Chapter 37Last Resort***Elena pov"What?" I stammered.Dracul's words felt like a punch to the gut. I had expected him to feel frustrated. I had expected anger. But I was not expecting this.I wasn't expecting this loss of trust, this coldness from him."You heard me." He said quietly.There was a heaviness in the way he spoke, a weight to his words that I had not heard before. I felt a jump in my stomach at the way he looked at me.Only hours ago, his gaze had been so warm on mine. I had been the one angry at him, feeling the fury of uncertainty.Now, he felt as betrayed as had. Maybe even worse, from the way he was looking at me.But it was more than that. There was a focus on him. He wasn't going to wait around, and I knew that. He was going to charge straight in, no two ways about it.I shuddered and shook my head, "Dracul, I know you're mad, but I didn't hide this from you. I didn't get two seconds to talk to you in private!"He shook his head and I could tell that he was done
THIRTY-EIGHTEnter King**Dracul pov.I sank back into the seating behind me, closing my eyes. I could still hear Elena's voice in my head, her worry and stress thundering through me.I didn't know what I was feeling right now.I needed to getaway. I needed to take action. I needed to do something other than just sit and let things happen.I had just been hit with a revelation. My world was spinning out of control in a way I had never felt before. I was usually in control. I had things under control.I never really trusted those around me. At least, not until recently. I was always weary and cynical. I was careful. I kept my guard up and my enemies close.I knew what everyone expected of me. I knew when a fight was brewing and something dark was just around the corner.And now, I knew that my kingdom was in danger. I knew there was unease in my kingdom, but I thought that everyone was working towards a common goal.For once, I had felt a strange sense of unity in my kingdom and in my
THIRTY-NINEFinding Help**Elena What do you mean, my help?" Gulliver said.He was staring at me like he wasn't sure what to make of me.I bit my lip, "Can we talk inside? Or on the way?""On the way?" He frowned, "Where? What's going on?""Dracul's in trouble, okay?" I said, my voice dropping to a low whisper.I couldn't just tell him everything out here. I didn't know who could overhear and I didn't know who I could trust.I didn't even know if I could trust Gulliver, but I thought that I could. If he was helping people to kill Dracul, he would never have done everything in his power to save him and keep him alive.It didn't make sense and I thought that Gulliver seemed a lot more logical than that."In trouble?" Gulliver scoffed, shaking his head, "Yes, he is. He'll have the whole kingdom against him at this rate. But what does that have to do with me?"He still seemed angry at Dracul, but I was starting to feel a twinge of hope in my chest. Maybe, just maybe, he would be agreeab
CHAPTER FORTYNo Turning Back*Elena pov"Of course, I'm prepared," I said, trying my best to act like I had this. I needed to keep this together, for Dracul. I couldn't fall apart now, not when he needed me most, not when everything was riding on this.I was a princess, I was a ruler, I knew how to keep my thoughts under my own control. I knew how to keep myself under control. That was all there was to it.So why is my heart racing in my chest? Why was it pounding so hard I thought I might be Sick?I shook it off and made my way to the horse. I gripped onto the saddle, sliding my foot into the stirrup and pushing myself up and onto the horse. I slid into place, shifting my skirts and settling into the reigns.I gripped them tightly and Cannas nodded, letting go of the reigns and climbing onto his own horse.He seemed experienced with riding. But so was I. I knew I would have no problems keeping up. In fact, at this point, I wanted nothing more than to keep going. I wanted nothing mo
Chapter forty oneFor a fortress under siege it was all to eerie and shadowy, the air had an ominous flow to it, sending chills down my spine, I really hoped Dracul was alright."Stay close to me." Gulliver whispered harshly. "We don't know what to expect."His warning caused a chill in me, but I kept going reminding myself who I was doing this for, Dracul needed me and I wouldn't fuck up. If Ryder and Delan had so much as hurt a single strand on his hair.A harsh hand clamped over my mouth and pulled me rather abruptly into a darkened room. "Shhhh." Gulliver said clamping his hands tighter around my mouth. "Be quiet or they'll catch us!"I swallow a whimper as the guards marched right past us, the staff in my hand feeling all to small for the defense purposes it was supposed to serve. Hr waited for the footsteps of the guards to fade away before letting go of me."Why did you do that?" I snap at him. "They can help us!""Have you just lazed around stuffing your brain with fruit!" H
Forty twoDraculDarkThere was no other way to describe it, Elena face had blurred in and out of existence and for a moment I felt myself taste the sweetness that was her.And then darkness, stifling crazy darkness, I lost track of how long I must have called out into it, to the nothingness, I knew I was here, just didn't know where, it seemed like forever in this little trap that seemed concocted to drive me nuts."Weakkkk!!!" A cold voice hisses through the darkness, cold and slithery like a snake with the subtle underlay of malevolent intention"Who are you?" I ask baring out my fangs, my eyes giving a faint illumination to thick suffocating darkness."Put those toys away." The voice snarled and I was instantly wracked with intense spasms of pain. "You can't even stand up to the effects of dragonsbane and you'd seek to bare your claws at me!"Another intense spasm of pain wracks me and I buckle on my knees."Insolent fool!" The voice snaps at me before falling back into a deviant
