Losing The Vampire King: Enemies To Lovers Protector Romance, page 1
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Losing The Vampire King
Enemies To Lovers Protector Romance
By: Nikki Grey
Table of Contents
Losing The Vampire King
Enemies To Lovers Protector Romance
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
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Come Stalk Me!
Foreword
What happens when forbidden love becomes forgotten love?
We fought hard for our love. We traversed the path from enemies to lovers. We overcame all the obstacles and became everything to each other. Now, they have taken him from me again. My vampire king. My reason for living. They have turned him against me somehow, and I fear he might never be able to find his way back to me, to us, to his family.
This small town has become my sanctuary, and I need to protect it from the skin walkers, just like I knew Edmund would. He is my protector, and now I have to be theirs. Otherwise, something terrible might happen. The monsters of the past are back, threatening to destroy us all.
I need him back. Will my love be enough to make him remember who he truly is?
Losing The Vampire King
Chapter One
Bianca
It’s not like Edmund to disappear without telling me.
I haven’t seen him all day. Usually, if this is the case, he’d tell me beforehand that he’ll be out of town for the day, or that he might be up in the mountain with Kano or someone else. It’s not about controlling each other. On the contrary, it’s being safe, because our lives aren’t ordinary. They are anything but. We always need to be careful. One wrong move could cost us too much.
Of course, I understand his obligations towards the clan. I have them as well. Being the king and queen of vampires is a 24-hour job. It’s a lot, even when you aren’t taking everything into consideration. I knew that when I accepted to become his mate, when I made his destiny my own as well.
“He’s probably by the lake,” I hear my mother suggest, after I’ve been pretending this whole day that I’m not bothered at all by the fact that I haven’t seen Edmund. She knows me too damn well sometimes. “Did you check there?” she asks, as she’s holding my three-year-old in her arms.
Orien is sleeping so soundly, without a care in the world. That is what assures me that Eddie and I are doing the best job of being his parents. He is the vampire prince, after all. He has a lot of weight to carry on his shoulders, but we shall cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, we are making sure that he has a carefree childhood, like all children should.
“No,” I shake my head, walking over to the open window. The cool, evening air is descending, although it is still not that dark. I look out, gazing into the distance, wondering. My hairs stand on end, and I don’t know why. Perhaps I’m just being paranoid about all of this. “I was hoping he’d be back by now and I won’t have to show anyone that I’m worried,” I finally admit, knowing I can’t hide the way I feel from my loved ones, especially not from my mother.
She didn’t watch me grow up, and it is something that we both regret. However, life should not be led in regret, but rather, we should look to the future, and that is exactly what we are doing now, building a bond that should have already been here. I can’t say it is always easy, because we are both stubborn, and this doesn’t help. Still, the love we feel for each other is undeniable. It is palpable. It will always help us find our way back to each other, no matter what.
“Why would you be worried?” my mother asks, tilting her head a little.
Worry means unanswered questions. I have so many of those left to ask. I still want to ask so many questions about my dad, but I can see that it’s difficult for her to talk about that, so I’m not pushing it. But my curiosity still hasn’t been satisfied. I need to know more. I always need to know everything. It’s a blessing and a curse.
“Because this is unlike him,” I explain, pulling my gaze away from the murky darkness in the distance.
“You think he will always tell you everything he’s doing?” she wonders, and I’m not sure if it’s a serious question or not.
“I don’t need him to give me a report on everything he’s doing,” I shrug. “It’s not that I want to control him. I just want to know if he won’t be around all day. Orien is asking about him, too, and I don’t know what to say to him. Where’s dad? Oh… I don’t know,” I frown.
“No need to be snappy,” mom says, getting up from the sofa where she was seated, with Orien in her arms. “I’ll take him up to bed. You can go see if Edmund is by the lake. I’m sure he is. And I have no idea why you didn’t go to look for him there in the first place, if you’re that worried.”
“I’m not that worried,” I say, but I know better than to lie to the woman who gave birth to me. She knows it as well, but just smiles, and disappears up the stairs.
I sigh. I should probably stay home. He’ll be back. I’m not worried that he’s out there with someone else. The thought never even crossed my mind. I’m worried that there might have been another attack by the skin walkers, that he might have been ambushed by them and…
I dare not even think about that. So, I grab a light sweater and I head outside. The streets of our little town are quiet. Unusually so. But I’m guessing everyone’s inside, resting. It’s been a long week, with preparations for the upcoming fall festival, during which we celebrate the plentitude of nature. That is also why I’m so surprised he’s gone. He should be here, with me, overseeing the whole thing.
