Vesper
20. Aurelia
21. Vesper
22. Aurelia
23. Vesper
24. Aurelia
25. Vesper
26. Aurelia
27. Vesper
28. Aurelia
29. Aurelia
30. Vesper
31. Vesper
32. Aurelia
33. Vesper
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Acknowledgments
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About the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Eternal Captive
Copyright © 2024 by Elle Mae
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: contact@ellemaebooks.com
Cover design by Seventhstarart
Edits by My brothers Editor
Proofreader Leticias Edits
www.ellemaebooks.com
NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Before moving forward, please note that the themes in this book can be dark and trigger some people. The themes can include but are not limited to: mentions of past torture, depictions of torture, attempted murder, parental death, self harm to frame somebody, blood play, gore/violence , family violence & abuse, voyeurism, murder, stabbing, sexual violence, biting, physical altercations, depictions of corpses being treated poorly, beheading, verbal, mental and physical abuse by a parent, ableist language, bullying, public sex, public execution, implied abuse of an animal, depression.
If you need help, please reach out to the resources below.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-8255
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
National Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-7233
https://www.thehotline.org/
Elle Mae
Elle Mae
Blood Bound Series:
Contract Bound: A Lesbian Vampire Romance
Lost Clause
Blood Royale:
Eternal Captive: A Dark Enemies-to-Lovers Sapphic Vampire Romance
Winterfell Academy Series:
The Price of Silence: Winterfell Academy Book 1
The Price of Silence: Winterfell Academy Book 2
The Price of Silence: Winterfell Academy Book 3
The Price of Silence: Winterfell Academy Book 4
The Price Of Silence: Winterfell Academy Book 5
Winterfell Series Box Set
Short and Smutty:
The Sweetest Sacrifice: An Erotic Demon Romance
Nevermore: A Deal with a Demon
Eden Emory
The Ties That Bind Us
Don’t Stop me
Don’t Leave Me
Don’t Forget Me
Don’t Hate Me
Two of a Kind
Hide n’ Seek
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Wicked corruption: An FF Mafia Romance
Watch Me
Tales of the Stolen Demon Brides
For those who couldn’t get enough of enemies-to-lovers lesbian vampires, enjoy your new grumpy masc and flirty femme~
Prologue
For some reason, I never thought that my mother would die before me.
In our world, my mother was akin to the goddess Krae. The mother of all vampires. A powerful warrior of a woman whose lust for blood was as strong as her maternal love for her people.
Vampires fled their covens, cut ties with their families, came from all over the country just for a chance to kneel at her feet and pledge their allegiance. If she had been like any other vampire queen, she would have turned more than half of them away.
All those who attempted to appeal to her risked the same. Be rejected by her and forever become an outcast rogue, whose only hope being a small coven who took pity on them.
But she never turned them away.
They loved her for it. Worshipped her because of it.
And I had been born into that love. Blinded by it like the people.
I got firsthand experience with just how much the vampire world was enamored with my mother, and it only made me love her that much more. Without her, no one would join Father. She brought light to his darkness. She brought empathy to his coldness.
Before her, Father simply had a coven. Because of her, it turned into a family. We were royalty because of her.
But this…
This wasn’t love.
My hands caressed her cheeks. I desperately tried to wipe away the black vine-like markings on her face, but it was no use. The magic had already worked its way through her entire system. Her eyes were red, her mouth open as her teeth desperately searched for flesh.
She had been gasping for air by the time that I showed up, but it quickly turned into shallow breathing and small whimpers.
This is poison. Witch posion.
But why? I couldn’t understand why a world that seemed to love my mother so much would hurt her.
The cathedral was empty, with only the stone-carved goddess Krae to witness the crime.
Normally, the sacred place was reserved for prayer to the goddess and additions to the family. Up on the stage, there was an empty crystal bowl, which vampires used to fill with their own blood as an offering to their king.
Krae was supposed to watch over it all. Give her blessing for our new additions and strike down whichever ones she didn’t approve.
But she never interfered. Even when my mother was dying.
She had been sprawled across the steps, her hand outstretched as if trying to crawl toward the goddess. The image of her perfectly manicured hand reaching for help that would never come would forever be burned into my memories.
It’s as if she truly believed the immobile statue could save her. As if the legend of Krae wasn’t just a tool used to control the masses of vampires at her feet.
