The Vampire Games: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance (9 page)

T
he alarm woke
me up the next day, as it always did on training days. I walked to the training room as I always did, but my stomach was churning. I had refused my old trainer. Phillip had tried to kill my second one. What kind of shenanigans would Phillip pull out of his sleeve for me today?

It turned out I was able to ask Phillip. He was inside the training room waiting for me, in a tank top and loose exercise pants, hitting a punching bag and huffing while he did it. He didn’t seem to notice me as I walked in.

“Uh, hello?” I said, trying to time my greeting between the grunts.

Phillip didn’t answer right away, and I was just starting to wonder if I should leave when Phillip gave his own kind of greeting between punches. “Marc is all right.”

That should have been a relief, but somehow, I didn’t feel any better. “For now.”

“You want to protect him?”

“I don’t want to watch him die. For any reason. But for something that wasn’t even a problem? Yeah. Definitely.”

Phillip growled again and turned away from the bag. “I’m going to train you today. No gloves. Just grappling.”

“And what good is that going to do?”

He stepped closer to me on the mats. He was glistening with sweat. I hadn’t even known vampires could sweat. If he had been human, I’d have said he would have been working out for a long time.

“You won’t always have your gloves,” he said softly. “Not all fights are in the Games.”

I blinked. He wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t like I’d been talking to him about my rebellious urges. I’d been careful to keep all plans to rally my family to war quiet. “Fine,” I said finally. “But no vampire strength.”

“Not right away, but you will fight vampires. You already have.”

Would it stop being infuriating when he was right? “
Fine
. Let’s get to it. I’m sure you have other people to menace from a corner.”

He ignored the remark, as I knew he would. He took a couple steps away and crouched, but I shook my head.

“No way,” I said. “You show me the moves by having me do them on you. I’ve had more than enough time being other people’s punching bags.”

He shrugged and straightened. “Come up behind me.”

I did, hooking an arm around his throat immediately and kicking his leg out from under him. He lurched, and I pinned him to the floor, using his own weight to bring him down. I knew he could break the grip I had on him, but he looked too surprised to push me off.

“I
have
been training already,” I said. “You wanted me trained by the best, and this is what you got. I hope you’re happy.”

Phillip gazed up at me without trying to move or respond.

I realized belatedly how close we were—even closer, in a way, than we had been out in the marketplace. Close enough that I could smell the moisture on his skin. Close enough that I could feel the warm weight of his body pinned between my legs.

His hands skimmed up my thighs to settle on my hips. I tensed, expecting him to throw me off. But he didn’t. He just…held me. I’d never been held like that before.

“Yes,” he said. “I am happy.”

I stood quickly, face hot. “Okay, that’s that. What else did you have in mind for training?” I gave Phillip the courteous hand up he probably didn’t need, but I was feeling generous. Putting jerks on the floor seemed to lift my mood. Maybe I was meant for the Games after all.

“Did Marc show you that maneuver?”

“Does it matter?” I asked, hands on my hips.

He glowered at me as though considering whether he wanted to argue about Marc or not. I must have won his mental battle because all he said was, “Fine. Let’s try some variations on your last move.”

We did for a few minutes after that. It was amazing how fast Phillip was—he moved like oil shot over the surface of water, slick and graceful. I got the impression he was holding back, though. He never hurt me. Not once. Not even a little bit.

It was pretty easy to catch on, mostly because I had to grudgingly admit that Alisyn had trained me well to fight against vampires. So much of her training made sense to me once I was facing Phillip’s lightning-fast moves—and after combat in the Coliseum.

“Where is Marc now?” I asked once Phillip gave me a water break.

“I told you—”

I held up the hand that wasn’t holding my water bottle. “
Where
?”

Phillip sighed. “The infirmary.”

“But you said—”

“He is. He just needs to stay there a little longer for observation.”

“Great. Good to know that everyone spoils their slaves like you spoil me.”

Phillip didn’t answer.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“You’re being all…” I waved a hand up and down. “Mysterious.”

He looked startled. “I am?”

“Have you ever looked in a mirror?” I asked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I looked up ‘mysterious’ in the dictionary and the only definition was ‘Prince Phillip of Dawn Hold.’”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“So if I ask direct questions, you’ll get talkative? Would you like me to do that? I have a million questions about Marc that you could answer, you know.”

“Is that all you care about?
Marc
?” There wasn’t anything angry about Phillip’s tone. It sounded almost…sad? Sad about
what
? He wouldn’t meet my gaze and confirm anything I was getting from him.

