Chapter 2 The Vampire King

I woke up to the smell of blood. Not the cheap, metallic smell of the blood bags the wolves sometimes threw at me like I was a stray dog. This was warm. Rich. Alive. Like roses left in wine. I tried to move and couldn't. My wrists were soft. My neck was not burning. The silver collar was gone. I bolted upright, gasping. I was not in the basement. I was not in the alley. I was in a bed bigger than the entire basement I had lived in for twelve years. Black silk sheets. Black velvet curtains. The room was huge, dark, gothic, with high windows that showed the Shanghai skyline at night. Rain was still hitting the glass. A fireplace was burning with pale blue fire - vampire fire, not human fire. It gave no heat, only light. And I was wearing someone else's shirt. A man's black shirt. Too big. It fell to my knees. My maid uniform was gone. My cuts from the glass - gone. My neck - I touched it frantically - the scar was still there, but the burning was gone. The broken collar was not on the floor. Someone had bathed me. Someone had changed me. Panic shot through me. The wolves! Ethan! "You're awake." The voice came from the shadows by the fireplace. He was sitting in a large black chair, one leg crossed over the other, watching me. The man from the alley. The man in the black coat. In the light, he was even more terrifyingly beautiful. His black hair was slightly wet from rain. His skin was snow white. His eyes were no longer glowing red - now they were a deep violet, like twilight. He had taken off his coat. Underneath he wore a black silk shirt, open at the throat, showing a pale chest. He looked twenty-seven, but his eyes looked two hundred years old. The Vampire King. I scrambled to the far end of the bed, pulling the shirt down, baring my small fangs at him. A weak, stupid defense. My fangs were nothing compared to his. "Stay away from me!" My voice was hoarse. He didn't move. He just looked at me, and then his eyes dropped to my neck, to my hands where my nails were still long and black. "You broke a high-grade Alpha silver collar with a piece of wood," he said calmly. "Do you know how strong you have to be to do that? Even a full-grown male vampire can't break it." "Where is my pendant?" I asked, ignoring him. My hand went to my chest. It was gone. "Where is my mother's jade? Did you steal it?" For the first time, his calm face changed. A flicker of something. He stood up slowly, walked to the marble table beside the bed, and picked something up. My pendant. The broken red jade bat. He held it out to me in his palm. It was not glowing anymore. "I didn't steal it. It fell in the alley. I kept it safe for you." I snatched it from him. My fingers brushed his. His skin was ice cold, but a shock went through me anyway, like electricity. He stared at where I touched him. "What's your name?" he asked. I hesitated. In the Wolf King's house, I was not allowed to have a name. I was "hey," "pet," "blood bag." "Lena," I whispered. "My mother... in my dreams she calls me Yue. Lin Yue." His eyes widened. Just for a second. Then he masked it. "Lin Yue," he repeated, as if tasting the name. "Do you know what Lin Yue means?" I shook my head. "Do you know who your mother was, Lin Yue?" "The wolves said she was a low vampire... a whore who... who died." He laughed. But it was not a happy laugh. It was a cold, angry sound that made the blue fire in the fireplace flare up. "A low vampire," he said. "Is that what Marcus Wolf told you? That lying dog." He suddenly moved - so fast I didn't see him move - and he was sitting on the edge of my bed. I flinched back, but he didn't touch me. He just looked at me, close. "Your mother was not a low vampire, Lin Yue. Your mother was Princess Lin Xiya. The only daughter of the last Vampire Emperor. My fiancée." The world stopped. "What?" "Twenty years ago, the Vampire Empire and the Wolf Pack had a truce meeting. Your mother was there. She was beautiful, powerful, and she believed we could have peace. Marcus Wolf was there too. Young, ambitious. He told her he loved her. He tricked her. He got her pregnant and then when she told him, he locked her up because he was ashamed that the future Alpha had a vampire child. He told everyone she ran away." My hands were shaking. "You're lying..." "Am I?" He reached out, and this time I let him. His cold finger gently lifted my chin. "Look at your hair. Silver-white. Only the royal bloodline has it. Look at your eyes when you are angry - royal red. And that pendant - that is the Imperial Jade of the Vampire Clan. Only a princess can wear it and make it glow. It glowed for you in the basement because you finally broke the collar. It recognized its owner." Tears - real tears - finally came to my eyes. For nineteen years I thought I was nothing. A mistake. "My mother... is she..." He was