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Authors: Diana Bocco
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surrendering—and she had done it. Completely and without reservations. And the consequences of that terrified her, because suddenly she was having second thoughts.
Maybe the king wasn’t such a monster.
Maybe she didn’t need to kill him.
Except that there was no other way out. And that realization was paralyzing. He was the king of the monsters. He was also Marcus, the one who had made her body sing the night before. She could feel a war starting between her heart and her mind, so she decided to get up and stop thinking about it for a while. Or at least try.
There was something else nagging at the back of her mind: the word rabid. She’d had little time to think about it last night because Marcus’ kiss had erased everything else from her mind. But now the word was back, sending chills down her spine. Rabid .
She’d never seen any vampire who would fit the description, so she had no idea what Marcus had meant. Up until the day before she had never even come face to face with a vampire. She had seen them exploring the surroundings, hunting for blood—but she had never had the chance to exchange words with one. But even from the distance, they had always looked graceful to her. They had a certain quality to their movements, a touch of regality that humans lacked. A few times she had found herself almost hypnotized by their movements.
When the invasion first began, many had tried to deny the reality of what was happening. The news spent the first few hours reporting the attacks as mass hysteria and just a few isolated incidents of violence. She suspected that the government had tried to keep things hush-hush to avoid panic, but what they created instead was a nation unprepared to fight. By the time the invasion was obvious, civilization had run out of chances to do anything about it.
Her first close encounter with a vampire had been in the hospital. She had been doing her intern rounds in the ER when an ambulance rushed in. The victim was barely moving and she was incredibly white, but it wasn’t until they started working on her that they had realized the problem: she had barely any blood left in her body. Massive blood loss usually meant a considerable injury, but the woman had no visible injuries, except for a small set of puncture marks on her left wrist.
And that was when she’d seen him. In the frantic running around, she had lifted her eyes for a second and seen the vampire standing a few feet away. His eyes had shone bright as he watched the doctors work on the woman. There was a subtle buzzing of energy around him, almost as if he was affecting the electricity of the room by just standing there. Now she would never mistake his poised movements for anything else, but back then, she wasn’t yet convinced of the existence of vampires. So she stood in place, distracted for a second by the stranger’s unrelenting look.
When the machine finally beeped a flatline , he had turned around and left.
That first image had always defined her view of vampires: cool, unmovable. And dangerously alluring.
The idea of a rabid vampire, acting deranged and thrashing around like an animal, seemed unthinkable. So why had Marcus mentioned it? And what exactly were they?
Because if there was something else out there, something she didn’t know about, it meant the people back at the house didn’t know it either. And history had proven that ignorance would get you killed.
So before she signed her own death sentence by trying to kill the king, she needed to figure out what the world was really up against.
~*~
Marcus looked towards the blackened window and a pang of irritation hit him. The sun was up and he was still awake. This was the second day in a row that sleep had evaded him and he wasn’t happy about it. In fact, he was pretty annoyed about the whole thing. Now on top of having to deal with the threat of the rabid vampires and the void spreading, he
Maybe the king wasn’t such a monster.
Maybe she didn’t need to kill him.
Except that there was no other way out. And that realization was paralyzing. He was the king of the monsters. He was also Marcus, the one who had made her body sing the night before. She could feel a war starting between her heart and her mind, so she decided to get up and stop thinking about it for a while. Or at least try.
There was something else nagging at the back of her mind: the word rabid. She’d had little time to think about it last night because Marcus’ kiss had erased everything else from her mind. But now the word was back, sending chills down her spine. Rabid .
She’d never seen any vampire who would fit the description, so she had no idea what Marcus had meant. Up until the day before she had never even come face to face with a vampire. She had seen them exploring the surroundings, hunting for blood—but she had never had the chance to exchange words with one. But even from the distance, they had always looked graceful to her. They had a certain quality to their movements, a touch of regality that humans lacked. A few times she had found herself almost hypnotized by their movements.
When the invasion first began, many had tried to deny the reality of what was happening. The news spent the first few hours reporting the attacks as mass hysteria and just a few isolated incidents of violence. She suspected that the government had tried to keep things hush-hush to avoid panic, but what they created instead was a nation unprepared to fight. By the time the invasion was obvious, civilization had run out of chances to do anything about it.
Her first close encounter with a vampire had been in the hospital. She had been doing her intern rounds in the ER when an ambulance rushed in. The victim was barely moving and she was incredibly white, but it wasn’t until they started working on her that they had realized the problem: she had barely any blood left in her body. Massive blood loss usually meant a considerable injury, but the woman had no visible injuries, except for a small set of puncture marks on her left wrist.
And that was when she’d seen him. In the frantic running around, she had lifted her eyes for a second and seen the vampire standing a few feet away. His eyes had shone bright as he watched the doctors work on the woman. There was a subtle buzzing of energy around him, almost as if he was affecting the electricity of the room by just standing there. Now she would never mistake his poised movements for anything else, but back then, she wasn’t yet convinced of the existence of vampires. So she stood in place, distracted for a second by the stranger’s unrelenting look.
When the machine finally beeped a flatline , he had turned around and left.
That first image had always defined her view of vampires: cool, unmovable. And dangerously alluring.
The idea of a rabid vampire, acting deranged and thrashing around like an animal, seemed unthinkable. So why had Marcus mentioned it? And what exactly were they?
Because if there was something else out there, something she didn’t know about, it meant the people back at the house didn’t know it either. And history had proven that ignorance would get you killed.
So before she signed her own death sentence by trying to kill the king, she needed to figure out what the world was really up against.
~*~
Marcus looked towards the blackened window and a pang of irritation hit him. The sun was up and he was still awake. This was the second day in a row that sleep had evaded him and he wasn’t happy about it. In fact, he was pretty annoyed about the whole thing. Now on top of having to deal with the threat of the rabid vampires and the void spreading, he
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