Claimed By The Vampire King의 모든 챕터: 챕터 1 - 챕터 9

Andrea's POVThe rain was lashing against the windshield like it was trying to shatter the glass, and I could barely see two feet in front of the car. My twenty-first birthday was ending in a pathetic way. The tires made a sickening, screeching metal-on-asphalt, a sound that I knew was the last thing I’d ever hear. I didn't just brace for impact, I braced for the end, I was waiting for my death. The headlights of the oncoming truck flared white blinding me. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the crunch of bone, the explosion of pain, and then... nothing.The world didn't just go quiet; it stopped dead. The roar of the storm vanished. The sensation of skidding forward ceased. It felt like someone had snatched the universe out from under me and hit the pause button. I opened my eyes, and my breath hitched. The truck was frozen in mid-air, inches from my hood. A plume of mist hung suspended in the air like a ghost and there, standing on the wet pavement right in front of my car, was a

The air in that massive penthouse wasn’t just cold, it was thin as hell, like the whole place was sitting at some impossible altitude that was actively trying to suck the oxygen out of my lungs. I hadn’t moved an inch from where Caius had left me. My feet were killing me, and my damp waitress uniform was starting to chafe in all the wrong places, but I couldn’t stop staring down the hallway where he’d disappeared. I was officially a prisoner in this weird museum of modern opulence. The walls were covered in art that looked like it had been yanked from different centuries, and the whole architecture screamed expensive tomb. Everything felt cold, calculated, and dead. I needed to move. I needed a weapon, a map, a hidden phone, a damn signal flare, anything that could help me get the hell out of here. I took a shaky step toward the corridor. The floor was so ridiculously polished it felt like walking on black ice in socks. My heart was hammering so loud I was sure it echoed. I reache

The air in the vault felt charged, like the split second right before lightning hits. Caius held me tight against him, his hand splayed across the small of my back, pressing me into the hard lines of his body like he was trying to fuse us together. My pulse was going crazy, this frantic drumbeat in my chest, but for the first time it wasn’t just straight terror. There was something else mixed in now, this terrifying pull that made my breath catch and my skin heat up in all the wrong ways. He wasn’t just my captor anymore. He felt like gravity, and I hated how much I noticed it.He watched me with those glowing crimson eyes, tracing the flush creeping up my cheeks like he was savoring every second of it. “You think you found a loophole, Andrea,” he whispered, the words vibrating through my chest where we were pressed together. “You think you can just rip yourself out of my grasp with some dusty old paper.”His thumb traced along my collarbone, leaving a trail of fire even though his sk

He dragged me out onto the balcony. The air out here was dead silent and weird all black and blood-red, looking like some alien world, but it was just... still. Too still.The calm didn't last. A sudden, sharp prick of cold, not the kind that came off Caius, but something deeper, something hungry made the hair on my arms stand up. I felt the shift before I saw it, the shadows rippling like they were being torn apart."Get down!" Caius roared, the kingly mask shattering. He didn't just move; he blurred. He grabbed me by the waist and hauled me behind a thick stone pillar just as a silver-tipped blade whistled through the air, missing my head by an inch. The knife buried itself into the stone with a sickening thwack, buzzing like a damn hornet’s nest. Caius turned into a storm of violence. His eyes weren't just red; they were hellfire. He didn't even glance back at me. He just lunged, a dark shadow detaching from the gloom. The attacker was fast too fast for human eyes but Caius was a

The peace we bought with all that blood at the gala lasted exactly two days. By the third morning, the whole estate felt off the air was ice, and the shadows stretched out like they were trying to grab me. I was in the library, trying to make sense of the cryptic scrolls Caius left for me, when the big oak doors groaned open.I didn't have to look to know it wasn't him. The room filled with this sickly, heavy scent of hothouse orchids and rot."So, you're the little human who broke the court." The voice sounded like silk over broken glass. A woman was standing in the doorway. She was drop-dead gorgeous, with skin like moonlight and eyes that shifted gold like a storm. She was wearing a dress made of spider-silk that seemed to squirm on its own, and she carried herself with that lethal, ancient vibe."Who are you?" I snapped, closing the scroll. I kept my hand near the dagger hidden at my hip."I’m Lysandra," she said, drifting closer. She looked at the books, then at me, like I was