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

front of the classroom. The Health teacher was standing in front of the whiteboard, rattling on about something that nobody wanted to listen to. Her friends Tara and Siobhan were looking just as bored as she was feeling. They looked at her from the corners of their eyes and smiled, recognising the look on her face.
Harmony leaned down from her chair and pulled her bag onto her lap. She rummaged around inside it, all the while keeping an eye on the teacher at the head of the room. From her school bag she produced a homemade firework. She shrugged at her best friends and tugged a small box of matches out of her jeans pocket. She struck one on the rough edge of the box and then lit the wick sticking out the end of the firework. As the other kids snickered at what she was doing, Harmony tossed the firework out into the aisle, before hurriedly blowing out the match.
They waited in almost total silence for a few moments and then a loud bang erupted from the floor and the makeshift rocket sped up into the air over their heads and zoomed around the classroom. Harmony grinned and clapped her hands as the rocket smacked into the ceiling, burnt out and dropped to the ground again.
“Wow, what a show” she said dryly, catching impressed glances from the others around her.
The teacher looked up and locked gazes with Harmony temporarily, before she artfully looked away and down at her open textbook.
“Miss Devereaux” the woman intoned, sounding tired and almost as bored as they all were.
“Yes, miss” Harmony mumbled, trying to appear guileless as she could.
The teacher pointed a shaky finger at the closed classroom door.
“Principal’s office now, young lady” she said tightly.
Harmony stood slowly, keeping her stare on the woman’s pale, pinched face. She knew that she was nearing tears, her chin trembling slightly. Harmony grabbed her bag and zipped it up before slinging it over one shoulder. She ruffled Siobhan’s black hair as she left, winking back at her as she headed up to the front of the room. The class started clapping again, and she grinned, turning back and bowing deeply from the waist.
“Thank you, thank you. Your applause and praise means so very much to me, my loyal subjects” she proclaimed loudly, ignoring the teacher’s sudden outburst of tears.
She strode out of the classroom, aware of the woman’s running footsteps going in the other direction. She shrugged and turned the nearest corner, heading straight for the closest entrance to the school labyrinth. She slunk right past the principal’s office and out the pair of glass double doors. The sunlight washed over her face and she smiled, tilting her face up to feel the golden rays on her fair skin. She was unusually pale, because her mother was Albino. She readjusted the strap of her bag so it sat higher on her shoulder and walked out into the sunny school grounds area.
Harmony was briefly blinded by the sun, so her first footsteps were slightly unsure. The feeling of uncertainty was heightened when she felt herself bump into someone. She staggered backwards, catching her balance almost as quickly as she’d lost it in the first place. She glanced up at the dark figure standing before her, at least six inches taller than her. She took a few steps back again and battled the sun for a glimpse of the stranger’s face.
She was stunned by how handsome the young man was, but she fought to hide the fact. She placed a hand on her hip and glared up at him, her heart beating furiously fast. She hoped that he couldn’t hear it…
“You’re in my way, boy. Move it” she commanded, trying to step around him.
He shifted subtly to the left and then to the right as she tried that escape route as well. Harmony sighed and stared at him again, silently studying his chiselled features and stubborn expression; his Roman nose only accentuated his strong appearance. She suddenly gave up, deciding to stay and play cat and mouse with whoever this guy was.
“Who are you? You aren’t from around these parts” she said clearly, raising one eyebrow.
The boy grinned down at her, his strange black eyes flashing at her with intentional mischief.
“What does it matter who I am?” he replied cockily. “Who are you?”
Harmony scowled, looking anything but harmonious in that moment.
“Harmony Devereaux. Now, I asked for your name. Give it to me” she said haughtily, trying her utmost best to keep her mask of arrogance from falling off.
Her friends knew she wasn’t really like this; she was happy and smart and mischievous, but she wasn’t outright cruel. It wasn’t as if she went around baiting traps for bear cubs and then kicking them when they went down. She actually knew a kid who’d done that once…he’d ended up in hospital and didn’t ever return to school.
“My name is Talor and that is all you are required to know. Not many people know my full name and end up living” the stranger told her.
Harmony eyed him warily, unsure of what he’d meant by that. But he then gave her a charming smile, as if to communicate to her that he was truly harmless and meant not a thing by his words. She still watched him carefully, though. Through experience, she had learnt not to believe every word a stranger said to her. Losing a friend to a serial killer had been a tough life lesson, but she had learnt it nonetheless.
“Where are you from?” Harmony asked next, beginning the run through of her usual routine questions.
Talor smirked at her and something cold spread throughout her chest and stomach. She could practically smell the danger emanating from him. His dark eyes promised darkness and pain. His gaze on her spoke of long past events too heinous to mention aloud.
“A land far away that you will have never heard of” came the reply.
“Antarctica?”
Talor released a short bark of a humourless laugh and grinned wolfishly at her.
“No. You’ve obviously heard of that place, so I cannot be from there, can I now?” he said lightly.
Harmony shrugged loosely, with just one shoulder. She was starting to feel exposed outside in the open air with this odd boy talking to her. What if one of the higher ups came outside and saw them there? She wasn’t meant to be out of school, let along speaking with a complete unknown. Her school community was tight, and someone would contact either of her parents if her behaviour was seen to be anything short of utterly angelic.
“Look, I have to get home. Seriously. Either home or go back into class and I really don’t want to. I can’t stand here and talk anymore, someone will see us. And I’m already in enough strife as it is. So please, do yourself a really big favour and leave. ‘Cause I am” she said to him, blinking up at him through the still blinding sunlight.
He nodded very slightly and held out his hand to her.
“So we’ll meet again?” he questioned, one corner of his mouth turning up a bit.
Harmony reached out and shook his hand, shrugging again.
“Maybe. Talor, was it? Cool name” she muttered, releasing his hand and turning away from him, towards the school parking lot.
It would only take her a few minutes to walk home…
She heard a very faint thank you before she had turned completely and her back was to him. She didn’t bother to turn around, instead choosing to keep on walking in the direction of home.

