I’d been pacing around my room for the past hour since Laila had left, deep in thought. What more did she expect of me? How many more humans did I have to successfully feed from before she trusted me enough to leave the palace? It almost seemed like she enjoyed keeping me here.
Like she was purposefully keeping me prisoner.
Music and voices started to fill the village—Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were apparently two of the few days each year that the humans were allowed to let loose and celebrate.
Excited chatter drifted through my window, and I couldn’t help thinking about my last Christmas—how I’d insisted on going to swimming practice instead of spending the entire day with my family. I’d always been so goal-oriented and ambitious, putting my Olympic medal dreams before everything else. I’d refused to slack off, not even for a holiday. After all, I wouldn’t be in my athletic prime forever. I’d figured I would have more time with my family after I’d completed my goals.
I’d never expected that my life would be taken from me in a single night. That I would never see my family again.
They thought I was dead.
It was probably better for them to think that. They would never accept me for what I was now—a monster.
Hell, I didn’t even accept myself as I was now.
Even if I got a chance to see them again, I had no place in the human world anymore. It was best for all of us if they continued believing I was dead.
But I missed being human. I missed being around people who were relaxed and happy—people who treated me as an equal. People who I could just have fun with.
I hadn’t had any fun since… well, I supposed I hadn’t had any fun since before becoming a vampire. The other vampires looked at me as some kind of project. The poor, vampire prince who was turned against his will and couldn’t gain control over his bloodlust. They were either jealous of me for being vampire royalty, pitied me for it, or they hated me for it. Nothing in between. And they refused to get close to me, since most of them figured I would eventually lose my mind to the bloodlust and off myself.
How was I expected to live like this?
I stopped pacing and stared out the window. The streets were lit up more than I’d ever seen them before. The music got louder, and I heard laughter and chatter—the sounds of people having fun.
I wanted to be there. With them. Not as a vampire prince—but as me. As Jacen.
Maybe I could go out there.
I could now be around humans and control my bloodlust. After this past week, I knew I could stop myself from feeding once I’d started. And I’d been practicing my compulsion. Compelling vampires was harder than compelling humans, but I seemed to have gotten the hang of it.
Since I had all these powers, I might as well put them to good use and attempt to sneak out of the palace. After all, there were only a few ways this could end.
I could fail at compelling multiple guards and end up exactly where I was now—stuck inside the palace.
I could escape, not be able to handle myself around so many humans, and go on another murder spree. If that happened, I hoped Laila would do what she should have done the first time I’d gone on a rampage—put me out of my misery forever. If she didn’t, perhaps that would be the breaking point I needed to do it myself.
Or I could escape, kill no one, and prove once and for all that I was capable of being free to roam the Vale as I pleased.
I was neutral about the first option.
I refused to let the second happen.
The third was what I wanted.
Since becoming a vampire, I’d lost who I’d been as a human. It hurt too much to think about the life I had before—the life I would never get back. But now, I forced myself to remember. Because my swimming coach had always told me—goal setting was about mindset. If you saw yourself completing your goal and believed you could do it, you would reach it. Train. Push yourself. Make your goals happen.
That was exactly what I planned on doing tonight.
Annika
I stared out the window of the attic crawl space, watching as people walked excitedly along the streets. It was my first Christmas in the Vale, and it was by far the happiest I’d ever seen the humans in the village.
They strolled casually down the streets, chatting, laughing, and drinking. Alcohol was one of the few indulgences us humans in the Vale were allowed—low-end alcohol, but we weren’t picky—although I rarely chose to drink. I’d always found that drinking escalated my emotions. And since I’d been mostly sad since coming to the Vale, drinking made it worse. So I stayed away from alcohol.
Even though everyone seemed so excited, I couldn’t imagine going out and having fun tonight. So I was set on remaining here—in the cozy attic crawl space.
The crawl space wasn’t huge, but I’d made it my own. With the bookshelves and few blankets that I’d brought up here, it was my own little reading nook. No one else liked to come here—I supposed they felt cramped—but I loved it. It was the only place I could get away and lose myself in books without being disturbed.
The back window also had an incredible view of the palace.
I didn’t know what went on inside of the palace—probably horrible things. But the building itself was so huge and impressive, built into the side of the mountain, that despite the horrors that happened inside, looking at it gave me hope that all the beauty in my world wasn’t lost forever. And once Mike returned—whenever that would be—I hoped that the stories he had to recount from his time in the palace wouldn’t all be bad.
For now, I picked up the book I was reading, opened it to the bookmarked page, and settled in to enjoy the story.
It wasn’t long before someone started banging on the entrance in the floor.
“Annika!” someone yelled—Tanya, one of the other girls who worked at the Tavern. She’d been brought to the Vale around the same time I was, and besides Mike, she was my closest friend here. “Are you up there?”
I said nothing, not wanting to be disturbed.
She opened the entrance to the crawl space and peeked inside anyway. “I thought I would find you here,” she said, opening the trap door fully and pushing herself up. “You aren’t seriously going to stay up here for all of Christmas, are you?”
“Umm…” I glanced down at the book in my lap, since yes, that was exactly what I’d planned to do.
“No.” Tanya widened her big brown eyes and shook her head. “You are absolutely not staying in this dingy attic and reading a book on Christmas Eve.”
“Why not?” I asked, pulling the book closer. “It’s not like I have anything to celebrate anymore.”
She climbed up into the crawlspace with me, shutting the door under her. “That’s not true,” she said, her eyes serious now. “I know that this isn’t the life you imagined for yourself, but you’re still alive. You have me. And Mike. Friends till the end, right?”
“I might be alive, but I don’t get to live,” I told her. “There’s a difference.”
“Don’t be like that.” She pouted. “We all lost everything when we were brought here. It sucks. Trust me, I know.”
I nodded, since I did know. Tanya had been on a school trip when she’d been abducted. She, her boyfriend, her friend Maria, and Maria’s boyfriend had snuck out after curfew. She and Maria had watched their boyfriends be murdered in front of them—sucked dry by the vampires. The two of them were then brought here.
Maria hadn’t lasted a month in the Vale before taking her own life.
“Everyone says that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are the best days for humans in the Vale,” Tanya continued. “It’s one of the few days the vampires don’t force us to work. Don’t you at least want to try going out and having fun? At least for me? You’re the closest friend I have here—the party won’t be any fun without you.”
I didn’t, actually. But I could tell by the way Tanya was looking at me—her eyes wide and hopeful—that she was only going to be able to have fun tonight if I at least gave it a chance and went with her.
“Fine.” I sighed and marked my spot in the book, putting it back on the shelf. “But only because you forced me.”
Annika