The Vampire Prince by Lissie (online e book reading .TXT) 📖

family had always been closely knitted together and for that, she envied them all.
She took a step away from Kimberly and let her go.
“I’m so sorry, Kimmy. I’m sorry I shouted at you. I was angry at Elliott, but I see now that the anger was unwarranted, especially when directed at you. I’ll leave you to grieve in peace” she murmured.
She gave them one last weak, watery smile, a wave and then she turned around to leave them alone.
“Cleo, wait!”
Cleo turned back briefly to see Kimberly hurrying after her, holding an object out towards her in her clenched fist. A fine black chain dangled from her hand, and she knew at once what it was. Elliott’s old school locket, which he had worn ever since they were ten or eleven years old. Inside the dark bronze circular locket lay a curl of Elara’s blonde hair.
In a daze, Cleo reached for it and took the necklace from her. She glanced up to meet Kimberly’s gaze, searching it for truth and rightness. Kimberly nodded, a tiny smile grazing her pretty features.
“I’m sorry, too, Cleo. I’m sorry he never loved you the way you would have liked him to. But here is a small piece of who Elliott was, who my…brother was. He loved you in his own way. I think that he would want you to have this now, if he was here. I think he would agree with me. Please take it and never lose it. Keep your sister with you. I don’t need to have a piece of my brother with me at all times. He’s in here” she told her, pressing a hand against her heart.
Cleo ignored the well veiled stab at her lack of closeness with her twin and smiled again. Perhaps Kimberly Turner was all the stronger for carrying her brother in her heart, but Cleo needed something tangible to go on. She folded her fingers tightly over the cold locket and turned away for the second time.
But this time, she wasn’t called back.
When she looked back at the end of the driveway, the door was closed and all the lights were out. She sighed and kept going down the street, under cover of near dark. As she arrived at the end of her own street, the anger was boiling up inside her, forcing the red mist over her eyes. Maybe Elliott was dead, but now she had lost two people who were close to her heart. And there was only a small handful of people she could blame for the disappearances.

Out of his stuporous sleep, Talor’s head snapped up. He stared around him in the darkness of the castle’s bottom cellar. Someone had called for him. A girl. She sounded like Elara, but he knew ever so well now that Elara would not be summoning him at any time of the day or night. So it must be the twin sister, Cleopatra. He chuckled to himself, amused by the girl’s foolishness. She must be angry with him, to call him up like this. A certain thought caught him up, though. Unless she was summoning Jayce… It was more likely, he must admit, but still. It would be much more fun for him if he took the call…
Talor stood up and shook off his bonds. His brother needed to relearn how to tie tight, efficient knots. He seemed to have forgotten how.
He walked to the door, bent low and examined the lock. He reached into one of his pockets and retrieved a small silver hairpin. He had slipped it from Elara’s hair when she was preoccupied with slaughtering the stupid boy, her so called best friend. He shook his dark head, his eyes betraying the derision and black condescension lying within the fathomless depths.
He finished picking the easy lock and slipped past the door barrier. There was no guard posted to keep him incarcerated, so he just sprinted up the stairs and out into the first corridor he came to.
When his booted feet hit the grass outside his home, now his useless prison, he dematerialised.

Cleo slid the locket into her jacket pocket and wandered along the darkening street, unaware of the black shadow trailing her, matching her step for step on the opposite side of the street. She turned down her front pathway and stepped up onto the concrete doorstep. She grumbled to herself about her father never leaving the door unlocked when she asked him to, and began rummaging in her other pockets for her door key.
A slight faint sound behind her alerted her to the fact she was not by herself, as she assumed she was. She turned quickly to face Talor, his grin wicked and cold. Immediately, she registered what had happened.
She had summoned a dangerous vampire.
And he had come.
Talor took two steps forward and grabbed her hands, taking the locket from her fingers. He looked down at it lying in his own hand, the light chain pooling over his palm and fingers. He glanced back up at Cleo and met her worried eyes with his fierce ones.
“Hello, little girl” he said softly, his tone dark and sneering.
Cleo moved backwards until her back slammed against her front door. He reached for her and she screamed. She heard running footsteps coming from inside her house, but she also knew without a doubt that she would be gone before they could get to her.
“Not that they could help you anyway” Talor whispered into her ear, suddenly standing right next to her.
Cleo shivered and then he took her.