Chapter forty threeElenaIt didn't take quite long for me to figure out that Gulliver was a mage, with all the spell casting and his rather impeccable affinity for magic, it did baffle me that he was this close with Dracul seeing that it was the rise of his species that brought about the downfall of his.There was no time to pry though, things were heating up and fast, Gulliver's wards were strong around his house, obscuring and dematerializing it from intruders but everyday they inched closer, looked in a little deeper and I wondered just how long we had until we became unsafe.And then there was him, popping up out of the blue with mentions of 'The Witch', I shouldn't have been skeptical, every information was crucial in possibly preserving Dracul's life and yet I couldn't help but distrust his loyalties, these were trying times and I was determined not to fuck up again.Whatever Gulliver had done for Dracul, it worked tremendously well, he was on his feet in a week and building up
Chapter 44DraculThe feelings of ecstasy faded away the minute we opened the door, ominous energy seeped in like a mist, instantly feeding the room an intense sense of dread. "What is this?" I growl at Gulliver whilst clutching Elena close, the need to protect her dominant over my other senses. "What sort of spell is this?" "Are you truly that disoriented that you cannot smell the source of the magic?" He asks quizzically. "While you guys were here getting properly fucked."He takes a slight pause looking us once over and Elena ducks her head behind me, positively blushing. "I took the time to have a little chat with our current 'guest" and you won't believe what I managed to find out.""He's a spy sent here to trick us." Elena says simply. "You take the fun out of everything." Gulliver sneers but not in an unfriendly manner. "Come on, let's go exorcise the bloody fuck out of him""Exorcise?" I ask raising a brow. "Yes." He says grabbing the nearest vial of what seemed to be a c
CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN ElenaThe shield barely holds up and I feel the heat of the flame flicker across my skin, the warmth hitting way too close to home, I don't think, I can't afford to, I draw out the very last ounce of strength and see through chains form around my hands, quickly lashing out and binding his arms and feet, they act as a sort of parasite, siphoning his energy into me, replenishing my already exhausted source.He doesn't take it too well, thrashing aggressively against the chains as they wound tighter and tighter around him as more blackened foam flowed from his mouth, his body gave final spasms and with the last light in her eyes he went for.one final attack, arms rushing towards me, with malformed claws glinting in the light. I watched in terror as he approached me, no spells coming to mind"Kolpea atzera!" Gulliver yelled in a strong voiceA huge gale of magical force blew Dracul back into the wall with astounding force, creating a Dracul shaped crater in the walls,
CHAPTER FIFTY SIXMirandaThe whispers had started out slow and every time I knew, she'd just known that it was him, sinking into the very fragile creaks in my mind, slipping through my crumbling defenses, and warping the very core of my mind intensifying the hatred I felt, causing my skin to prickle and burn. Its whisper grew in my head to a stifling deafening crescendo."Serve!" The voice swells in my head, accompanied by a faint ringing. "You will serve!"I brought my hands to my ears in an attempt to drown out the maddened frenzy with a peaceful spell and was met with the feel of blood dripping steadily from my ears, hitting me with a stunning realization, whatever this was, it was affecting me, killing me from the inside.A hissing laugh follows. "Y-you cannot escape," it said, voice sounding like metals scraping over each other. "You're mine, yield!"The voice goes on in my head, laughing and teasing, burning its way through the recesses of my mind, twisting and turning my mem
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVEElenaI barely had enough consciousness as we dropped from the endless abyss, with just enough strength to crawl my way to the gates, with a final burst of magic, I let the gates rumble slightly."Help," I groaned against my aching and tired muscles, "We need help." I felt the intense warmth of hands clasp tightly around me just as the firm grip of unconsciousness took a hold of me, finally at least we were safe._____A splash of cold washed over me accompanied by a wave of nausea and I opened my eyes to the darkness, I could tell it was a dream, I'd known that I'd brought us home, where and how the power had come, I had no clue, but simply telling myself it was a dream did not do much to calm my palpitating heart or my frenzied nerves.Something slunk by me, brushing me hard and sending me spiraling into the darkness, making it avidly clear that I wasn't alone, it continued touching and pushing me according to it's whims, each touch bringing along with it the col
CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR Miranda PowerIt felt so good I could barely breathe, a breathe of fresh air, I had to hand it to Denise she really did know how to bring out the perfect burst of energy, a unique sort of blend of energy flowed into my veins, it was a burst of refreshment and her screams encouraged me causing me to siphon her powers with even more joy.It seemed endless, when all of a sudden it all went wrong, the entire room had been silent save from the sound of her constant screaming and Gulliver's incessant but pointless struggling grunt and then all of a sudden it stopped, it was almost as if I'd reached a barrier in her magic, a great unfathomable wall of magic that resisted even my prowess"What in-"My next words fail me as an inconceivable pain slithers it's way across my arm, forcing me to withdraw with a grunt of pain, her eyes open and so does an immense flood of power, my skin positively crawls as I'm blown back by an impeccable amount of magic, the blast does more th
CHAPTER FIFTY THREEGulliver"Again." She ordered as the stick clatters on the dusty ground, my hands are bruised and malformed from years of intense casting, she stands towering above me, her glinting with a cold spark resonating down her cold dark abysmal heart."I said again!" She roared her stick tapping the ground with a force of magic that sent an unrefreshing shockwave through me, struggling with my shaky legs, I crawl through the wave of pain wracking my entire system as I manage to stand. "Pathetic!" She scoffs her eyes refusing to look at me. "Clearly your father's genes, it's a pity she married him, a pity that is you, the world will eat you up boy, it is cruel to our kind, halfling or not, it is my duty to train you, trust me I despise this much as you do, now Again!"Electricity much akin to a dose of lightning arced from the tip of her fingers and I barely had enough time to cast my shoddy defense magic and I was hurled back my back hitting the wall with a resoundi
CHAPTER FIFTY TWOGulliverThe moonlight reflected off the clear bowl of water and the spell flowed off my lips, the cool breeze wafting his way across my skin, and the waters rippled as the spell reached it's finality, peeking with one eye open, I let out a sigh of relief, locator magic wasn't really my forte but I seemed to get it right in this instance.Elena sat across from a hunched over figure whim she soothed lovingly, he wondered who that was, it was no shame of him to admit that I had checked up on her at every sparse bit of breathing space I'd got from the constant strain of watching over Dracul's castle and not once had i seen this in my scrying.Grandmother had been pretty keen on her home being protected against scrying forces but I had found a loophole that he wouldn't be willing to tell her about anytime soon, his concentration wavered and just for a bit the images flickered, the figure in question stood abruptly and the blanket fell off, the person in question causing
CHAPTER FIFTY ONEElenaThe Night howled with a fierceness, a sort of crazed frenzy if one could have said and it absolutely set me on a rage, my entire body and senses tingled with a manic delight if you'd have it that way, one that left my teeth gnashing and my eyes bloodshot, something or someone was coming, I could feel it, smell it and taste it to the point of anticipation and it kept me awake.The wind sieved in through the cracks in the walls and Windows playing a tune and whispering in a strange tongue save for one clear word."Elena!" It roared howling a tune to which the rustling of the nearby trees served as the drums.The old Granny had ordered me stay off the woods at night, 'treacherous woods' she had called them 'filled with even more treacherous creatures', every tale made her believe death came with the night but the woods would not leave me alone eventually it built up roaring into a swirling crescendo that I could no longer take much less contain and before I could
CHAPTER FIFTYDraculSomewhere in between all those never ending seconds, I finally lost ahold of time, the pain, had reduced me to a slobbering mess, he'd been right, in time as the whispers increased and the pain opened up my mind to susceptibility, whatever resolve I'd had slowly broke off to his will. "Serve!" The malevolent voice roars in my head for the umpteenth time. "No!" I yell right back. Her face filters in my head, it's cracked now, fragmented like my sanity but it's her it's hope, I reach out to her and just like that the figure dissipates into thin air, it always dissipates. "You've been resilient, I commend you on that, your mind still fights." Jacob says with a smile. "A futile fight but a fight nonetheless.""Killing you will be satisfactory." I tell him although very weakly. I can barely see through the pain but my other senses are heightened beyond measure and I smell her before she comes in, hear her footsteps as she walks towards me and feel her gentle touch
CHAPTER FORTY NINEElenaMinutes slipped into hours which slipped into days which slipped into God knows what, my only comprehension of time seeming to be the constant rise and fall of daylight and darkness and even that slowly began to resemble figments of my imagination.Training was rigorous still becoming even more intense after my little stunt with the fireball, I was a bit relieved Gulliver wasn't around for this bit, though I'd bet he'd gotten tired of seeing me fumble up and landing on my keister on a constant basis, he'd taken a break going back to see how things were being run in Dracul's absence. Dracul, the mere thought of him sent mixed emotions accompanied by a discomforting chill down my spine, I wondered how he was faring, if he was faring at all, of late I'd begun to wonder just if he was still-"You're brooding again and playing with dinner again." Gammy tells me, her eyes sparkling from the other side of the table. "Your one man monologue won't bring you any closer