Captured To Become A Vampire Prince's Bride {Book 2}

Captured To Become A Vampire Prince's Bride {Book 2}: Chapter 33

A few days later, the King and The General had organised a meeting, which went over without a hitch, everyone was there. The Maldivo's wouldn't be staying underground forever, instead, they'd have their memories wiped and sent home, which of course was alarming to hear. It was a pain-free, selective procedure so they'd only forget what they'd been made to forget. Then there was a brief mention of an interview to inform the citizens about everything that has happened and that the war was officially over, all that was left was clean up.

The rest focused on Austin. What had happened, what was happening and what will happen. But there were so many holes, holes filled with unanswered questions only he could answer. He started a whole war with nothing but numbers and no strategy. He didn't do all of that for his people as he claimed, if he did, he wouldn't have put them at risk like he did. He would've upheld his side of the treaty, or tried to improve it. He was dead set on revenge and I wanted to know why. I had to know.

I also had to ask Alexander because I knew that he wouldn't be happy unless I talked him into it, and his immediate reply was a stone cold, "no."

"I just have some questions," I insisted.

"And I have just said no," he deadpanned, turning away from me and instead focusing on his bandaged eye.

"Wait, are you supposed to take that off already?" I questioned, raising a brow at his reflection where his eye met mine.

He gave a nonchalant shrug, "they said a few weeks."

"It's been a few days."

He continued unwrapping the bandages until one layer remained, then faced me again, "well, voila!"

As the bandage fell free, Alexander's once swollen eye opened and instead of feeling... relief that it healed well, I was left with a choking feeling in my throat. Around his eye was still a little red, but that wasn't the red I was concerned about.

Alexander's head tilted to the side in confusion, "what? Do you think the bandage gave me character?" He turned to analyse himself, and instead, his jaw dropped, "my eye!" he screeched.

I approached him to get a closer look at his eye. His iris was red, with only a few random flecks of purple swirling around, which I knew was not a good sign.

"You can still see out of it right?" I asked slowly. I didn't know if it was painful, or irritating for him. What could even cause someone's eye to completely change colour like that?

"It's a little blurry but...this has never happened before. I've never seen it happen to anyone else before," he responded. His face was merely centre meters from the mirror which was quickly fogging up due to his rapid breathing. One hand was on the top lid and the other was on the lower, prying open the eye.

"It's okay as long as you can see right?"

"Arianne my eye is red! This is not okay!" He began pacing up and down the room, "even in here Austin is managing to screw things up for me."

"How do you know it was him?"

"He punched me right in the eye at one point as we fought, I haven't been able to open it since that," he stopped at the doorway, "I'm going to medical. You can go see Austin, you'll do it anyway."

I nodded, he was right, it'd just my conscience feel less guilty with Alex knowing and agreeing to let me go. "Tell me everything that the doctor says."

"Of course. Tell me what Austin says, if you want," then he disappeared.

I figured I'd have to go through either The General or Iyeong to get to Austin. He'd be somewhere very secure, and not anyone could just walk in, this I knew. So I headed off to find whichever I found first.

Unlike with Alexander, all Iyeong responded was, "why?" and she actually sounded both confused and curious, which was different to her usual indifference towards most things.

"I have some things I want to settle, that's all."

"Things?" She repeated, a thin black brow raising at me briefly before she grabbed some papers from a nearby shelf and returned to her desk.

"Yes, questions," I rubbed my nose, a sudden feeling of awkwardness coming upon me. Iyeong's questioning was... unexpected.

"Right..." she began taking notes, "how long do you intend to spend?"

"I... don't know. I don't have a timed script," I responded, trying to bite back any hostility in my tone. She was likely writing down everything I was saying for a reason, but it was making me more nervous on top of the nerves I already had.

"What questions will you ask Austin?"

"Why are you interrogating me? Can I go or not?"

During the few moments Iyeong held her stare at me, much longer than I was comfortable with, I became hyper-aware of my surroundings, and even worse, myself. Every breath I took felt like I was slowly suffocating, like the air in the room was running out. My left foot was tapping away furiously and my hands rubbed together like I was a house-fly.

"Procedure. If you don't answer, you don't go," she finally said monotonously.

Then everything toned back down. I could breathe normally.

I sighed, just wanting to get this over with before I really forgot what questions I intended to ask, "I don't know how long I'll spend. Put 20 minutes or something."

"And the questions?"

"... politics," I lied. Sort of. It was a good enough lie.

"Politics?" Iyeong's brow cocked once again, her tone full of doubt. Her pen hovered mere millimetres over the paper as she waited for my response, which was a simple nod of the head. She wrote down some more notes and then gestured to a seat close to the door. "Someone will arrive shortly to take you there. So sit and wait."

"Thanks."

I didn't even dare ask what or why she was writing. I did as she said and waited for whoever it was who was going to take me to see Austin.

A tall black guy with striking yellow eyes entered the room and saluted Iyeong before turning to bow to me. "Are you ready?"

I nodded and got up, ready to follow him.

"Make sure you're close by the door when she goes in," Iyeong said, not looking up.

The guy saluted Iyeong once more before leaving with me in tow.

After a series of twists and turns, and an elevator I didn't know existed to take us further underground, we stepped out in a long white hallway, dimly illuminated. It almost felt like we'd left the base, I'd never seen anything like this, usually, everything was a drab grey. It kind of gave me hospital vibes.

"You don't need to be so nervous. He's secured very well. The way he's chained up, if he moves too quickly, a strong current passes through him. Like... a seat belt mechanism," the man said after complete silence between us.

"I'm not nervous."

"Oh, sorry. I took your short breaths and fidgeting as nervousness."

I narrowed my eyes at him, unsure of whether or not he was being sarcastic since I couldn't see his expression and his tone didn't give anything away.

He said Austin was secure but since we got off the elevator, I hadn't seen a single guard aside from the two outside the elevator, and two outside the metal door at the end of the corridor.

But in all my time at the base, nothing had gone wrong so far, so he was probably right. Despite the singular hallway that led to an elevator that led straight up to the base, the four guards and the 'seat-belt', Austin would probably stay down here forever.

I could do this. Everything would be fine. This would be an in and out situation; I'd ask my questions, get my answers and leave.