By the time Harmony arrived home, her mother had driven home from work and was awaiting her daughter’s arrival. She folded her arms across her chest and stared her down as soon as she stepped into the kitchen area. Harmony examined her carefully before sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs. Laney was trying to not smile and Harmony could see it distinctly, the twinkle in her mother’s light blue eyes, those that matched her own pair.
“Your principal called me at the office, honey” she started.
Harmony nodded, knowing just what was coming.
“He said that you were supposed to go in to see him, but that you never actually showed up” Laney continued.
She watched the girl nod once more and finally, her façade cracked and she let a quick smile break through. She reached out to ruffle Harmony’s pale blonde hair, only a shade darker than her own.
“You are just like your father when he was around your age” she murmured fondly, thinking of a time when Marcus was sixteen and he used a firework show to ask her if she would go out with him.
Harmony rolled her eyes, but she still felt proud that she was so alike her father. He wasn’t around much anymore, really, but for the time being, the stories seemed to be enough.
“Go to your room, you bad child” Laney muttered, gently shoving Harmony off her seat and out into the long hallway.
Harmony laughed and ran upstairs to her bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind herself. Her parents were the light hearted type, stern when they had to be, but fun for the rest of the time. She was glad that the loss of a baby brother five years ago had not cooled their parental feelings toward her at all. She had long feared that, but the event had never come to pass.
She sat down on her bed and removed her bag, dumping it onto the duvet next to her. She closed her eyes and lay back, a pair of coal black eyes staring back at her from behind her closed eyelids.

Chapter 16
Talor arrived back in his home realm, his temper rising and rising. That little blonde girl, barely a slip of a thing, had been impetuous and rude to him. Nobody had ever spoken to him that way before. Her image rose up in his mind, all big blue eyes and white blonde hair. He began striding towards the castle doors, running up the high steps and pushing through the doors without any trouble.
Footsteps came from the doorway to his right and he turned briefly to catch sight of Kimba staring out at him, her eyes wide in her small white face. He slowed down to a halt and looked back down at her. He forced a pale imitation of a smile onto his face, but it never fully reached into his dark eyes. She was only eight, so he had to try.
“Hello, baby sister. Is something wrong?” he inquired calmly, crouching down to face her.
He held out his hands to her and she crept forward, her dress swishing along the stone floor at her feet. It was too long for her, as usual because she insisted on wearing Lacey’s gowns which were always just slightly too big for her tiny thin frame.
Kimba placed her small hands in his much bigger ones and he closed his fingers over them, rubbing his thumbs along the backs of her hands. It had always calmed her when she was a baby, and it appeared to still work well. The wildness and worry in her big eyes died down slightly and she looked at him with more of the sisterly affection he had cultivated in her from the instant she was born.
“Jayce said there is a girl in the downstairs prison cellar and that you put her there. He said her name is Cleopatra Montford and she is Lady Elara’s twin sister. Is it true? And if it is, brother, why did you put her in there? It’s horrible and damp down there” Kimba said quietly, leaning in to