Free Dinner With a Vampire by Abigail Gibbs

eye as he let go of my wrist and ran a hand through his hair, pushing his fringe back, which just flopped right back into place. ‘Don’t be ashamed of it though, Girly. I’m royalty, I’m rich and I’m damned good looking. I’m designed to be attractive to humans. But you’re resisting.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Why is that?’
    Oh, where to begin?
‘Because you are a bloodsucker and a murderer. And a jerk. The list goes on.’ My body might betray me, but I wasn’t truly attracted to him: I was repulsed.
    His head snapped up, and his eyes, a dark, forest green around his large pupils, met mine. ‘Is that so? Well I will get to you, Violet Lee,’ he lingered on my name, drawing his sentence out. ‘You will give in to me; I will make sure of it.’
    ‘No. You really won’t get me.’ I made to move to the side, away from him, but he placed his hands either side of my head again, dragging his nails down the wood, making a horrendous screeching sound, like chalk on a blackboard. He ran his hands all the way down, until they reached my waist. His hands moved around to my back, pulling me into him, and he began to close his fist around my waist, pinching the skin just below my ribs.
    ‘Get off me! You have whores for this!’ I shrieked. His eyes found mine in an instant and I saw recognition in them.
    His irises became as black as his pupils. They lost all shade and tone – they were black, just black. ‘You will pay for that one, Girly,’ he said, his voice trembling.
    In one swift movement, he had brushed away the hair from my neck and pushed my head away. In the corner of my eye, I could see him lowering his jaw to my neck and I began to duck away. But he grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged. I yelped, seeing him bare his fangs as he forced me onto my tiptoes.
    ‘Don’t!’ I begged, cowering away from him.
    ‘I will teach you to fear me,’ he growled, taking no notice of my pleas for mercy. ‘And I will make you regret the day you ever stood in Trafalgar Square.’ With his taunting words, I felt pain as his fangs pierced my skin. They drove deep into my flesh, ripping my skin. I cried out in pain, unable to stop curses spewing from my mouth as stars flickered in front of my eyes. But every time a word formed my jaw moved and the skin on my neck stretched taut over his fangs, releasing a dribble of something warm, which trickled down to the round collar of my T-shirt.
    He extracted his fangs and his tongue chased the drip, leaving a trail of saliva. He sucked at it, his lips forming words against my skin. ‘Sweet,’ I thought he said.
    He rubbed his thumb across the material of my collar and brought his eyes up to meet mine once more, but my eyes flicked to his lips, which I saw were coated in blood.
My blood.
    I felt weak and my knees began to buckle. Only the force of him pushing me into the door kept me upright. ‘The Princes of this Kingdom
always
get what they want,’ he breathed and drew away from me, leaving me to crumple to the floor, pale and sickened. He watched me slide to the ground and, unable to bear the smirk on his lips, I buried my head in my arms, drawing my knees close to my chest.
    ‘Keep denying me and you could make your time here very unpleasant. And believe me, Violet Lee: your time here shall be long.’
    With that, the door slammed, leaving me whimpering on the floor, very quickly learning how to fear him.

Violet
     
    ‘How about this?’ Lyla jabbered, pulling clothes down from the racks of her gigantic wardrobe and passing them into the arms of a waiting maid – Annie. ‘Seems like your style.’
    She held up a black skirt – more like a belt – and pressed it against her stomach, modelling it. It was short, to say the least.
    ‘I think the dress I was wearing the other day was a one-off.’
    She hummed with an obvious tone of disbelief and added the skirt to the growing pile in Annie’s arms. I shifted, uncomfortable, leaning up against one of the mirrors.