I flung my hands in the air. “What else should I care about? In case you haven’t seen, I’m not exactly in a good place here!”

Phillip turned away from me. He took a couple deep breaths and squared his shoulders, almost like he was preparing for something, but all he said was, “We’re done with practice for today,” before he made his exit.

T
he next time
I entered the Coliseum, I was prepared.

I stood in the hallway outside that frosted glass door with the fleur-de-lis and let the cheering of the vampires flow through me. Eyes closed, shock gloves fisted at my sides, head tilted back, their blood lust made my heart race. Adrenaline hummed over my skin.

Vampires were waiting to be entertained. They wanted to watch me kill or be killed.

I had no plans of disappointing them.

I also had no plans of losing.

“Who am I fighting today?” I asked one of the silent guards at my side.

He gave me a blank look in return.

“I’m a significant investment on the part of Dawn Hold, which means your tax dollars are lost if I die. Who am I up against?” I asked.

“Rodrigo,” he said reluctantly.

“The name doesn’t mean anything to me,” I said.

“He’s from Twilight Falls.”

“Human? Bloodsucker?”

“Blood bag,” the guard said with a disapproving twist to his mouth.

I was sick of listening to them talk about us like that. I couldn’t sit back and take it anymore. “Call us whatever you want, but you’re the ones who need us,” I said. “We feed you and entertain you. What would you do without so-called ‘blood bags’? You’d be weak.”

“Dawn Hold doesn’t drink,” he said. “They say that makes us weak, but they’re wrong. It makes us strong. We could kill every last human above and below the surface right at this moment, and while every other fief was suffering withdrawal, we’d be just fine. Mull that over, blood bag.”

I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. Once I did, it made me more than a little queasy. I tried not to show it. But I couldn’t keep myself from swallowing hard around the lump in my throat.

Glancing back at the end of the hall only made my heart sink further.

Phillip hadn’t come to see me before the fight. In fact, I hadn’t seen him since our training session. I’d been hoping that he would escort me to the Coliseum, or at least see me off before I entered, but there was still no sign of him. The vampires were thundering with impatience. The fight was about to begin.

My heart skittered within my ribcage.

It was time.

I pressed my hand against the red box on the wall. It flashed. The doors opened.

When I stepped out, I forced myself to wave at the audience, just like Alisyn had. They erupted with approval. They liked it when I pandered to them.

Rodrigo had already entered the Coliseum. I sized him up out of the corner of my eye even as I gave the vampires my attention. He was a good match against me: only an inch taller, and slender for a boy. He was probably eighteen, nineteen years old. His form reminded me of a swimmer’s.

He didn’t wave at anyone. He just stared at me, hard, as though trying to decide if I would present a threat.

I’d hoped that losing against Alisyn would give me a reputation for being weak. I’d trained hard since then, so I was much better at fighting. I’d wanted to take my next opponent off-guard.

No such luck. Rodrigo’s eyes narrowed as he shook my hand. Our gloves shocked to life.

We took ten paces away from each other.

Then he lifted his fists. Now his stance made me think of a boxer rather than a swimmer.

“Marc,” I whispered like a prayer, or like I could summon his expertise to help me. “Marc, Marc,
Marc
.”

Wherever he was that day, I hoped he was all right.

This was all for him.

That thought carried me forward.

I leaped at Rodrigo, hoping to replace with speed what I couldn’t do with strength.

He swung at me. I ducked under his fist. It was definitely a jab like Marc used when he was boxing—familiar territory now.

I swiveled and elbowed him in the face.

Rodrigo tumbled.

The vampires cheered.

He came at me the next time like liquid lightning—more similar to Phillip than Marc. I had never been more ready in my life. I dropped into a crouch, coiled my muscles, dived underneath his attack. When I came up behind him, I snapped my foot into the back of his head.

Rodrigo fell so quickly that I almost felt guilty.

Almost.

But then I jumped on him, raining knees and elbows on his face, belly, and throat. It was obvious why he had made it so far in the Games—he tried to defend himself well—but after being trained by Marc and two vampires, Rodrigo didn’t stand a chance against me.

He failed to defend his neck against my shock gloves. I wrapped both of them around his throat, and they fired with a crackling
pop
.

The other human seized underneath me. His spine arched.

It occurred to me that I should let him go before he could get hurt.

Rodrigo’s eyelids flickered. His hands flailed beside him.

