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

kiss the top of his head when she was finished speaking.
Talor sighed, his earlier anger dissipating somewhat. He lightly squeezed his baby sister’s tiny hands and straightened his tense shoulders.
“Yes, there is a girl in the cellar. I did take her there, but only because she is a very bad sister. She is not very nice to Elara, and you like Elle, don’t you?” he replied.
Kimba nodded rapidly and he smiled again, drawn in by her childish eagerness.
“Well, Cleopatra isn’t a very nice person, you see. So I had to put her in the cellar.”
Kimba stared down at him as she processed this new piece of information. He could practically see the cogs and gears whirring quickly inside her mind. She was brighter than most at her age and very quick off the mark.
“Jayce says you’re not very nice anymore, either, though. He says that he doesn’t like you anymore, and he wishes that you had never been born” she whispered, her words very soft and barely audible.
Talor’s jaw clenched tightly then and he fought with himself to remain in control. The little girl was too sweet for him to harm, and he had always loved her the best out of all of them in his family.
“You can’t always believe Jayce, Kimba. Most of the time, but not all of the time” he replied.
Kimba frowned, her forehead creasing in consternation as she thought this over, too.
“But he is going to be King. The King must always be truthful; that is one of the rules of the kingship” she reminded him, withdrawing her hands from his and twisting them together in front of her.
Talor sighed and stood up, looking down on her once again.
“I love you, little one. Okay? Never forget that I have always and will always love you. Do you know why?” he asked her, meeting her frightened gaze with his steady one.
“No” Kimba mumbled, shaking her head.
Her long bright red hair swung from side to side, reaching her waist. She captured a tendril in her fingers and nervously fiddled with it, unable to take her eyes off of her older brother. The colour of them reminded him unpleasantly of Harmony’s pale eyes, but he told himself to snap out of it and be staunch again.
“I love you because you are the only one who has never once judged me for who I am, Kimba. You are my favourite sibling, and best of all, you are my favourite little sister” Talor told her, bending down to look into her face.
Her blue eyes brightened then and her smile appeared, lighting up her face like a candle shining in the darkness of nighttime.
“I love you, too” she murmured, reaching up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.
Talor smiled faintly and then straightened once more. He blew her a kiss and then turned away from her, heading down the corridor again. Without really listening, he heard Kimba retreat back inside her over large bedroom. He knew that within the hour, Lacey would know every word of what he’d just said to Kimba. The girl had the sharpest, most formidable memory he had ever known.

Jayce was sitting in his and Elara’s shared bedroom when Talor came in. Elara was lying in the bed, pretending to be asleep. She had woken the second the door opened and she felt Talor’s unwelcome presence isolate the atmosphere in the room. She struggled to regulate her breathing comfortably, still appearing to be sleeping.
“What is it, brother?” Jayce asked bluntly.
She heard the twisting sneer in his words and inwardly winced, knowing that Talor’s inner reaction would be one of disgust and anger.
“I have just returned from meeting the girl I’m going to marry” Talor said, equally sharply.
Elara felt her skin freeze and her heart stop for one split second. Then her sense of self preservation in a situation such as this kicked in again and she stayed quiet.
“No!”
Jayce’s answering roar was loud and violent. Elara felt the mattress dip and rock as he stood up, throwing himself off it and onto the floor, standing up straight. He stood two inches taller than his brother, but his amount of presence was less.
Talor smirked at him, folding his arms loosely over his chest. He was clad from head to foot in black clothing again, his hair the differing shade anywhere on his body.
“What’s the matter, your Majesty?” he asked snarkily, widening his black eyes in mock innocence.
Right then and there, Jayce hated that they looked alike more than he ever had before. Talor would use his good looks to attract and draw in any unsuspecting female that he could, then tear their hearts from their chests. Perhaps literally…
“You’re not supposed to find a bride until it’s your turn to be the ruler, Talor. You’re perfectly aware of that rule, brother” he said, his voice lower than usual.
Elara thought he must have guessed she was awake and was listening to them fight.
Talor shrugged, his muscular shoulders rising and falling dramatically.
“You see, the thing is, I really don’t care about the rules, Jayce. I’m going to go back and find her one day when she’s older and bring her here. And I will throw you off your ill begotten throne” he replied casually.
With that as his final say on the matter at hand, he turned briskly on his heel and returned to the hallway outside.