silent for a long moment. His violet eyes were sad. "Marcus killed her. The day you were born. He told his pack she died in childbirth. He put that cursed collar on you as a baby to suppress your royal powers, so you would never know who you were. He raised you as a slave to hide his crime. If the vampire council knew he murdered a royal princess, they would have wiped out his entire pack twenty years ago." I couldn't breathe. The room was spinning. My father... my father murdered my mother. And enslaved me. A sound came out of my throat that was not human. It was not vampire. It was a wounded animal sound. My fangs grew longer. My nails dug into the silk sheets, tearing them. The other voice inside me - the growl I heard in the basement - roared awake. _Kill him. Kill them all._ My body started to shake violently. Pain shot through my spine. My bones felt like they were breaking and reforming. I cried out and fell to the floor. "What is happening to me?" I screamed. The Vampire King was instantly on the floor with me, holding me, but keeping a distance, as if afraid to hurt me. "Your wolf. It's waking up. The collar suppressed both sides. Now that it's gone, your wolf side is coming out for the first time. It's your first shift. It's going to hurt. Breathe, Lin Yue. Breathe." "I'm not a wolf! I'm a vampire!" I sobbed, my back arching. I could feel hair growing on my arms, then disappearing. My teeth were changing - fangs, then canines, then fangs again. "You are both," he whispered in my ear, his voice steady, anchoring me. "You are the first hybrid born in a thousand years. Half vampire princess, half Alpha wolf. That's why they collared you. That's why they feared you. A hybrid is more powerful than both." The pain was unbearable. I felt like I was being torn in half. "I can't! It hurts! Make it stop!" He hesitated for only a second. Then he did something I didn't expect. He bit his own wrist. Dark red, almost black blood welled up. Royal vampire blood. He pressed his wrist to my mouth. "Drink. My blood will help you. It will calm the wolf and the vampire. Drink, little princess." Instinct took over. I bit down. His blood hit my tongue and it was like drinking stars and night and power itself. It was sweet and cold and ancient. It flooded me. The pain stopped instantly. The shaking stopped. The growling inside quieted to a low purr. I pulled away, gasping, blood on my lips. His blood was on my chin. He wiped it gently with his thumb. My eyes met his. My eyes were still red, but now there was a ring of silver - wolf silver - around the red. We stared at each other. The air between us was heavy. "Better?" he asked softly. I nodded, unable to speak. I could feel his blood inside me, strengthening me. I could feel... connected to him. "What is your name?" I finally whispered. He smiled. A real smile this time. It made him look less like a monster and more like a man. "Kade. Kade Ye. But you can call me Ye Ming in Chinese. I am the Vampire King of the East." He stood up and pulled me up with him. I was still in his big shirt, barefoot, small compared to him. He looked down at my neck where the scar was. "Lin Yue," he said, his voice low and serious. "Marcus Wolf gave you to the Northern Alpha tomorrow. The wolves will be looking for you tonight. They will not stop until they find you. If you stay here, I will protect you. But nothing is free in my world." "What do you want?" I asked, my heart beating fast. "I want revenge too," he said. "Marcus killed my fiancée. Your mother. He stole you from me - you were supposed to be my daughter, if she had lived and married me. So I want to help you. I will train you. I will teach you how to use your vampire speed, your mind control, your wolf strength. And when you are ready..." He leaned close, his lips almost brushing my ear. His cold breath made me shiver. "...we will go back to that house together. And you will make them kneel. You will take back your crown. As my Queen." My Queen. Nineteen years I was called pet. Now this beautiful, terrifying King was calling me Queen. I looked out the window. Far in the distance, I could hear it. Even in the city. A wolf howl. They were searching for me. Ethan's howl. Angry. I looked back at Kade Ye. At his outstretched hand. I had two choices. Run alone and die like a stray dog. Or take the hand of a Vampire King and become a monster that monsters fear. I put my hand in his. My small, scarred hand in his large, cold, powerful one. "Teach me how to kill them," I said. His violet eyes flared red with excitement. He squeezed my hand tight. "With pleasure, my little hybrid." From outside, another howl - but this time, it was not a wolf howl. It was mine. A new sound I had never made before. Half howl, half hiss. And every vampire in Shanghai heard it and looked up. The hybrid princess had awakened.