Chapter 13
Jayce stood in the narrow doorway to the downstairs cellar, his black eyes wide. Not again. Talor had escaped his bonds and made a run for it. He turned and ran back up the steps, along the corridor and just kept running until he reached the outside steps. He looked frantically for Elara in the nearest green field, knowing that it was the place she most liked to go now. Her preferences had changed since she became pregnant again. Jayce clenched his jaw, unable to completely contain his anger at the unseemly betrayal of his love. But then, he had to remember to remind himself, it hadn’t been entirely her fault either. Nothing was ever really Elara’s fault. She was too weak to do much for herself, now especially. His home sapped the energy and life out of her system, leaving not much to remain inside her body.
His gaze swept the field, suddenly narrowing in on a slightly darker area off to one side of the castle. He ran towards it, sighing with relief when he realised that it was, indeed, Elara. She was sitting below the tall grasses, her legs curled up underneath her, her billowy skirts covering her. She looked up at him when he dropped next to her, balancing on his toes. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear.
Elara smiled at him, her hands tucked neatly together in her lap. Her long dark gold hair blew around her shoulders and her face in the faint wind surrounding the two of them.
“What’s the matter?” she suddenly asked him, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to the left to examine him all the better.
He shook his head ruefully; she was just as perceptive as he was, perhaps even more than he sometimes.
“I came to find you. I was worried” he replied, purposely evading the true answer to her pointed question.
Elara raised her eyebrows at him, awaiting a proper answer.
“Talor has gone” Jayce said quietly, ducking his head down and staring at her skirt.
He heard her sharp exhale of breath and stayed where he was, his neck exposed. And so he waited.
Elara ignored his obvious submission and stretched out a hand to curl her fingers into his thick black hair.
“Why do you think I blame you for all this?” she asked him quietly, gesturing loosely all around her and then at her stomach.
Jayce glanced at her and frowned, sniffing slightly. She gave his shoulders a sharp yank and he fell forward onto her lap. He turned onto his back and looked up at her from upside down on the grass. He blinked slowly.
“Because I brought you into all this horror stuff. My life is what nightmares are made of, Elara Montford” he told her, closing his eyes.
“Not Montford” Elara shot back quickly, tugging a curl of his hair hard.
He winced, but opened his eyes again and smiled faintly at her.
“Thank you” he murmured, shifting to make himself more comfortable.
“Anyway…shouldn’t we be doing something to find your brother? I mean, he can’t be getting up to anything good right now” Elara said wisely, leaning over him and blotting out the little sun there was.
Jayce scrunched up his nose and listened to the heart sounds from inside her womb, the little noises reminding him of the life growing right within her body. He sat up and swivelled round to stare at her. Elara sighed and reached out to grab his hands, pulling him forward and placing his hands on her tummy. There wasn’t much for him to feel at that moment, but slight flickers of life were still in there. She was waiting for his reaction, he knew, so he gave her a weak approximation of a happy grin. Elara scoffed at his failure of an attempt and stood up, brushing loose grass off her long skirts. She leaned down, one hand pressed to the centre of her aching back, and held out her free hand to offer him help up. Although he didn’t need it, Jayce grabbed her hand and got to his feet, stretching his arms high above his head.
“Do you think there’s anyone out there for Talor?” Elara asked him, sounding absent and altogether there at once.
Jayce glanced sharply at her, surprised.
“What do you mean by that, love?” he asked her, taking her hand again and starting to lead her back towards the castle.
Elara shrugged and stared up at the blue skies stretching way over them.
“I wonder if there’s a girl out there for him. Somebody who could make him a lot happier than he is now. Because you know he’s mad and unhappy, Jayce. Don’t deny it. I know you too well. In and out, topsy-turvy” she replied, squeezing his hand tightly.
Jayce rolled his eyes, knowing instinctively that she was far beyond right.
“Who would have him?” he retorted grumpily, imagining some tough type of girl who would dream of being forever bound to a psychopathic vampire man-child.
Elara dug her nails into his hand and glared at him, her brown eyes darkening under his gaze.
“Shut up. He’s still your little brother” she muttered reproachfully.
Jayce raised his eyebrows at her, skeptical.
“You’ve got to be kidding me there, love. My little brother is insane and doesn’t deserve to have someone loving him. He’s too wrong in the head. He could and would never appreciate a girl who gave up her life for him to be spirited away to no man’s land for the rest of her half immortal existence” he said blackly.
Elara grumbled something incoherent under her breath and nudged his shoulder with the side of her head.
“Don’t you love him?” she asked softly.
She sounded almost scared to hear the answer from him. Jayce thought long and hard before he opened his mouth to reply to her query this time…
“I think I used to, once. There was a time, Elle, when there was nothing wrong with him and he used to be just a loving little boy. But no one can bring that side of him back ever again, I swear it. He is too far gone to the other