The Dark Prince's Captive • Complete

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐞𝐧 - 𝑹𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓

We ran frantically and I would have stumbled and fallen if the corridor we were running down weren’t so narrow. I used the walls to help steady myself and stay on my feet. We flew down the narrow passage, my adrenaline pumping through my veins.

Vampires, oh my God, vampires.

No. Not real. Not real. Not real, my rational mind immediately argued back.

But I just saw them!

It was just a party. Some weird, twisted kinky party. You didn’t see what you think you saw.

But the blood looked real, and those women on the floor…and Alex had to stab me to try to fool them because they expected him to—

Oh my God we had to get the hell out of here. Now!

But just then, I collided into Alex’s back.
And immediately started freaking out. Had we come to a dead end? Did Alex not know this passageway as well as he thought he did?

But he was immediately grabbing me by my waist and hoisting me up. “Grab the ladder. Climb!” he said urgently.

Ladder? When I flailed outwards, my hands did run into metal rungs that seemed firmly affixed to the wall. He was right, there was a ladder.

I scrambled up it faster than I had any ladder before, though I couldn’t say I’d climbed one lately. Adrenaline was still my friend, though, so I made it up in record time, and Alex was right on my heels.

I scrambled over the ledge at the top, huffing for breath and looking around me, trying to get my bearings.

We were in some sort of outdoor structure. It was nighttime and it smelled like…hay? Was this a barn? Where the hell were we?

No time for questions, though, because Alex was grabbing me and hauling me to my feet again.

I was so tired of running, but the single, impossible word—vampire—had me hauling ass again even though I knew what I’d seen was impossible. Completely impossible. Whatever. I’d sort out the possible and impossible later. When I was safe and could go back to my happy little world where women didn’t lay lifeless and abandoned on the floor while men apparently snacked on them.

“Get them!” yelled a voice in the distance. “They’re in the barn.”

Oh shit.

A floodlight suddenly shone so much light into the darkness it almost felt like day. We were still hidden in the barn, but unlike the main mansion, this place was rickety and abandoned.

Alex didn’t miss a beat, though. He just grabbed me and started running, and since I didn’t know what else to do, I ran too.

But as soon as we were out in the open, it was clear we didn’t have a chance.

Four of Alex’s cousins—or fellow cult members or whatever the hell these people were—came running at us at impossible speeds across open ground.

There was nowhere to hide and it was impossible to outrun them. I had the feeling Alex might be able to outrun them on his own, but I was a hindrance slowing him down. He didn’t leave me behind, though.

Instead he stopped, yelled, “Keep running!” at me, and stood his ground to face the ones coming at him.

It was futile, though. One of the big thugs had his eyes on me, and I knew if I broke away and tried to run for it, he’d just follow and chase me down. So I stopped, too, and hovered behind Alex. Maybe it was unfair to make him my shield, but if I was honest, I had the sinking feeling that neither of us was going to get out of this intact.