For the first time in my existence…I felt hopeless.
The woman I owed my life to—the one I loved more than anyone else—was dying, and there was nothing I could do to save her.
“Father!” I screamed, my voice breaking. How many times had I called out to him?
Yet he still didn’t come to her rescue. He wasn’t far. But even so, with our hearing, someone should’ve heard me.
My gaze traveled to the all-powerful goddess, her eyes burrowing into mine. The same expression that seemed so gentle turned malicious. Like she was laughing at my struggle.
Mother let out another whimper, this time managing enough strength to bring her hand to my cheek. It was as cold as the stone beneath her.
She tried to speak, but no words came out. The only sound filling the space was the wind being forced from her closing throat.
“Don’t. Don’t push yourself too hard,” I pleaded.
Why is no one coming?!
Tears started blurring my vision, and it wasn’t long before they started running down my cheeks. I felt bad for the way they fell onto my mother’s face and quickly tried to wipe them away so as not to sully her.
“Father will be here soon,” I said, looking back to the entrance, but no one had shown up. The doors were wide open and empty even after screaming so hard my voice became hoarse. “Someone, please help! The queen has been attacked!”
There’s no other explanation for it. Of course there was an attack. Someone had snuck in—someone who hated the queen and decided to punish her.
Why? Why her? Why us?
What did Mother need to be punished for?
“Aurelia.” The voice that left her throat didn’t sound like hers at all. It was hoarse, crackly, unrecognizable.
I turned my attention back to her.
“Please,” I begged her. “Please don’t leave me, not yet.”
Anything but this. I knew nothing besides her. I didn’t know how to stand in for her. I couldn’t nurture the love of the vampires in our family like she could.
I was nothing and more like my father than I ever was her. She used to say it like it was a good thing. Like it meant that I had potential and wasn’t the slap to the face it truly was.
“Stay…fierce.”
I forced out a smile for her. It’d been her favorite saying for me. Father didn’t like when I talked back and often tried to punish me for it. Mother said it was because I reminded him too much of himself in those moments. But she was always there, by my side, reminding me that this fierceness was a strength.
It was the last word she would ever say to me. Not that she loved me. But to remind me that I am just like the man who refused to come save her. I watched helplessly as the last bit of breath was squeezed from her lungs.
Seeing the light die in her eyes was even worse. She was trying to fight it. She was trying to stay for me. She realized that she was on the brink of the inevitable and still tried to rip her own soul from death’s grip.
But she lost her battle.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. Grief, sorrow, anger—all of it crashed over me, filling my little body to the brink until I was about to explode with it. I didn’t know how to separate it all. I didn’t know what to do.
I wanted to explode, even if for just a mere chance that it would inconvenience Father. I wanted it to take me with her while at the same time ripping the foundation from under the building and causing everyone who couldn’t help to crumble with it.
How could this happen to her? Someone so loved and adored?
I didn’t want to believe it. Not even when her eyes glazed over. Not when my vampire hearing could hear the sound of her body giving up on her.
I leaned against her, selfishly taking one last sniff of her scent. Even after her body became cold, she still managed to smell like sunshine and honey.
The sound of my father’s boots squeaking against the floor as he entered the cathedral interrupted my moment with her. There were people behind him, three from the sounds of their footsteps.
I took a deep breath and sat up, but I was unable to turn my eyes away from Mother. I knew I should have stood in his presence, I just couldn’t find the strength to. I didn’t want to be taken from my mother so soon.
A foolish part of me thought that she might come back to life in the minutes that passed, but of course that wish never came true.
“Pity,” he said, though there was no grief in his voice. No hoarseness. No strain. Like commenting on the weather. “I never thought the witches would’ve found a way in here. I guess it’s time to update our security. Take the body, search for the witches.”
That’s it?
I sat there, numb, as two of his servants lifted my mother’s body. I squashed my urge to reach for her as her lifeless form dangled in front of me. They were gentle with her, gentler than my father ever was.
I turned to him, rage simmering inside me. He was dressed in his usual extravagant king’s clothing. Covered in furs and jewels and looking as calm as he did that morning when he held court.
His dark hair was too much like my own. The shape of his eyes. The shape of his lips.
Is this what Mother saw when she looked at me? Did she just see a replica of the person who abandoned her?
