“So how long do you plan on lying there like that?”
The same dry voice cut through the silence beside the bed.
“Trapped in this room,” he added.
“I’m bored out of my mind.”
Elara turned toward him.
For a few seconds, she just stared at the stranger who’d been sitting there so comfortably this whole time.
He wasn’t even looking at her.
His eyes were closed, his head tipped back against the headboard, like being in this room had been some kind of punishment far worse than anything Elara was going through.
There was something about his face that felt familiar, but she couldn’t place which dream she might have seen it in.
She tried to ask, but her throat was too dry.
“You…”
Her own voice sounded strange to her ears.
She tried lifting herself again, using both bruised hands to push against the mattress, gritting through the pain that shot from her back to her shoulders.
But the second she got halfway up, the pain sharpened, cutting through her until she couldn’t hold the position.
She dropped back onto the bed.
“Argh!” She winced, eyes squeezed shut.
“Looking after you is a pain,” he said flatly, “but if your body still can’t move, don’t push it.”
Elara opened her eyes again.
“Who are you?” The question finally made it out of her mouth.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, one eyebrow raised, like she’d just asked the stupidest possible question.
“Guess that hit to the head was harder than I thought,” he said, the corner of his mouth curling.
Before Elara could respond, another voice broke the silence.
“Kael?”
A tall, gaunt man with a pale face stepped into the room.
His clothes looked almost aristocratic–dark, layered fabric that fell neatly past his knees.
His stride was quick and unnaturally smooth, barely looking like walking at all.
In his hands was a silver tray holding a thin, gleaming needle, a length of clear tubing coiled with precision, and a handful of small glass vials, still empty.
The man beside Elara glanced over.
“She just woke up.
Could you go easy on her, just this once?”
“The King’s orders aren’t up for debate, Kael.”
Elara’s confusion deepened as the tall man set the tray down on the small table beside the bed.
He stepped closer and took hold of her wrist.
His touch made her flinch–not from the pain still radiating through her body, but from the cold.
It was like being gripped by a slab of ice, cold enough to bite straight through to the bone.
She stared at him.
His skin was too pale.
So pale it barely looked human anymore.
She’d seen creatures like him in her dreams before, more than once.
She knew exactly what was looming over her right now.
Vampire.
If this tall man was a vampire, then the sharp-tongued one who’d been sitting beside her this whole time–the one they called Kael–had to be something else entirely.
She turned and studied Kael’s face.
He wasn’t pale at all.
His skin, warm and sun-touched, looked nothing like the man standing over her.
“You’re not human either, are you?”
Kael let out a short breath through his nose, patience clearly wearing thin.
“Stop rambling.
Someone needs to check your head again.”
“She’s human,” the vampire said, unbothered as he continued working.
“Her body doesn’t regenerate as fast as ours.
Makes sense she’s a little foggy after a hit like that.”
Before Elara could ask anything else, the vampire got to work.
He pushed the needle through her skin and into the vein.
She turned her face away on instinct–she’d never liked needles, not since she was a kid.
She fixed her eyes on the massive window instead, tall enough to nearly reach the ceiling.
Through the glass, the spires of a castle rose in the distance.
The sight felt familiar.
In every dream before this one, she’d found herself in awe of the buildings around her home–the grand architecture that never failed to stop her breath.
One of them, more than any other, had a silhouette almost identical to the one she was looking at now.
“Where am I?” Her voice came out small.
She needed to know.
Was this the same castle her father used to tell her about?
The finest school in Ordovia, the one that always came up in her dreams.
The school called…
Kael let out an irritated breath before answering.
“Ravencrest Academy.
You’re testing what little patience I have left.”
Ravencrest.
Her heart picked up its pace.
A small smile almost broke through–she was really back, back in the dream that had gone missing from her sleep for nearly a year.
But another thought caught up to her fast.
Elara went still.
The faint smile faded from her face.
If this really was the same dream, then maybe she could still find them.
Her mother and father.
Maybe her father was still in the small house that always showed up in her dreams.
Maybe her mother was in the kitchen right now, waiting for her to come home, dinner already on the stove like always.
She started shifting again, pushing the pain radiating through her entire body to the side.