My heart pounded in my chest, and I watched him for signs of consciousness. I waited for him to pass out. And I didn’t let go until the light went out of his eyes and he slumped completely.

Then I released him and stood up.

It took me a moment to realize that the roaring in my ears came from the cheering audience, not my heart.

I waved at them again.

They cheered louder.

The vampires were pleased with my performance, and I found it sickening.

Did I kill him?

I had a feeling I wasn’t supposed to show mercy to my competitor, but I couldn’t help but tug my left glove off, crouch beside Rodrigo, and search for a pulse. I found one. My relief was immense. He was unconscious, but not dead—for now. He’d lost against me—me, a new competitor, a human—and it was unlikely he’d score as well as I had when losing against Alisyn. Even if he survived the fight, he’d still end up getting his blood drained.

It might have been more merciful if I’d killed him on the spot.

But the guards dragged him away before I could give that much consideration.

I searched the stands for any sign that Phillip might be there, hoping for a glimpse of a friendly face.

He wasn’t there.

But I did see lean, coyote-like features, with cruel eyes and a nose that sloped down into a pointed chin. Lord Hector was watching me. He was applauding my victory, a smile playing over his thin lips.

It felt as though I’d made a mistake fighting where he could watch me, though I wasn’t exactly sure why.

A platform lifted from the center of the floor. I understood from the audience’s waving that I was meant to step onto it, so I did. It illuminated underneath me, glowing with a dim red light that cast my skin in shades of crimson, as though I were drenched in blood.

Victor.

One step closer to vampire.

I
t wasn’t
a chime that awakened me the next day, but my door whispering open.

I sat bolt upright. My heart was pounding.

But there was nobody in the bedroom with me. The door had already shut again, and I was alone.

Slipping out of bed, I went to my door and peered outside. I didn’t see anyone there, either.

It took me a moment to realize there was something hanging from the hook to the left of the door. I unzipped the bag, and my fingers came into contact with blue silk. It was the softest cloth I’d felt ever since arriving in Dawn Hold, and in Prince Phillip’s colors. It seemed to glow in the darkness.

There was a mask inside the bag, too. A note had been pinned to the strap: “I will escort you to the ball within the hour.”

I hadn’t seen Prince Phillip’s handwriting yet, but it was easy to imagine that the tidy loops and harsh jags were his. The way that he wrote made me think of a man barely in control of wild emotions.

He was going to take me to a ball. What century were we in, exactly? Still, I found myself touching the light, airy fabric, and my breath caught when I saw a small pouch with jewelry hanging on the hanger.

I opened the bag. My breath caught in my throat.

There was a necklace inside, and it had been made from the delicate glass beads I had seen in Dawn Hold’s market. The ones that had been blown so that it looked there were flowers inside.

Phillip had seen me admiring them, and he had bought them for me.

My fingers clenched around the beads.

“What do you want from me?” I whispered to the necklace, wishing that it were Phillip’s hand I was holding.

Well, I wouldn’t get any answers hiding in my bedroom.

I stripped off my nightgown. My last fight while training against Marc had been more brutal than I’d realized at the time; I had a large purple bruise over my sternum where he had shocked me with that glove. It wasn’t his fault. I trusted that he never would have done that deliberately. Even so, my body was a mess of injuries.

After a quick visit to the bath, I pulled the blue silk dress on. It fit perfectly, of course.

It was almost a relief to be dressed in a party outfit. I had worn showy clothes in the Games, of course, but those had been designed for movement, for fighting. Survival. This was purely decorative. It would leave me vulnerable if someone attacked, and somehow, just the act of wearing it took a weight off my shoulders. I hadn’t had the luxury of leaving myself exposed in any way since I’d left my parents’ house.

Prince Phillip wouldn’t leave me vulnerable if he expected us to fight. Wearing something all filmy and blue, with a tight bodice and layer upon layer of skirts that frothed like sea foam, was a sign that he intended me to be as delicate as a flower. Not a tough, fighting Candidate.

I looped the beads around my neck. They hung below my collarbone and accentuated the heart-shaped neckline of the dress.

My face was almost as pale as a vampire’s now.

As I examined myself in the mirror in my room, I made mental notes on which parts I would tear or throw away if I found myself in a fight or running away. There was a time when I would have been terrified of dropping a drink or food on the fabric or of tripping over the hem.

That time was gone.

I may have been beautiful, but I was still a fighter. I couldn’t erase my weeks of training. And being decorated in flowers didn’t change that.

