Chapter 5 No control

Nyx’s POV

The fog cleared in stages and the first thing I got was a proper look at the person holding me.

The frozen red eyes are currently looking at nothing above my head. This was not a guard. This was the vampire king.

I was in the arms of the vampire king!!!

“Put me down,” I said trying to sound at all not afraid but he did not respond.

“Now! Put me down right now.”

Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment. It was as thought I was a piece of furniture that had recently developed the ability to make requests and he was reserving judgment on whether to find that interesting.

I pushed against his chest with both hands. His arms did not move.

He held me like I was not doing anything at all.

“I swear…” I started then my legs hit the floor.

He had let go randomly which was somehow more infuriating than if he had just kept holding me. I got my feet under me and straightened up and lifted my chin and opened my mouth to say something cutting and then the floor left. 

The room swam sideways and my knees made a decision my brain had not approved and I went down fast. His arm was already there, catching me before I hit the ground, pulling me back against him with that same infuriating effortlessness.

I ended up exactly where I had started.

“I meant to do that!” I said to his chest.

I gave up on dignity for the moment and focused on staying conscious instead because the dragon was doing something particularly unpleasant in my ribcage and the room was still moving in ways rooms are not supposed to move. 

One moment there was library, fire, shelves and guards and the high stone ceiling. Then a lurch that went through every cell in my body simultaneously, a sensation like being turned inside out. 

I grabbed him. Both my hands fisted in his jacket before my brain had fully gathered itself. I was gripping him with everything I had and pressing my face against his chest and not looking at whatever was behind me because I could hear it. 

He had teleported us! He had folded space or broken it or whatever it was that vampires did and dragged me through it and I had never been teleported in my life because fae cannot do that. 

Nobody I had ever known could do that. It was the kind of thing you heard about in stories and never expected to happen to your actual body. And I did not enjoy it’

“Warn someone next time.” I said into his jacket. My voice came out muffled and embarrassingly trembly. “Before you do that. Some of us have not had the pleasure.”

He did not respond ans I became aware that I was still gripping him. 

That I had, in fact, burrowed into his chest like a small frightened animal and was showing absolutely no signs of letting go. I ordered my hands to release him but they declined. I tried again. Nothing. 

I turned my head and looked at the pool. It was large and perfectly still and so dark the surface looked solid. My grip on his jacket tightened.

I have been afraid of a lot of things in my life like poverty and losing my sister and failing and any kind of spider. But water has been the oldest fear. 

“You fear water.”

“How did you know that?” I looked up at him.

BIG mistake. 

He looked back at me and something moved across his face. Its as if that had been waiting for this specific moment and found it satisfying.

“Because you feared it before.”

“Before when? I have never met you in my—”

“You are reincarnated.” He said it the way you tell someone it is raining. “You lived before. You did things in that life that require answering for. You are here to answer for them.”

I stared at him then I laughed. I could not help it. 

It came out slightly hysterical but it was a genuine laugh because what else do you do when a vampire king teleports you to a dark pool amd tells you with a completely straight face that you are a reincarnated soul coming to settle a debt?

reincarnation?

“Rigggght.” I dragged the word while still chuckling. Everybody feared the vampire king but they never told me he was funny. 

“I am reincarnated? That is what is happening here.” I looked around at the dark stone and the black water and his completely serious face. “I want you to know I came here for a very small amount of blood and fully intended to be gone in under an hour. I had a plan. It was a good plan.”

“The plan failed.”

“The plan failed.” I agreed. “But reincarnation is a bit of a leap from a failed plan, don’t you think? I am nineteen. I live in the slums. I scrub pots for a living. I am not exactly the profile of a reincarnated soul with a centuries old debt.”

He was watching me the way you watch someone who is lying and already knows you know it. Patient and cold and completely unmoved by my entire personality.

“Prince Theron lied to you.” He blurted and I raised a brow. 

“He did not send you here for dragon’s blood.” He held my gaze. “He sent you here because he knew what you were. He has been waiting for you to come of age so he could use you. As have I. Though for considerably different reasons.”

The laugh died somewhere in my chest and I frown. 

“Theron wants to marry me.” I said but it came out less certain than I intended.

“Theron has never loved anything that could not be used.” His voice was completely blank. “He sent you here knowing I would take you. Knowing exactly what would happen when you touched the dragon. He is trying to start a war and you are the weapon he chose.”

“That is—” I shook my head. “No. You are lying. You are a vampire king who has just kidnapped me and dragged me to a very ominous pool and you want me scared and confused and you are lying.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“And the dragon?” He tilted his head slightly. “You touched it and the bond formed in seconds. That does not happen to strangers. Or to people who have no connection to that creature.” His eyes dropped to my chest for just a moment, where the dragon burned. “It knew you. It has been waiting for you just as I have. Three hundred years is a very long time to wait, Nymeria.”

My name in his mouth hit wrong. He didn’t call me Nyx. But my full name that I hardly use. The one my mother gave me that I had never told him. I went very still.

“My name is Nyx.” I said quietly.

“Not the name I know you by.”

“I don’t believe you.” I accused.

He smiled. It was the first time I had seen him smile and I wished immediately that I hadn’t because it was not a nice smile. 

It was the smile of someone who has been patient for a very long time and has just run out of patience and finds the running out of it almost pleasurable. His hand left my back.

With one firm push that was almost gentle in the way ——and then I was in the water.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​