The King of all Vampires and his Bride

“Kneel, for you stand before your king’s throne,” the squire’s voice is loud in my ear as he pushes me to the ground, and I turn to give him a dirty look to mask the pain of my knees hitting the ground hard.  

“Geez, maybe I’ll hear you better if you scream it in my ear,” I retort, and he backhands me. How gentlemanly. The squire standing behind me is a man of brief height, which is to say he is very short, and to make matters worse, he’s also fat, which results in him looking like a very plump pumpkin.  

I have the sense to keep this observation to myself, for his strike did hurt, and I’m not trying to get myself bloodied.  

The throne is still empty, so I pay no attention to it, and instead turn to look at the six other girls that are on their knees with me. 

What are we doing here, you may ask? Excellent question, for I will also appreciate an answer to that.  

***** 

I awoke this morning with the thought of honey-sweetened milk and freshly baked bread from my mother’s bakery. The smell of the baking had woken me from my sleep, and I’d hurriedly donned my gown to rush down the stairs. Our house was an apartment above the bakery. 

My mother’s smile had welcomed me, and giving her a brief hug, I sidestepped her to get to steaming cup of the honey-sweetened milk she had already poured out for me. I grabbed the cup and took a tentative sip. 

It burned my tongue, but it was so worth it.  

I grabbed a bun from the ones that were cooling on the rack and stuffed the whole thing in my mouth.  

“Annika! Can you stop eating like a pig? I raised you as a young lady,” 

“Sorry mom. It's your fault for cooking such good food.” 

My mother laughed and shook her head at me. Heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs, and I turned just in time to see my brother lumber down it with sleep still in his eyes. 

Aaron was six feet three inches tall, and he was a large man. Four years older than me at his Twenty-Eight, he took his role as the firstborn quite seriously, which made my life easier. Aaron had thick, curly hair like our mother’s, and currently, they were saluting the skies on his head.  

His grey eyes looked at me and our mom like he wasn’t seeing us, which couldn’t even be called an exaggeration with him because he was like the walking dead when je just woke in the morning and would remain like that till he got some food inside him.  

Which is why I handed a bun to him and placed a cup of milk in his waiting hands. My mom and I watched in amusement as he came to life the moment he ate something.  

After that, breakfast was a quiet affair, which was only broken when we finished eating.  

“Aaron, your father said to join him in the stable when you’re done with breakfast,” my mother said, and my brother rose up from the table to go outside without any questions. 

Apart from running the best bakery in town, we also owned a stable where people could loan horses for a fee. Of course, there was always the risk of someone stealing the horses away, which is why all of them were enchanted with spells. 

No thief wanted anything to do with a horse who stopped moving once it got to the border. It made for a bad thieving business.  

It was as I was cleaning up the table where we ate breakfast that a bell sounded, and my mom and I turned to look at one another without a word.  

A bell ringing in the square by this time of the morning hardly meant anything good. I still remember the last time it had rang, which was about a month ago. The squire had matched into town on orders of the renowned and fear King of all Vampires that all household were to give an offering worthy of the King or risk death.  

My family had surrendered our most priced horse; a thoroughbred with a coat of molten gold named Alia. Alia had been my favorite horse; we had bonded as kids, and we’d grown up together. I’d ridden her every single excuse I had, and we had explored the plain of Velmoor together several times.  

The day she was taken away was the first time the oppression of the Vampires got to my doorstep. Living in Velmoor was an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything else. 

Velmoor is a prosperous market-driven town. My people were the traders everyone from Caldenmere travelled to for all their needs because we had the best of everything: jewels, animals, clothing, food, weapons; everything you could use money to buy could be bought in Velmoor. And even then, there were traders who would trade by barter.  

The only flaw our town had was that it bordered the ever-dark vampire land of Noctharys. If you stood on the top of the bell tower that was erected in the middle of town square, you could see a border of darkness stretch before you.  

Nothing inside it was visible from the outside, and all the human who stepped inside had never come back to tell the tale of what went on inside Noctharys.  

Noctharys was like the proverbial noose that hung around the neck of Caldenmere. As long as we gave the tributes and minded our business, the vampires left us alone, and we only had to deal with the squires.  

My mother and I walked out of the bakery to find that the square was almost filled with people who gathered around the fountain that was in the center of the square. All the faces were familiar in one way or the other; they were friends, people who visited the bakery or rented horses from our stables. 

We all gathered with somber faces because we knew that any announcement that required the bell to be rung was nothing good. 

In a few minutes, the square was full and the squire decided there were enough people for him to make his announcement. He was a pale, short man and he was also fat, so it looked like there was no neck between his head and shoulders. His face was set in a perpetual frown, but the only thing I could think about was that if he was so fat, living with the Vampires must not be so terrible.  

He pulled out a scroll and began to read. “As Decreed by the King of all Vampires, the town of Velmoor must present one adult woman to be taken before the king. She must be fit, without illness and of a pleasant facial demeanor. You may select a candidate, and someone may volunteer, but your decision must be made in five minutes.” 

The moment he finished speaking, everyone’s eyes fell upon Emilia. Emilia was undoubtedly the fairest maiden in Valmoor and beyond. There was just one problem with us selecting her as tribute to the Vampire king; she was engaged to the love of her life, my brother, Aaron.  

Maybe I was a hopeless romantic, or perhaps I had no sense of preservation, because I opened my big mouth and said the words that would ruin my life.  

“I volunteer!”