My mind is a mess of tangled thoughts as I head out of town and through the woods. Ever since I came here, I fell in love with this place. The woods are so deep and quiet. It is like a shelter from the rest of the world, when you feel like you need to hide away. Now, with Edmund and Orien, I never had that feeling. I finally feel like I belong here, like this is exactly where I need to be.
I make my way through branches that hang low, pushing them away from my face and my hair. I listen carefully, like Edmund has taught me. I don’t hear any suspicious sounds, but I’m still alert. Edmund always told me that we would know if the skin walkers found us, but sometimes, just one second of not paying attention is enough for you to make a grave mistake.
At that moment, I reach the familiar clearing. In the distance, I see the lake. There is a figure huddled over the water. I can’t tell who it is, but my heart immediately starts pounding harder. Every fiber of my being wants to believe it’s him. Has he been here all day?
I hasten my pace, almost running there. I want to shout his name, but something tells me not to. I don’t know if it’s the way I smell something in the air, something unfamiliar, something I can’t quite put my finger on. I’m still on guard as I find my way to him.
I walk quickly, making more noise than I usually would. The moment a branch snaps underneath my shoe, I stop. At the same time, the crouching figure stands up. I would recognize those broad shoulders anywhere. I have caressed them so many times. I have lain on them, being lulled to sleep. Those are his shoulders. Everything I see is his, and yet, something is preventing me from running towards him and throwing myself into his arms.
“Eddie?” I call out to him, my voice trembling, and I have no idea why. I feel like I’m calling out to a stranger, and not the one who has my heart in the palm of his hand. “Did you spend the whole day here?” I ask, trying not to demand an answer out of him, but still with that desire to show him that this wasn’t okay.
At first, he doesn’t say anything. He is just standing there, motionless.
“Eddie?” I say his name again, taking another step. My hand flies out to reach out to him, but I pull it away.
Maybe it’s a skin walker! My frantic mind warns me to be careful. I shouldn’t have come alone. I should have taken someone with me, but it’s too late now. I am here. He is here… whoever he is.
“Eddie, please talk to me…” I am pleading now. “You are freaking me out.”
It’s him. It has to be him. There are no skin walkers around here. We are safe.
I keep repeating this again in my mind, and every time I do, I believe it a little less.
Suddenly and without any warning, he finally turns around. The moonlight falls over his face and I know it’s him. His eyes are unmistakably his. Skin walkers can steal a person’
This is Eddie. I know it.
His eyes are wide, staring at me, trying to pierce right through me. I take two hasty steps closer to him. I reach out to caress his cheek.
“Eddie, why– “ I start, when he grabs my wrist and stops me from touching him.
He twists my arm behind my back and pins me against the nearest tree, breathing heavily into my neck. I can hear his soft growls. The vampire in him has gone mad. But… why? Edmund has always been able to control him.
“Eddie?” I keep repeating his name again, in hopes that he will hear me, but he doesn’t seem to.
He snarls back in response, like a wildebeest and I know if we stay like this any longer, he will bite me. It won’t harm me, because I’m a nymph. I am immune to a vampire’s bite, but he doesn’t seem to care about that. Or, better yet, does he even know that? Does he… remember? It is as if he’s not himself at all.
That heavy scent permeates my nostrils once again, a heavy fragrance of some flower I’ve never sensed before. It makes me dizzy and nauseous at the same time. I can barely keep myself up on my knees. My head explodes into a blossom of pain that grips me on all sides.
“Edmund, listen to me!” I shout at him now, but it only makes it worse. His grip on my wrist tightens to a gut-wrenching pain. If he squeezes any harder, he might break my arm.
Unexpectedly, his mouth opens wide. I can see his protruding fangs. He will bite me. My beloved will dig his teeth into my flesh, in order to harm me.
I close my eyes. That smell is even stronger now, overpowering. The pain is intolerable. My body can’t fight it any longer. It can only keep absorbing it until I fall unconscious.
Somewhere in the distance, a screech is heard, a bird I’ve never heard before, a bird I doubt even inhabits these woods. I’ve never heard that sound before. Not here, at least.
But something strange happens. The grip on my wrist loosens. Then, nothing. The heavy scent of those nauseous flowers is gone. The woods are silent again. The pain has subsided, as if someone had magically made it go away.
I open my eyes, breathing heavily, ready to slap some sense into Edmund, when I realize to my shock that he is gone.
I look around, but I see nothing. I see no one. He’s left no tracks. I have no idea which direction he’s headed to. All I know is that he is gone. He’s attacked me, and now he is gone. The thought seems crazy, yet that is exactly what happened.
I lift my hand up, feeling that burning sensation as if I just stuck my hand in the fire. There is a bright red bracelet of pain around my wrist, left by the man I thought loved me more than life itself, a man who would rather harm himself again, than do that to me.
