Something Sweet, Something Sinister; The War Begins (A Vampire Novel)

Chapter 9

That night, Pierce let me sleep on the bed. He sat on his chair in what was one of the most uncomfortable looking positions to be sleeping in. He had felt bad that I didn't have a room of my own, but we've been over the fact that it would look suspicious if he did that. We agreed that I would simply keep him company in his room for now.

He told me about how he was spying on both sides of the war, trying to collect as much intel as possible before he picked the fight with his brother. The more information he could gather, the better suited he would be when he took the throne. Everything we did in the meantime, we had to make sure would blend in with everyone else in the castle. Which, unfortunately, meant that I had to be viewed as nothing but a pet. The good news was being seen as so little would give me an advantage when it came to snooping around. As long as I appeared to be following orders, no one would suspect that we were trying to take back the kingdom.

Today, Pierce had other things that he needed to attend to. It was his royal duty to go twice a month to a council meeting and because of that, he wasn't able to stay with me in his room. He said that if I wanted to, I could explore, but I had to be careful. 

Before he left, Pierce had a servant make a copy of his room key and give it to me. He explained that the reason they wear keys around their neck is because it's the hardest place to have them stolen from. That, and it was way less likely to lose it from there too. This meant that my key also arrived on a string to wear it as a necklace.

Even though I knew that I was more than welcome to explore, it pained me that I was supossed to adventure alone. I had never been around vampires before in such a large amount, especially royals. It helped that Pierce seemed to be decent, but he couldn't speak for the rest of them. Especially not for the ones who wanted to be able to keep humans and halflings as pets.

I stalled for a few hours, laying on the bed and staring up at his ceiling.

What could I even do in this situation?

I had found who I was looking for, and possibly secured safety for myself... but I also knew that Blake was still after him. Blake, who had admitted that he didn't care if I was a halfling or not.

Blake, who was now not only hunting Pierce, but probably scouring every place he came across to find me. In all the chaos that I'd been through, the thought had slipped my mind.

There was a chance that he might be a good person too, like Pierce, and that I could try to convince him to spare Pierce's life. Although, after I was kidnapped, it might be a lot harder than I'm giving credit for. There would surely be a grudge held between him and anyone else involved.

I groaned and threw my hands up in the air, slamming them back down onto the mattress.

The movement made the paper that Pierce had given me fall off the side of the bed. I dove for it, narrowly missing the corner as it fluttered down and came to a halt. I grabbed it and sat at his desk to use the lamp for better light.

He had scrawled so many ideas onto this one sheet of paper that it was hard to read. Once I was able to start making out some of his plans, I found myself motivated to get him in charge as fast as I could. Not only did he want to outlaw human slavery, but he wanted to use their kingdom's money to pay the servants for their labor and completely remove the collars entirely. There was no way Cyrus would ever agree to such a thing.

He added that for the humans, he would request that they open a blood clinic where they could volunteer to donate for the vampires to survive off of it. If they had enough volunteers, he would make it illegal to drink the blood of an unwilling human.

I read the rest of the paper and found myself overrun with relief. He was a good guy, even if he got a bit tempermental at times.

When I was done with it, I slipped the paper back into the middle of the pile. It was as close to where I thought he had pulled it from as I could possibly guess from where I had been watching at the time. He would find it if he just filtered through the stack again, but it wouldn't be right on top if anyone were to come in here.