57__Submitting to the Vampire King

Kamilla’s soup was so cold and congealed, the spoon was sticking straight out of it as she stared dazedly at the table.

A soft tap on her foot had her blinking and looking at Viktor who’d just sat across from her. He jerked his head to the right and Kamilla looked in that direction to see Demetrius standing there, eyeing her with hands on his hips.
Looking back at her bowl, Kamilla saw that the soup he’d so wholeheartedly prepared for her now looked like jelly. She cringed and looked at him. “Sorry, Demetrius… ha-ha. I guess it’s gotten cold.”

Demetrius pursed his lips and cleared her food away. “I guess my Queen doesn’t have an appetite,” he said, sounding very much like he would a grudge. He looked at Viktor. “I’m not going to be here tonight, Viktor,” he informed him. “The Legion have asked me to assist with something very important.”

Viktor stretched his arm across the back of the chair beside him. “Oh, yeah?” he asked with a raised brow. “Is that something perhaps a mad rave with enchanted alcohol and seductresses?”

The plates clattered on Demetrius’s tray and he looked at Viktor with wide eyes. “P-pardon? No!” Viktor’s gaze sharpened on his face. “W-well…” Demetrius cleared his throat. “Have a good night!” He did a quick bow and rapidly left the room.

“If one of those women trap you in a spell, don’t call me!” Viktor yelled after him.
“I won’t!” Demetrius yelled back.
Viktor glared at the door he’d left through just as Damon came into the dining hall.

“I looked into it,” said Damon.

Kamilla turned to him. “Really? And?”

Damon leaned onto the table and nodded silently.

Kamilla shook her head. “No way! How are we suddenly family? I mean, I met the girl like two weeks ago!”

Viktor studied his fingertips. “It’s not like you became family in the past two weeks. You were born family, you just didn’t know it.”

Kamilla bared her teeth at him. “Can you please not be so logical right now?!”

Damon pulled out a chair and sat. “Her mother and yours actually do look incredibly alike. Your grandmother and Elizabeth Ames’ grandfather were siblings. Your grandmother married Stephen Drew and that is why you two have different surnames. Her mother and father died in a car accident a few months ago. She relocated to London three weeks ago to start over and that’s where you met her, Kamilla.”

Kamilla bit her lip, rubbing at her forehead.
Viktor narrowed his eyes at her. “I’ve seen the woman, it’s not like she’s a dragon. Why would you be so distraught about being related to her?”

Kamilla raised her gaze to Viktor’s and sighed. “No, its… it’s not that. Well, she’s nice, but…” At both their frowns, Kamilla sighed again. “This makes me… related.”

Viktor gave her an impatient look. “You need to learn how to say things clearly so others understand. You think we’re playing I Spy?”
Kamilla snarled at him. “You think it’s easy?!”
“Just say what you’ve got to say! How hard could it be?!”
“Fine! It means I’m related to Emma!” Kamilla yelled.

Damon blinked at her. “Who?”

Kamilla pushed her hair back with both hands as she huffed in frustration and looked at Viktor with wide eyes.
He only looked at her strangely.

Damon glanced at Viktor and nudged him. “You know who Emma is?”
Viktor bit his bottom lip with a frown and tilted his head, his gaze not leaving Kamilla’s face. “I… well, I strangely feel like I do.” He looked away, his jaw clenched in reaction to the way his head suddenly throbbed.

Damon looked at Kamilla and she lowered her gaze. “It’s… well, she’s someone who Charming knew. He told me about her and she’s related to Elizabeth. An ancestor really.”

Damon raised a brow. “Wow. Bizarre.”

Kamilla bit the inside of her cheek. Bizarre was how Damon wasn’t understanding what it all meant!

She looked at the table in confusion. What if Emma was really the girl? The human girl who Viktor murdered. It would mean that he killed one of her ancestors. Kamilla felt her heart twist strangely in her chest and sighed.

Looking at Viktor, she was surprised to sense that he was in the same dark state that she was. She stared at him, but he didn’t even look at her, only staring at his fingertips as he rubbed them against his thumb.

Without a word, Viktor rose from the table and walked off into the castle.

Kamilla’s gaze followed him until he disappeared up the stairs.

She bit her lip. Did he perhaps know the truth? Had Charming shared his memories with Viktor? Kamilla stared worriedly after Viktor.
If he didn’t know, he could at least sense that it was something horrible. And that troubled him, therefore, off he went to brood on his own.

Kamilla shook her head and stood up to follow him.
***************

Coming to the thirtieth door she’d tried since she left the dining hall, Kamilla put her hands on the two handles and pushed them a little open without much hope. Viktor had disappeared again like when Charming woke up. What if it had happened again? What if Viktor stayed asleep for a month this time?!