Slowly, I slid the mask over my eyes. It curved over the bow of my upper lip. Feathers brushed lightly against the hair that hung over my forehead.

Fully dressed, I no longer looked like myself.

I didn’t look human.

“Here we go,” I murmured to my reflection. I was as nervous as I had been going into the Coliseum that first time.

I stepped outside my bedroom.

Phillip was waiting on the spiral staircase, gazing up at the floor above. When he heard me enter, he turned.

He was wearing a suit that looked as formal as the dress I was wearing, and he had a mask on as well. His outfit looked black until he moved, and then, as the light caught the jacket, I noticed a bluish sheen similar to the darker parts of my dress. We didn’t match, but we were complimentary.

We looked like we were meant to be seen beside one another.

Phillip had dressed me as though I weren’t his slave, but his date.

The mask hid many of his facial features, but it did nothing to conceal the intensity of his eyes, or the way they roved over my body. He gazed at my waist, pinched tight by the bodice, and my lean arms exposed by the filmy sleeves. And his eyes especially lingered on the necklace.

“Bianka,” he said, his voice hoarse. He stepped down the stairs.

“Hello, Phillip,” I said. I felt like I should curtsy. But I didn’t. “Did you see my fight?”

He nodded mutely.

Phillip had seen my victory, but there was no sign of what he thought about my performance. Was he pleased? Proud? Or perhaps he was as disgusted with me as I was with myself.

“Marc?” I asked.

“He’s recovered and been returned to his master,” Phillip said. “He’s fine. I made sure of it.”

He offered me an arm. I considered taking it, but I hadn’t forgotten how viciously he’d attacked Marc.

“No thank you,” I said, not unkindly. He didn’t seem offended. He just nodded once and dropped his arm. Suddenly self-conscious, I fidgeted with my skirt, and the feathers on my mask. “What kind of ball is this, exactly?”

“For Dawn Hold society. Every hold’s society has some kind of event before new Games, and Candidates are always popular guests when they attend.”

“A party of vampires,” I said, biting my bottom lip.

His eyes dropped to my teeth raking over my skin.

Phillip seemed to notice my discomfort. I probably wasn’t hiding it well. “Dawn Hold residents seldom drink blood,” he said. “There’s more to being a vampire than killing humans.”

“How do you survive?” I asked.

“We sip from volunteers, if they’re available,” Phillip said. “Never from unwilling slaves. Only from…companions.”

The word fell over me, and I couldn’t help but shiver.

Was that why I was dressed this way? Was I meant to be his companion?

“Vampires can survive a long time without a single drop of blood crossing their lips.” His fingers brushed along my chin, his thumb tracing the bottom line of my mouth. “We are strengthened physically by blood, but in Dawn Hold, we believe true strength is spiritual. It’s the resolve of abstaining until we find someone willing to share their life with us.”

My heart fluttered. “I’m sure that philosophy makes Dawn Hold popular with the other blood suckers.”

His smile was faint, and a little sad. “You can probably imagine. Taking blood, willing or not, is the easier way to live.”

“Nothing in life is easy,” I said fiercely.

“I agree,” he said. “I hope you’ll enjoy the ball tonight, Bianka.”

“Let’s get this over with,” I said.

His face fell a little, but he nodded again and led the way out of the rooms.

T
he ball was held
in the area that the marketplace had been in before—that sort of town square in between the craters that held luminescent plants. That explained the lack of permanence to the stalls. They had been designed to get pushed out of the way so that parties could be held there.

There were glowing blue decorations shaped like butterflies and blossoms hanging from a light source overhead. Other bulbs seemed to hover in place, sort of like strands of Christmas lights without the cords. It was too dark for me to see if they had any kind of string anchoring them. With my poor human vision, it was an impressive effect.

But I could tell there were very few humans in attendance. Most of the people hovering around had that distinct vampire look to them, sharp and predatory even with masks covering part of their faces, and it didn’t lessen when they spotted me with Phillip.

Most of them didn’t have red eyes, I realized.

“The crimson eyes,” I whispered to Phillip, clutching his arm. We stood at the top of the path leading down to the town square, behind a line of people waiting to enter the ball.

“A result of drinking blood frequently,” he murmured back, lips brushing against the fine hairs in front of my ear. I shivered.

It explained why Alisyn’s eyes weren’t red. She might have been with a different fief, but she didn’t indulge in blood for whatever reason. The person I had seen at the glassblowing stall with the black eyes must have been a vampire abstaining from blood, too.

What did that mean about Phillip, with his icy-blue eyes?