The cellar door banged open and Cleo looked up dejectedly as Talor bounded down the cold, slippery stone steps. Cleo’s eyes widened in fear and surprise as he tore her barred door off its rusting hinges and tossed it onto the floor. It landed with a loud clanging noise, but she could see in his eyes that he wasn’t caring at that stage.
Talor reached in and gripped her arm, yanking her out of the cell and depositing her directly in front of him. Cleo felt her sneakered feet sliding slightly on the unstable floor, but she refused to hold onto him for any needed assistance.
Talor watched her as she struggled to gain her balance, the blackness rising in his thoughts, poisoning his insides with the toxicity. The smile coming slowly over his harsh face was not a nice one, and terror seized Cleo’s throat and tugged like a raging dog. She stopped attempting to keep her balance and instead stared up at Talor, her gaze penetrating his not one bit. His mind was flying far away then, back to the tiny Canadian girl who thought she could best him with words and get away with it all.
He tightened his hold on Cleo and started to drag her up the cellar stairs and into the hall beyond the prison.
“Come on!” he hissed in her ear, shoving her ahead of him, one hand still gripping her upper arm.
Cleo whimpered in fear and pain, but he merely ignored her cries and continued to push her before him.
He was darkly pleased to see that nobody was emerging from their bedrooms along the corridor. It was empty and there was nothing he could hear that suggested otherwise. Jayce wasn’t going to run after him and stop him doing what he wanted to, was he? He was too intent on tending to Elara, as well he should be. He would be doing the exact same thing if he had a pregnant wife needing his attentions twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Talor refused to allow his blinded thoughts to travel too far away and reeled them straight back in again.
They arrived at the entry doors to the castle and exited through them, letting them slam closed after him. At the top of the steps, Talor let go of Cleo and gave her one very slight push. She went tumbling headlong down the steps, her scream cut short as the middle of her spine came into contact with the hard stone edge of one of the carved out stairs.
Talor trotted down after her, kneeling down beside her when he reached her. He looked into her face and was satisfied by the agony he saw in her blue eyes, reminding him even more of Harmony’s. He turned her over onto her stomach and felt around at the base and middle of her spine. Yes, the way it had struck the stair had severed her spinal cord. She was now severely damaged and paralysed from her waist down. But she could still feel the pain in her top half.
Talor raised a black booted foot and pressed it down lightly on Cleo’s chest. She gasped and sputtered at him, but he refused to move off her. Her hands scrabbled uselessly at his foot, but he didn’t shift away. By then, he knew, the thin bladelike spikes installed in the soles of his boot were sinking through her chest, slicing into her lungs and possibly even her heart, her most vital organ.
After another long minute, short for him, he lifted his foot off of her and stepped back slightly to admire what he had done to her. Cleo’s entire chest was soaked in her own blood. The intoxicating scent turned Talor’s stomach upside down, making his lungs burn, but he ignored it. He wasn’t finished and he wasn’t going to drink from her.
He bent down once again and pulled a long, fine knife from one of his pockets. The blade glinted in the waning light as he reached down and drew the blade once across Cleo’s pale throat. A thin line of blood appeared at once and she gulped sporadically, trying to breathe with a slit throat and two punctured lungs.
“Tell Elara…” she began, gurgling her words.
Talor never found out what she had tried to say because then was the moment that he leaned in and broke her neck.

Chapter 17
Talor bent low and lifted Cleo’s dead body into his arms. He stared down at her face and scanned her now empty blue eyes. She would never see again. Very gently, his fingertips delicate, he swept her eyes shut. The clear dead gaze unnerved him and only now was he beginning to feel regret for what he had done. He’d murdered the last person towards whom Elara felt love. He tilted his head to the side, thinking. No, not the last person. Her brother Alexander was still living, somewhere.
She weighed next to nothing in his arms, her head lying against his shoulder. He heaved in a quick sigh, feeling suddenly very strange and unwilling to go through with what he knew he had to do. He had to tell Elara what he’d done. She deserved to know this, at the very least. He could no other thing for her.
This was it…unless.
Talor walked slowly back up the steps and into the castle. To his intense despair and dissatisfaction, Lacey and Kimba were both in the middle of the hallway, obviously waiting for him. At the sight of him, Kimba sidles nearer to her older sister and slipped her hand inside hers. Talor saw Lacey squeeze the younger girl’s fingers, her free fist clenched tight, the knuckles perfectly colourless.
“Brother” she said softly, her jaw clenched and voice like brittle iron. “Oh, what have you done now? Elara can’t take much more. She’ll die.”
Talor bit his bottom lip, welcoming the stinging pain as his sharpened incisors sliced into the tender flesh. He gazed at his two sisters, forcing himself to wonder what it would be like for either one of them to go through what he was putting his brother’s wife through. He couldn’t put the words together. He would murder anyone who hurt them.
“I was angry. It had to be done or I would have killed myself”