I didn’t know what to expect when Father found Mother dead. Maybe panic. Maybe fear. Something that would prove to me that he wasn’t the cold vampire he’d shown me my entire life and that maybe it was just a front to keep his power.
But he couldn’t even manage to pretend he cared about my mother.
Because he never had. All he cared about was that somehow a witch had been able to sneak into his palace, showing a weakness in his carefully curated image.
He didn’t care that his queen was dead. He didn’t care that the mother of his only child was dead. And because there was no one here to watch this unfold, he had no use for the facade of loving her.
And Krae watched it all, saying nothing.
The two servants were teary-eyed, their love for my mother obvious. But neither of them spoke out as they took her body away from me. Their allegiance was to my father. No matter how much they loved my mother, the blood oath they swore was to the family.
Which he held the power to.
“No one will know about this,” he said, his eyes following the servants as they took her body. His lips turned downward at the side. Disgust.
There was one more by his side, and the man kept his eyes to the ground.
“We need to let the people know,” I said, my voice hollow and dejected. I didn’t understand the intricacies of running a vampire family, but surely not telling them anything would make things worse. “They deserve to know. They deserve to grieve. How are you gonna explain the queen’s disappearance?”
A small smirk spread across Father’s lips.
“We report that the queen died of health reasons, no more information, no less,” he answered, placing his hands on his hips. His eyes wandered up to the goddess. “No one needs to know about the witches. Imagine if everyone knew how easy it was to get into the palace.”
Then his eyes met mine. There was a silent demand for me to agree with him. As if this notion wasn’t an insult to the mother I loved so dearly.
I had no words. All I had was a burning fury inside me. I let it consume me as I launched myself off the ground and at my father. I screamed at him, pounding my fist against his chest.
“My mother died! She’s dead, and you could’ve saved her!”
Pain exploded from my head as my back and neck were slammed onto the cold marble steps. I was dazed in those moments, unable to fully comprehend what had happened to me. I was standing upright one moment, then writhing in pain on the cold floor right where my mother had died the next, my father’s hand around my throat.
My eyes widened as I met his glare. I had seen that look before, but never had it gotten to that point. I flailed, tried desperately to push him off, but he was far stronger than me.
“Enough of that,” he growled. “Don’t you dare say anything of the sort. Not in front of me, and definitely not in front of the rest of the kingdom.”
He squeezed my throat painfully, not allowing any air to escape in or out. I was gasping for breath, much too similarly to my mother just moments before.
Was this how she felt when she was facing her death? Was this how it felt to be watched by the goddess as you tried helplessly to save yourself?
“Pl-Please—”
“What’s that?” he asked. “I won’t accept anything other than an apology from a spoiled brat like you. Do you realize how much I’ve done for this kingdom? Do you realize what I’m going to have to do in order to make sure that the kingdom still loves us after this?”
I pounded his shoulder. Black covered the edges of my vision. No more, please, no more.
“I-I’m…sor-sorry—”
“Some people have already gotten word. I hear them approaching,” his servant said behind him. I could barely make out the words. Even my slow heartbeat sounded like it was underwater.
Finally, Father let go of my throat. I turned to the side, coughing and heaving. Sweet, delicious air filled my lungs, providing me with much-needed oxygen while burning at the same time.
I couldn’t look at him as he left. His servant lingered and then dropped a small handkerchief in front of me before turning and following him.
I grabbed the perfectly white cloth and wiped up the spit and mucus on my face, secretly glad that I could sully it.
My mother hid this from me, but I had noticed it. I noticed when they fought. When Father wanted to punish me, Mother would take him into the other room instead. What I hadn’t realized was that she was taking the punishment for me.
She let me keep my rose-colored glasses on as long as she could, but now that she was gone, those glasses shattered, the sharp pieces embedding into my skin, burrowing so deep that they would be there as a painful reminder for the rest of my life.
It was beautiful with Mother, the walls were glass…but with Father, I was quickly pushed inside a wrought iron cage with only him holding the keys to my release.
There was only one way to survive, and my mother gave me the best hint of all.
Vesper
“I’m a seer, you know?” a drunk male witch said to the obviously very uninterested female witch at the bar.
She gave him a polite smile and took a sip of her pink swirling liquid before trying to turn back to her friend.
“And you know what I saw?” he asked, desperately trying to steal her attention. “Us. Meeting. It’s destiny, don’t you thin—”