I caught myself gazing at him. He gazed back, as though the two masks between us made it easier to look, somehow.

There was no world outside the two of us.

The line waiting to get into the ball crept forward, and we were suddenly at the top of the path.

“Prince Phillip and his Candidate,” announced the footman, a vampire in a blue jacket with silver accents.

The whole ball fell silent. Everyone looked up at us.

All eyes were on me in my blue dress as I held Phillip’s arm. I was with their beloved prince. Me. The Candidate he had paid sixty crowns for.

“Deep breaths, Bianka,” he murmured, and then he guided me into the crowd.

It was all I could do to allow him to escort me among the vampires. All my training had done nothing to prepare me for this.

He introduced me to several dozen vampires that I wouldn’t have been able to pick out five minutes later. Phillip brightened while talking to his people, moving among them with charm, confidence, and brilliant smiles. It was no wonder he was well regarded in Dawn Hold. He was a prince to the bone. He knew every single member of his society by name.

Even though I should have been paying attention to the crowd, I couldn’t take my eyes off of Prince Phillip.

He looked human, but better, if that was possible. He was charismatic with others in a way that he was with me, but it was multiplied when he was in a group, like he fed off the others’ energy and used it to shine. I didn’t understand how so many vampires could look so ugly, but Phillip stood out so much.

After we made the circuit of the room, Phillip paused on the edge of the center. It had been converted into a dance floor, and women with dresses like mine swished around it in careful patterns. I hadn’t done much dancing before, but I suspected that was where this was going.

And sure enough, Phillip smiled at me. “Would you like to dance?”

He made it clear that it was a request, not an order.

I was his slave. His property.

Yet for some reason, he would allow me to tell him no.

I couldn’t bring myself to refuse him, but I also feared disappointing him. “You want to dance with someone with two left feet? You haven’t had anyone training me to dance.”

“I lead very well,” Phillip said.

Of that, I had no doubts. “Fine, I guess.”

That meant I had to take his offered arm.

I did with as much grace as I could manage, which wasn’t much. Maybe vampires would find charm in my clumsiness. Obviously there was something about humans that vampires found compelling besides their blood, or we would all be drained in the deep caverns under the mountain, and never kept as pets.

When my hand slipped into his, Phillip’s other arm slid around my back. He pulled me against him. Chest to chest.

My breath hitched.

I gazed up at him, helpless in his arms.

“Breathe,” he whispered again.

“How am I supposed to breathe when you’ve taken my breath away?” I replied.

For a moment, Phillip was still, as though trying to decide how to respond to that. His fingers tensed on my lower back.

Then he swept me across the floor.

The music swelled around us. Clearly the prince taking time to dance was an event, because they were playing louder than ever before. Loud enough that I could hear the melody over my thudding heartbeat.

My dress swirled around my legs. From above, I must have looked like a strange kind of flower—the same kind of flower decorating Dawn Hold’s logo, captive within the prince’s embrace.

“Bianka,” he murmured, “try to relax.”

“This is as relaxed as I get,” I said with a tremulous smile. We were surrounded by vampires who were watching me dance with as much eagerness as they’d watched Alisyn try to kill me in the Coliseum.

Phillip was right, though: he led well. As long as I let him move me, we danced together well.

His face filled my vision. I focused on the pieces I could see around the mask: his eyes, his lips, his jaw.

He really didn’t look like a cruel predator.

“What makes you so different from all the others?” I asked, fingers creeping up toward his throat. He raised a questioning eyebrow. “You seem to care about my well-being, whatever the reasons for that are. You act at being a vampire, and don’t get me wrong, you play at it very well. But you’re more compassionate than all the others. What’s your story?”

“That’s what you want to know about?”

“What else would I want to know? About
them
?” I grimaced.

Phillip’s face went blank. “I brought you here so you could see another side to being a vampire. It isn’t just the Games. It isn’t just draining.”

“But that’s a
lot
of it,” I said. “Were you ever human? Do you know what it’s like knowing your family’s out on the surface and knowing just as much that some of them could be dying in here? Would you think about being pretty and having fun when the people you went to school with are just waiting to be corpses?”

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Helping one person doesn’t mean much when there’s so much else going on.”

Phillip looked directly into my eyes. We had stopped dancing. His voice was low and smooth when he said, “Sometimes it’s all you can do.”

“I’m going to do better than that,” I said, throwing my shoulders back, chin lifted. It was a defiant posture.

He smiled sadly. “I believe you.”