Her heart clenching in worry at the thought, Kamilla pushed the doors open wider.

There was nothing but darkness.
She stared into the dark room with wide eyes. The light from the open doorway strangely didn’t get much further than a few feet into the room. The rest of it was in darkness as heavy and thick as death.
Kamilla thought that perhaps she should leave and check another room, that Viktor certainly wasn’t here and that this room was nothing but creepy.

She thought it, but her feet wouldn’t move. The force compelled her. Kamilla felt drawn into the darkness, drawn so powerfully, she was helpless against the steps her feet took.
She looked into the thick dark, walking slowly in until her hands could no longer hold the doors open and they slammed shut behind her.
With a gasp, Kamilla looked over her shoulder but was horrified that she now couldn’t even see the doorway. The black clouded her vision.

Feeling blind, she turned back around and groped about in the dark. She didn’t know why, but her feet kept moving forward, taking her deeper into the dark room.
It was that same force. The first time she’d met Viktor, when he’d been standing in the dark in his chambers and Damon had brought her to meet him. Kamilla had felt this same power.

He’d drawn her so powerfully, it was unlike anything Kamilla had ever experienced before. That had been powerful, but this pull... it felt a hundred times darker, a hundred times more dominant than that.

“Kamilla.”

She froze. Kamilla blinked blindly in the dark. “V-Viktor? Are you here?”

Her name echoed through the dark and Kamilla whipped her head around in all the directions she heard her name. She shivered, feeling as though she was trapped in a state of dark hypnosis. Regardless of her confusion, her feet moved on further into the room.
“Vikt—”
Kamilla gasped as a strong hand curled around her wrist and jerked her forward, lifting her right off the ground.

She landed against a hot body and Viktor’s arms wrapped tightly around her as she sat in his lap, his thick thighs easily accommodating her.

Kamilla stared into the darkness behind him as Viktor put his face against her neck and held her against him.
“Viktor?” she whispered. He held her tighter. “What is this room? A-are you okay? You okay, Viktor?”

“Mm, I am.” Viktor splayed his warm hand across her small waist and leaned back on his throne so she lay against him. “It’s my throne room,” he said, his voice far heavier and darker than Kamilla had ever heard it.

She bit her lip, wrapping her arms around him and cradling his head against her. “O-okay.”

Kamilla didn’t know if she’d ever felt him this strongly before. His entire aura was dense and dark around her, making her heart pound with awareness, forcing every single cell in her body to acknowledge that he was the Vampire King and no matter what she did… he had *complete* control over her.

Viktor felt her tremble in his arms and knew she was feeling every bit of what was flowing through him. She was feeling the power he was born with, realizing just who… *what* she had been betrothed to.

He caressed a hand along her throat and felt her tremble again as she felt his power surround her.
He pressed his mouth, hot and hungry against the pulse in her throat and Kamilla became unable to draw a breath.

She gasped breathlessly when he lightly pressed his sharp fangs against her neck, letting his tongue suck on her, reducing her to gasping plea on his lap.
“Do you understand what I am, Kamilla?” he asked her in a husky growl. “Do you *feel* what I am?”

Viktor eased his power and Kamilla dragged in a breath, clinging onto him. “Viktor…”

He caressed her face, gently pushing loose strands behind her ear before he bit on the lobe and tugged on it, restricting the strength in his bite.

“This is what I am, little one,” he told her. “This darkness. It’s me.” He closed his eyes and pressed against Kamilla’s neck when despite his words, she held him tighter. “So… don’t fall prey. Don’t close your eyes with me. Don’t love me.”

Kamilla felt her heart swell within her chest and, unable to stop the tears from spilling at the overwhelming sensations he was transferring into her, held him tighter against her. “I… I won’t.”

Her agreement to his warning, stirred something sharp deep inside of him and Viktor gripped her chin, pressing his mouth against hers to unleash whatever he couldn’t put into words and let her feel it.

Kamilla let Viktor possess her mouth with total abandon, opening up for him. It didn’t matter. At the moment, she felt like he possessed her soul. Where would she get the will to deny him her mouth?

Pulling back so she could breath, Viktor leaned her forehead against his. “What did I say?” he asked.

Kamilla bit her lip. “T-that I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t love you.”

Her hand against his jaw felt the muscles clench.
“Good,” said Viktor. “Because Kamilla… I’m far more of a monster than you know. Don’t love me… so I won’t do it twice.”

Her mouth was still a whisper from his as she spoke. “What? I don’t understand…”

His hand traced up her neck and cupped her face. “Don’t love me again… so I don’t kill you again.”