Chapter 4 I’m dead, right?

I stumble onto my feet, using the front door to help me as my back screamed in pain, having a real heavy vampire draped over me did not help. My body was begging me to lay down, but I knew that I couldn’t. It’s not like I could ask for a minute, or a painkiller.

The prince of vampires wouldn’t care about my pain, I was nothing to him, not even a piece of dirt on his shoe.

So I take a deep breath, hold it, then let it go.

I count to a hundred and pretend I’m not scared out of my mind.

I bow my head and wait for the swift explosion of death.

I wait, and I wait. But nothing happens. The pain is my back softens to a dull ache, my heart managing to find its own rhythm again.

I was still very much afraid, and I wanted to get as far away as I possibly could, hide and hope that no one finds me. Hope that the prince won’t find me.

But I knew that I would fail, you can’t escape these creatures, I had learnt that once, the hard way.

My father had tried to run, he had tried to take me and mother with him, but we were caught at the border of this land, we never made it to the free tribes and he was foolish to think that we would.

It was a dangerous road to take, and sure he was desperate, but they didn’t care about that. They didn’t care how we felt.

My father had tried to fight them off when they came for us, he had been rebellious until his last breath, never once showing fear; though I knew that he had been afraid. Just as I was right now.

I was able to sense his fear before he could even put a name to it. He never wanted to die, he never wanted to leave mother and I behind.

But they gave him no choice.

They ripped him apart right in front of my eyes, and then dragged mother and I back.

Since then, my mother had been placed onto a list, a donor list. She had to give them her blood regularly, and use her ability to read a mortal’s mind to help them whenever they asked, never really having a choice.

There was never a choice.

We are one of the rare families that are owned directly by the crown, but not the mortal crown. No, this was much different, and I didn’t understand why he had come all the way from across the ocean just to see us.

It made no sense. We were already on constant watch; we had a vampire with us at all times. So, what had gone wrong, what had changed?

I turned to look down at Noah, his entire form coated in his own blood, he had been foolish to challenge royalty, to think that he could bully another vampire into submission, that is not how they worked. Not how any of them should act.

They had so much power over us, yet they threw it around like it was nothing more than an inconvenience. It we had their power, we would rule the world.

Noah’s body was unmoving and utterly broken, every bone seeming to have been broken in one way or another, his heart no longer residing within his chest.

It was hard to look at, death always was, but it was a pill I had to swallow. It was a part of the world I was born into. Hiding from it will not change it.

“Take a good look Luna,” I tell myself. “That could just as easily have been you.”

I take a long, deep breath, holding it inside my lungs for several seconds, reminding myself not to scream, not to run. I knew that with their heightened senses, Silas would be able to hear my heart beating within my chest, and he would know how afraid I was, and depending on the vampire, that would either piss him off, or please him.

“Did … did you kill him?” I asked bravely, or stupidly; I wasn’t quite sure which as I found my balance, finally able to hold my own weight.

My legs still trembled, but I didn’t fall, and I thanked all the stars in the sky that I wasn’t dead. Not yet anyway.

“Yes, I did.” He said slowly, taking a step towards me as he continued. “You are old enough to know what happens to those who disobey the crown?”

I nodded, bowing my head in a sign of respect, “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He smiled, baring his fangs. “Now follow me.”

Silas moved past me and opened the front door, revealing several vampires on the lawn, each one staring at me; waiting for me to run.

If I had tried to escape whilst he and Noah were distracted I would have been caught right away, just as I suspected. It would have been stupid, reckless.

I would definitely be dead if I had listened to my own mind.

I had no intention of running anymore, I didn’t want to die, and that is all running would get me. Besides, I wouldn’t even make it down the path before they caught me, the vampires were much faster than me, they had an unnatural speed that no one else could master, at least; not that I knew of.

Maybe somewhere there was a witch or Warlock who could, but I would never know. We weren’t allowed to contact others of our kind.

We weren’t allowed to talk to anyone outside of who was assigned to us.

I looked down at my beauty and the beast nightwear and sighed, there would be no time to change, or even put on shoes; I would have to go to wherever they had planned as I am. They didn’t care that it was a cold night, they couldn’t feel the cold, not like I could.

They wouldn’t shiver or tremble from the ice in the air, they wouldn’t even notice if snow began to fall from the heavens. But I would, and maybe I’d welcome the hypothermia.

It would be a much simpler way to die.

I look back at the stairs, wishing that I could say goodbye to my mother, and hoping that they didn’t kill her. She had done nothing wrong, always doing as they asked without hesitation. She wasn’t like my father, she understood that she had no choice. That running would only mean death, for the both of us.

Fear didn’t matter, not in this life, even if you run from them because you are afraid, the outcome would be the same. Your life would be over.

Your entire family would pay the price for your one mistake, just as mother and I were now.

I’m honestly surprised it had taken two years for them to act of my fathers betrayal, two years of false hope. Twenty four months of thinking that we were safe.

“That was not a request Luna Marshall.” Silas growled deeply, grabbing my arm and dragging me down the front steps.

I stumble on unsteady legs, struggling to keep up, my power fizzing just bellow the surface of my skin, begging to come out and fight.

But I couldn’t let it, not now.

Fighting back was useless.

I swallow thickly, my supper threatening to make an appearance as Silas dragged me onto the front lawn, leaving Noah’s body behind. He didn’t need to clean it up, someone else would do that for him.

The royals never have to lift a finger, not unless they want to.

I followed the prince to the car whilst staring back at the house we had never chosen, the house that was given by them to make sure we couldn’t leave; cameras in ever room but the bathroom. We never had privacy, or a choice of the food we were given each week.

We weren't allowed anything that would give us a social standing among the mortals. We were made to look poor and isolated; the human neighbours would have already been told that we were criminals, that we weren't to be approached.

This kind of thing only happens to the families who try and run, try and escape their fate, not all witches must live as we did. Under constant watch. Some get to live a normal life, only being called upon when they were needed, it all depended on what power you were born with.

It also depended who your masters were, and what they needed you for.

I looked up at Silas who stood above six foot, watching as he opened the car door, indicating that I should get in, and I almost obeyed... I almost freely gave him my obedience.

“Luna!” My mother screamed in a panic from the front door; her brown eyes coated in terror. “Luna run!”