AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No more lying. No more pretending to be what we’re not.
She is mine, and I will always be hers.
At the two-minute mark she exits the room, her cautious step still loud inside the room, but more so are the gasps and choked sobs that escape her small frame when she comes face to face with the carnage I left behind.
The employees at this facility were vampires, all of them, and tonight, they had two rooms occupied. One with Gabriella. The second is a woman with similar looks to Elise and has been dead for hours; her neck is snapped and body drained of every last bit of blood by those who worked here.
The four men and two women are members of the Veltross family: one bastard son who continued the bloodline years ago with his offspring. They blame my girl for the end of their patriarch, hate me for tearing him limb from limb, while I could give two fucks.
Their low screams—a crying whistle infiltrates every square inch of this floor while they burn. One body part at a time, I left them in a pile and lit a match for Elise to see. Because she’s here—hidden—and I’m going to enjoy the day she’s caught.
Not today, though. Today is for my bride.
“My King, we have Consuelos and Diana at the warehouse. Should I proceed?” Captain Bron asks from beside me. He’s a retired general I placed here to protect Gabriella after she was born. “Everyone is waiting on your orders.”
“Not yet.” Taking in a deep breath, I let her enthralling scent dominate my senses. It prickles, excitement flooding through my system. She’s running. “First, I need to pick up my bride.”
He nods in understanding, a smile on his face. “We’ve all missed her.”
“I know.”
35
Gabriella
I’m running.
Scared out of my mind and running toward God knows where with no destination in sight. I can’t stop, either. Not when nightmares are real and the man I’d fallen in love with is the devil incarnate.
He’d never hurt me.
My subconscious knows this, but I can’t control this fear. Can’t stop questioning every interaction and every touch and the soft look in his eyes whenever I laughed. The anger when I cried.
I saw all those emotions. They weren’t pretend or fake; Theo cares but he’s also—
The dead bodies. The snake. The dream.
“Why did you do this to me?” I ask out loud, a small minuscule part of me hoping for an answer, but there isn’t one. To be honest, I’m surprised he hasn’t found me yet with all the noise I’m making, but I also don’t hesitate to toss a chair behind me when it’s in my way after making it to the lobby. There’s fire and smoke and this pungent scent that’s a bit sickly sweet. “Need to get out.”
Where is the exit? The smoke is dense, but after taking a right turn, I find the main entrance door. It’s open and pulling some of the smoke out which I follow, nearly dropping to my knees when I can breathe in clean air again.
The entrance has cars blocking the area, some pointing toward the door with others staggered about, their doors half opened. And I find one still turned on, it’s lights blazing through the night sky.
I run toward it.
Run because the devil himself is behind me, but as I grow near, my attention is pulled to the side.
“How can this be real?” Two heads snap up and look over. One black and one white. A cobra and a python. They’re choking the life out of the guard who nearly cracked my skull during my arrest; his face is nearly blue, and blood dribbles from his mouth.
His expression is one of horror, of helplessness, and I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for him.
Not after what they did to me.
The python tightens his grip around the officer’s neck and something breaks, the light in the man’s eyes vanishing. They don’t stop, though. If anything, they’re even madder, hissing and biting, and when I finally meet the eyes of the cobra, my world stops.
“Marcia, your brother is going to kill you. Get down from that tree.”
“But, Gabriella,” she whines, using a tone that makes me cringe from her perch on a low branch. She’s one of the few people I’ve forbidden from using my title.
