Chapter 5- Heir
Cassandra
I paced around the room having absolutely nothing else to do. He left me to die of boredom in here, I wouldn't expect anything less from such a cruel vampire. I've been just looking out the window and thrashing his bedroom just to spite him but even that is getting boring. I'm now just pacing around the room like a horse without a rider while planning 100 ways to end Duke's miserable existence.
Drake promised to pick me up today but he's been taking so much time I was tempted to just leave on my own. After much consideration, I realized that that isn't the best idea because of the number of vampires living in this building. I might be a vampire too but I'm still very much inferior compared to them since I don't have any abilities yet, not even fangs.
It still felt so weird to me. Personally, I always believed in supernaturals existing, maybe because I was naive or because I was never a very logical person.
One thing that bothered me though was that I needed blood to survive. The idea of sinking fangs into someone’s skin made me nauseous and the fact that I tasted blood and actually liked it’s metallic taste made me sick to the bone.
I was snapped out of my thoughts by the knock on the door. Finally! I rushed over to open the door.
"Drake!" I gasped in excitement. He had finally arrived to save me from my misery.
He chuckled at my excitement. “Sorry for keeping you waiting”.
I shrugged, “it’s fine, you’re here now”.
He led me out of the room and closed the door behind us.
"Why didn’t Duke come back last night? I mean I'm happy about it but I'm just curious", I asked with genuine curiosity.
"Oh, he probably just had a huge work load and decided to stay at work", Drake replied.
"What does he do?" I asked curious to know about his job. Not that I care, I was just hoping he wasn't out kidnapping another random girl.
"He works for the king of vampires", Drake replied and my eyes widened in shock. King of vampires? Like Dracula? The Dracula?
"W-wait... D-Dracula?" I stuttered due to shock. Drake just nodded seeming to be amused my shocked expression.
"He doesn't exist!" I argued.
"Vampires supposedly 'don't exist', yet here we are", Duke said with exaggerated air quotes.
"Your world is messed up", I spat.
"Your world is too boring", he countered. Eh, he has a point.
Drake went into the walk-in closet and came out wearing a grey coat that was sure to drown me if I ever get to wear it.
"Anyways, I have something to show you", Drake said as he casually put his hands in his coat pockets.
"Then let's go!" Drake laughed for leading me down the hallway. I still couldn’t help but marvel at the sight that is the manor. It seemed like vampires were loaded to be able to build such a huge and beautiful place.
“Not all vampires”, Drake shrugged and I couldn’t help but raise a brow. “Duke just happens to have a high paying job. He owns this manor”.
My mouth hung open. “D-did you just-?”
“Read your thoughts? Yes, yes I did” Drake nodded his hands finding their way into the pocket of his hoodie.
“Woah” I gushed in amazement. “Can all vampires do that? Can I do that?”
Drake laughed. “No, only really powerful vampires can and unfortunately you wouldn’t be able to do that”.
“So you’re powerful?”
“Nah, I’m pretty mediocre actually but my brother is even more powerful than he appears to be. We share a special type of bond so I can sometimes borrow his abilities. Sometimes”.
I noticed how his face twisted a bit as he mentioned his brother but I didn’t comment on it.
We arrived at a room and my mouth hung open as Drake opened the door. “You have a freaking arcade?”
“Yup!”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the huge room filled with an assortment of games, flashing lights and blue LED. This was gamer heaven.
And sure I wasn’t really a gamer but games are fun and I like fun.
My eyes widened as I saw two claw machines, one was filled with plushies and the other was filled with beer and alcohol.
I smirked, sure I wasn’t allowed to have drinks since I hadn’t turned seventeen yet but Zane wasn’t here to stop me and Drake definitely didn’t need to know.
I rushed over to the claw machine with the drinks but Drake grabbed my arm before I could get there. “Not so fast kid. You aren’t seventeen yet”.
“Did you read my mind?!”
Drake blinked, “Well no, you just don’t seem seventeen yet”.
I pouted and moved over to the plushies and grabbed the controls. I had my eyes on a cute white bunny with the cutest pink ears.
“How old are you anyway?” I asked throwing look over my shoulder examining him. “You look… twenty four?”
He laughed- something he seems to do quite often- “kid, I’ve been around longer than you can imagine”.
“How long?”
“Before chocolate was invented”.
I gasped in shock. “You were born in the 1700s?!” I gasped. Trust me to know about chocolate history.
His eyes widened. “Okay, not that long” he paused before muttering, “chocolate has been around for a long time”.
“Mmhmm”.
I smiled when the claw finally grabbed the bunny but it dropped it almost immediately causing me to pout in frustration.
"You stink at this", Drake said with amusement clear in his voice and just continued to watch my failure. "If Donald were here he'll help me", I mumbled under my breath not meaning for him to hear. I completely forgot about vampire's advanced senses.
"Who's Donald?" Drake asked as he walked towards the machine and got the rabbit I wanted on the first try. He handed the plush toy to me while waiting for my answer.
"He's my brother", I replied in a small voice trying hard to keep my tears at bay.
"You have a brother?" his voice was soft and pitiful as he looked at me making me want to cry even more.
"Three actually", I said as I walked towards one of the gaming chairs in front of the huge monitor. Drake followed and sat on the gaming chair beside mine.
"You have a family and Duke just snatched you?" his voice held so much pity "They must have been looking for you".
At those words, I broke down while tightly holding the rabbit and crying into it's artificial fur. "They were k-kidnapped", I managed to speak the small lie. I couldn't tell him that my brother's were arrested. "Also, I'm an orphan". I cried more as Drake rubbed my back soothingly.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked", he apologized in a low pitiful tone. "It's okay", I smiled at him.
"I can help you find them-"
"No!" I couldn't let him know where they actually were though it would save me so much trouble but I rather not put my family at risk. "I mean, the police are already looking for them. It would be wrong to intervene" I tried to mask my unexpected outburst.
"Oh, okay", he sent me a small smile. "Anyway, enough sad talk. Let's play video games!" I cheered when my mood did a complete three-sixty. I didn't want to spoil the mood with my sob story. I immediately wiped the single tear that spilled and forced a smile.
----
Drake showed me around the mansion which was a solid hour tour. It was a lot bigger than I thought. We were now walking back to Duke's room because it was already late and according to Drake I needed to go to bed.
"Oh, what's that room?" I asked as I pointed to a door on my left. He didn't show me the room earlier so maybe he didn't want me to go there but I want to at least know.
"It's Duke's office so don't go in there", Drake answered while giving me a warning look,. "He wouldn't take that lightly". I nodded obediently just as we got to Duke's room. "I'll see you tomorrow" he said as he walked back to his room.
After he was gone, I sneaked out of the room and headed to Duke's office, doing the exact thing I was warned against. I'm stupid, I know but maybe, I could find a blueprint that would show me an easy way out of here. From what I saw during the tour, this place has a lot of security and they're vampires almost everywhere with heightened senses so it would be almost impossible to escape.
I got into the office and quietly closed the door. It was neat and organised with a lot of files and documents. I got to work in searching the drawers until I found a document that caught my attention. It said 'heir'. I opened it finding the requirements for this so- called heir to inherit something that I wasn't quite able to figure out.
One requirement was a wife and just a bunch of other stuff about behavior and etiquette and a few others that I didn't quite understand. I decided to read further to get to know more about the subject but before I could the door opened, scaring me to death.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"D-Duke?"