“I have to go.”
Kael’s head snapped up.
“Go where?”
“I have to find my parents.”
For the first time, something shifted in his expression.
It wasn’t mockery anymore.
Whatever crossed his face was harder to read–like he’d just heard something that shouldn’t have been possible to say out loud.
“Go where, did you say?”
“I said I have to find them.”
She tried to get off the bed again.
Her feet hadn’t even touched the floor when Kael moved.
But before he could stop her, she’d already grabbed the tubing still fixed in her arm.
She yanked it out.
The needle tore free from her vein, and pain sliced sharp and hot from her wrist to her elbow, but she didn’t care.
The clear tube slipped loose, and blood began to well up.
One drop.
Two.
Then it came faster.
Dark red spilled down her skin and hit the white marble floor, staining it in stark, glaring contrast against the polished surface.
Something changed in an instant.
The vampire, who’d been standing beside the bed this whole time, went rigid.
His head snapped up, his gaze locking onto the blood pooling on the floor, hunger written plainly across his face.
His breathing changed.
The calm expression he’d worn a second ago snapped tight.
“Elara, don’t–” Kael was already moving.
The vampire lunged.
Kael got there first, slamming into him before he could reach her.
His arm clamped around the vampire’s throat, holding him back with everything he had.
The vampire thrashed against him.
For a moment, Elara caught a glimpse of his face–and the calm she’d seen there before was gone, replaced by something feral.
Kael shoved him out of the room, forcing his body through the doorway before slamming the heavy wooden door shut behind him.
BANG!
The sound made her jump, but she didn’t stop.
She kept trying to get off the bed.
She had to find her parents.
If this really was her dream, they had to be here.
She forced her feet onto the floor.
Her legs shook as pain tore up from the soles of her feet to her spine.
On her second step, her knees nearly buckled.
But she kept walking.
She made it to the door.
Her hand was almost on the handle when it swung open from the other side.
Kael stood there, and this time, the fury on his face was worse than anything she’d seen from him yet.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?!”
His hand shot out and locked around her arm.
Pain flared through her, doubled, tripled, as his grip landed right over the bruises already covering her skin.
“Let go!” She wrenched against him, but his grip didn’t loosen even slightly.
“Please, I have to know my parents are okay.”
A few seconds passed in silence.
The fury in his eyes slowly gave way to something else–like he was trying to make sense of something that shouldn’t have made any sense at all.
Then he let out a short breath.
“You’re such a pain.”
He released her arm, only to scoop her up and carry her straight back to the bed.
His movements were too rough for someone supposedly being careful.
She winced again as her back hit the bed.
“You–”
Before she could finish, he’d already turned away.
But she wasn’t done.
She pushed to get up again, only for him to catch both her hands before she’d even made it halfway.
“Back off!
Why do you even care?” she shouted.
“I have to see my parents!”
In one motion, he pinned both her wrists in one hand.
When she kept struggling, he pinned her legs beneath his own, trapping her completely, leaving her no way to move at all.
“Did you hit your head so hard you forgot what happened to your parents?”
Elara froze, glaring up at him.
She didn’t want to believe whatever he was about to say next.
She wanted to deny it before he even finished the sentence.
“They’re alive.
They have to be.”
Kael studied her.
This close, she could see every shift in his expression clearly–the small, humorless smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
Whatever it meant, she hated it.
He tilted his head slightly and dropped his voice low.
“You know this place is crawling with people who have very sharp senses.”
She stared back at him, unblinking.
“Everyone heard you scream.
You really think that’s not going to get people asking questions?”
“What are you talking about?”
He leaned in closer.
“Right now, everyone at Ravencrest is probably wondering the same thing.”
He paused.
The mockery had drained out of his eyes completely.
What was left was something colder.
“How a girl could still want to go looking for her parents, when she’s the whole reason they’re dead.”
Hey everyone, welcome to this story!
This story has been living in my head for a while, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you.
If you’re enjoying it, please drop a comment, hit that vote button, and leave a review.
It truly keeps me motivated to write more.
Even a simple “hi” makes me smile.
Also, if you’d like to spoil me a little, a gift is always deeply appreciated.
See you in the comments!