Rubbing the sore spot, I turn around and start running back to town. I don’t know what’s going on, but I have every intention of finding out.
Chapter Two
Edmund
I open my eyes heavily, feeling as if someone had been pouring buckets of sand over them the entire night. They burn with an unknown sensation of pain and rubbing them only makes the feeling worse. Still, that is all I can do.
I try to prop myself up on the bed. It is difficult. My body somehow doesn’t feel like it is my body at all, but rather someone else’s and I’m just borrowing it for a couple of days, but before using it properly, I have to learn how to do it first. There is a strange tingling in my fingers. I lift them up and bring them to my eyes, for closer inspection, but this reveals nothing other than the fact that they really are my fingers.
I rub my eyes again, ignoring the sharp shards of pain that shoot from the back of my head, straight through my eyes. I focus on my breathing, hoping that this will diminish the painful sensation.
At that moment, I hear the door open. I instantly look up. A woman appears in the doorway, carrying a bowl in her hand. The light behind her breaks on the metal of the spoon she is holding in her other hand. She is unarmed, but that still doesn’t mean that she isn’t dangerous.
I immediately jump to my feet, putting my back against the wall. I’m not taking my eyes off of her.
“I take it that your memory still hasn’t come back to you?” she asks in a way that assures me we are close. Too close perhaps, for someone I’ve never seen before in my life.
“Who are you?” I demand.
She tilts her head a little to the side. “You know this would be the fifth time I tell you the same story again?”
“What story?” I ask. She doesn’t sound annoyed. She sounds saddened by something… maybe by the fact that I don’t know who she is?
I look at her, trying to pinpoint something striking about her, something that might jog my memory. Her fiery red hair is tied up in a loose bun, with a few strands falling around her face, contrasting her pale complexion with the fiery redness. Her eyes are wide, inquisitive. I can tell she isn’t afraid of me.
She proves this when she walks into the room and closes the door behind her. She walks over to the bed where I was just lying and sits down, with the bowl still in her hands. I see it is porridge, with some red fruits. She must be crazy if she thinks I’ll eat any of that. She might be trying to poison me.
“I was hoping that you’d remember something by now,” she said, with a melancholy sigh, looking down at her lap. “Or that you’d at least know that I’m not your enemy, if you can’t remember who I am.”
“I don’t remember anything,” I admit, but still with my guard up.
“I know you don’t.” She lifts her gaze to meet mine. “It is difficult when the person you love more than anything in the world doesn’t remember you.”
I don’t say anything to that at first. So, we are lovers then. Mates. I try to recognize a scent, anything around her or in this room, but nothing is familiar. I feel like I’ve never been here before and this person in front of me is a stranger. She’s right. I can’t possibly grasp how that must feel.
“I am not your enemy, Eddie,” she says softly.
“Eddie?” I echo. The name doesn’t ring any bells, and something tells me it should. I can see the hope in her eyes. She wants me to remember her. She wants me to remember everything, but there is a blockage inside my mind, a big wall, entangled with thorns which threaten anyone who wishes to even come close, let alone try to climb over.
“That is your name,” she reveals, hope still echoing in her voice, as she stares at me, as if her very gaze might pull me out of the haze my mind is in. “Edmund. And I’m Gala.”
“Gala,” I repeat, but just like with mine, her name means nothing. It is just an empty string of letters, with no emotional attachment.
“Yes,” she smiles, getting up and walking over to me. “You were attacked by a rival clan of skin walkers. The cowards caught you when you were all alone and unable to call for help. You’re lucky I stumbled onto you when I did. They left you for dead, by the river. When I saw you like that, I…”
She wasn’t able to finish her sentence. She turned away from me, burying her face in her hands. Silent sobs were the only sounds she made, as her body closed up on itself, her shoulders slumped forward. A part of me wanted to reach out, to console her, because that is what everyone’s first instinct should be. I almost did that. I almost wrapped my arms around her, but I didn’t.
She probably expected me to. She remained like that for a few moments, then she turned to me again. Her eyes were slightly reddened, but not that swollen. There were no more tears in them. She must have wiped them off, unwilling to allow me to see her cry.
“I know this shouldn’t get to me as much as it does,” she continues, with a voice that has regained some of its control and confidence. “I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing to apologize for,” I tell her, the words torn out of me by an invisible force that has decided in my name, that she is to be trusted, despite everything.
After all, if she wanted to kill me, she would have done it by now. Why prolong the inevitable? Unless there is some hidden agenda, but I can’t possibly see what that might be, when I don’t know a single thing about myself or about her. Cautiousness is something I shouldn’t lose sight of, but with each passing moment, I am more and more convinced that this woman, Gala, isn’t my enemy.
