Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
The second the potion hit my stomach, the burn I’d felt in my throat increased, except now the burn was everywhere. Fire raged along my limbs, entirely alien from my natural fire elemental magic. It stung and seared, making me feel as though I was being flayed alive.
A scream ripped from my throat.
Pain.
Agony.
Searing, unrelenting torture.
I screamed and screamed until my voice grew hoarse, and I could no longer speak.
My uncle winced. “Ah, yes, I’m afraid the pain is a side effect of the potion’s expedited rate. I altered it after the one Verin stupidly gave to your uncle instead of you, but fear not. It shall be over soon.”
But his reassurances faded into the background. Something was sliding through my veins, taking hold of my essence. Something foreign, something other.
“That’s it. It’s almost completely taken hold of you.”
I had just enough awareness to understand my uncle’s excited comment and know that the beginning stages of the transformation were already upon me.
It was similar in a way to my uncle’s illness.
Initially, he had a fever and felt weakness and fatigue, but it wasn’t as drastic or as quickly onset as this.
Yet he’d been hot too. Stupidly, we’d thought he’d been running a fever, but now I knew.
It wasn’t a fever at all.
It was the last thought I had before blackness came.
The sun penetrated my eyelids. Bright, unrelenting sunlight. I fluttered my eyes open, my head groggy and feeling as though it was filled with cobwebs.
Blinking, I held up a hand and blocked the sunshine then drunkenly surveyed my surroundings. Confusion filled me.
I was in a decadent bedroom chambers with the curtains pulled wide open. Fluffy, warm covers surrounded me, yet I felt . . . cool.
I brought my hand closer to my face, and the vague recollection of a rope pinning me in place swept through the cobwebs. Had that been real?
No rope confined me. I was entirely free.
I waved my hand just to be sure, and my limb moved fast. All I’d wanted to do was gaze at my palm and turn it around, but my arm had moved in a blur.
I sucked in a breath, and a realization hit me that I’d done such an act out of habit, not because I needed to breathe.
Memories came next, one after the other, of what my uncle had done. My eyes flew wide open.
A rope had been binding me, and I’d drunk the potion.
Pain and fever had immediately set in.
Arnel had said he was going to change me into a vampire.
“No, no, no, he didn’t. I’m fine. I have to be fine. I’m not that,” I whispered.
Swallowing, I tried to ignore the impending sense of doom that began to settle over me like a dark cloud cover. Instead, I concentrated on studying my skin. I looked like me, but . . . something was different.
I turned my hand every which way again, but had to concentrate so the movement stayed slower, and when the sunlight hit my palm and fingers, I realized why my hand looked strange.
I was paler.
My thoughts raced as more memories of what had happened sliced through me one after another like an assassin’s blade.
I brought a hand to my chest because it felt as though my heart should be thundering, but everything inside me felt still.
I placed my palm on my breastbone, but nothing moved within.
“Oh Gods!” Beneath my hand, I registered the feel of the dress I was wearing, but that wasn’t what worried me.
The absolute stillness beneath it did.
I jumped from the bed. Panic began to race through me, but I didn’t feel the urge to inhale rapidly or slow my thundering heart because my heart was silent. It no longer beat.
A memory surged to the surface of my mind. Of the vamfeer in Inisville. Of the way it’d been alive but had no heartbeat either.
“No!” I wailed as the complexity of what I’d endured hit me like a meteor. I sank to my knees, my bones hitting the floor, yet no pain came. “No, no, no, no—”
“Ah, you’re conscious, and right on time.” Arnel slipped inside my room and closed the door behind himself, and three things hit me at once.
One, he’d done what he’d threatened to do—he’d made me ingest the potion and had turned me into a vampire.
Two, my magic was back. It surged strongly and potently inside me, which meant Tylen’s nulling power had worn off.
And three, an overwhelming magnetic pull to my uncle made me intrinsically turn to him.
What in the realm?
“Stand, Primelle.”
His command hit my ears and had no sooner registered in my mind when I found myself on my feet. Bewildered, I stared down at my standing legs.
“What have you done to me?” I whispered.
“Do you remember this morning?”
“I . . .” I swallowed reflexively, and a faint thumping sound reached my ears. It pulled at me, interested me. I stared at my uncle’s chest, at the beating organ within it. I licked my lips. “I remember it, yes.”
