Royal Pain ~ Slave to the High Royals

Chapter Thirty-Two

Aiden's eyes gleamed with a threatening light, his fangs flashing menacingly as Lana stood unflinching, her eyes slowly traversing the entirety of all of us. She didn't seem to be intimidated by Aiden, nor the gun that I had trained on her, my hands surprisingly steady as I stared her down.

Despite not being able to see either Josh or Rose, I could feel their supportive presence at our backs as we stood as one unit.

My nerves still bubbled close to the surface, the unpredictability of the rebels and their actions had me on edge. But, I knew that it was important that I didn't show my uncertainty, much in the same way I knew I couldn't at the beginning of this entire journey. Back then I'd known that the vampires would jump at the chance to see my weaknesses, and now it was abundantly clear that my new enemy would do the same.

Even if the odds were stacked against us, we had to try.

''It's interesting that you two would turn against your own so obviously. I'd have thought the daughter of one of our best would be much harder to taint.'' Lana spat the words, her eyes narrowed into slits as she stood proud.

''Maybe we aren't the ones who are tainted.'' Rose practically growled back, I could hear the hatred in her voice, the product of betrayal.

Lana scoffed, dismissing Rose's comeback, ''Who's to say we can't put you down as easily as we have done before?'' She asked pointedly, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips as she knew she was right.

There was nothing stopping them, but still they're inability to act instead of gloat cost them dearly.

Another explosion rocked the entire cave, because that's what the sudden impact and noise must have been. Dust and small rocks began to fall from the high ceilings, showering down upon us all once again. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I caught a glimpse of fear deep within Lana's eyes.

That brief pause was a signal for Aiden to pounce, a moment in time when the rebels were caught off guard. Obviously he wasn't in the mood for any more small talk.

His sudden movement caused a few moments of complete confusion. Aiden had Lana on the ground, her body pinned beneath his superior strength as she tried to struggle from his grasp. The others who had stood with her were seemingly stunned, but recovered quickly as they too launched into their attack.

Josh grabbed me by the arm as one of the rebels tried to do the same. Shortly after, I found myself being pushed towards the exit door, Josh hurriedly ushering both me and Rose out. As much as I wanted to just leave, my body wasn't cooperating and paused before the exit as I pondered my next actions.

''Violet, come on!'' Rose had to shout over the commotion that had broken out behind us, Josh's eyes were wide and set on me.

Before I could respond, Josh snarled and two rebels rushed us, automatically seeing the vampire as the biggest threat and trying to restrain him first. He managed to shake one of them off, shoving her to the floor where she didn't remain for long. Trained to fight, she immediately pushed herself up and went for him once again.

It seemed that the rebels had split themselves as two assisted Lana with Aiden who seemed to be holding up well against all three, two were still battling with Josh, and finally two began advancing towards me and Rose.

I held up my gun, the weapon feeling foreign in my hands, but I had to show that I wasn't going to go down easy.

Rose seemed to have caught on that I wasn't going to leave without Aiden, and came to stand beside me, ''Are you sure you want to do this?'' I nodded in answer, and that was the last communication we had before the two men launched themselves at us.