“Then you already know the answer to your question. You drank the potion and turned. You are now a vampire, and as the potion creator, I am your Maker.” He clasped his hands behind his back.
“Now, first things first. You need to contact Kole and tell him you’re fine.
I want you to use your magic to connect with him, but your conversation is to be kept short, and you’re to do nothing that will make him suspect anything is wrong.
You’re only to check in with him and ask him appropriate questions so he doesn’t suspect anything.
Then you’re to end the conversation. Now, do it. ”
It hit me that he’d said earlier my planned check-in with Kole was fixable, and no sooner had that realization hit me than I was linking my mind to Kole’s.
Automatically.
Against my will.
Magic flew out of me, and despite the distance, I found my mate immediately. My magic scratched against his distant consciousness, still just outside of Whiteolf, and he opened to me the second I did, obviously remembering the feel of it from my contact with him that morning.
Prim? He sounded anxious. Worried. Not like himself at all.
I wanted to warn him of what had happened to me, to not be fooled, but my uncle’s command didn’t allow it. My Maker had said I couldn’t raise Kole’s suspicions. Somehow, my voice was steady and light, even though I didn’t want that.
Hi, sorry it took me so long to contact you. I hope I didn’t worry you. How did the meeting go this afternoon?
He sighed. They know.
A new sense of panic hit me, but it was my panic, nothing commanded by my uncle. What do they know?
That we’re mates. Before our meeting started, they gave me a truth serum. I told them everything. Everything that we’ve done. The magic wouldn’t allow me to keep any of it to myself, he growled.
So what does that mean? And do my parents know? Has the Council told them too?
I don’t know. I’m still in isolation. I have no fucking idea what they’re doing with that information.
Shock rendered me immobile. First, what my uncle had done to me and now this. The Imperial Council now knew that Kole and I were mates, which meant it was most likely that my parents knew too.
And my parents had the authority to ban Kole from me.
My soul felt as though it’d been sliced in two, but my uncle’s command that I keep the conversation short kept me from voicing anything further.
Against my will, my response floated to Kole. I’ll speak with my parents when I get back. I’ll find a way to convince them that you need to stay on as my warrior.
When you get back? You’re still at your uncle’s? But the sun’s nearly set.
It struck me that he had no idea about the dillemsill my uncle had sent to my parents. No, I’m staying at my uncle’s for the night. He has some books with potentially significant findings, but I have to go through them all, and that’ll take some time. My parents agreed to it.
How long will you be there?
My uncle’s command again reared in me. Short.
I needed to keep this conversation short.
Before I could even contemplate what I was going to say, words spilled out of me.
Just until tomorrow, but speaking of which, my uncle’s come back into the room.
I need to go so he doesn’t question why I’m not answering him. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye, Kole.
Before the warrior could answer, I ended our connection.
Just like that.
He was gone.
I hadn’t even told him that I loved him.
Alone in my head once more, and since I no longer had to hide my devastation and disbelief at all my life had become, I stared at my uncle with burning hatred.
“You placated him?” My uncle’s eyebrows rose. “He doesn’t suspect anything?”
I pumped my hands into fists and clenched my teeth. “He suspects nothing.”
“Good. You’re not to contact him again while you’re here. Now, follow me. You’re to accompany me to the dungeon.”
As before, I automatically fell into step behind him. I did it so quickly that I didn’t even comprehend what I was doing until I was following him, and the thought of not following him wasn’t even an option, even though I didn’t want to.
Stars Above. How can he control me like this?
Mentally, I tried to stop my legs, tried to stop my limbs from moving at all, but it was as if my body was no longer my own. My legs scissored beneath me, obediently following Arnel.
The fact that this was truly happening and that no matter what I tried, I couldn’t stop it, began to sink in.
It suddenly struck me what a vampire Maker was.
Arnel fully controlled me.
Once again, I would have thought my heart would be thundering or my breaths would be rapidly rising. I was now a puppet. A slave. A docile pet. My uncle was commanding me, and I was forced to obey. Bodily functions should have ensued. A racing heart. Clammy skin. Twisting guts.
But nothing like that happened.
My body was inactive. As though it’d been turned off.
A new feeling of panic swept through me, and I asked hesitantly, “Am I . . . dead?”