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Vampire and Prey
by lookimacloud
Chapter
A New Prisoner
After her confrontation with Ginny, Hermione started straight to her rooms. She desperately needed time to think, away from the chaos of her life. She didn't get two feet out of Draco's sight however, when Annabell, tugging at the hem of her black day-dress, assailed her. "My Queen you must have blood with me." She clamored, excitement radiating from her.
Hermione looked down at her step-daughter. "Please call me Hermione, Annabell. I will never be Queen to you. I might need to act like a substitute mother every now and again but I will never be Queen."
"Then what shall I call you Queen? Hermione is too personal for me to call you because you are bonded to the King."
"Hermione," she persisted, "or if you are comfortable enough, you could call me Mother."
"I never knew my mother." Annabell whispered on a sad sigh.
"Now, what was it you wanted, lovely?" Hermione tugged at Annabell's pigtail to pull her out of her melancholy.
"I want you to have blood with me mother." The little girl urged with a smile.
"Alright... lead the way." Hermione had no idea what the child was talking about, but she figured that this was as perfect a time as any to learn all she could about her new family. Besides, if she thought anymore about Ginny's depressing situation then her head might explode.
Annabell held onto her hand and led her all the way out into the streets, through the market, and back to the place where they had first met several hours ago, the park's garden. The child had set up a magnificent tea table with two wicker-woven chairs. She had placed a makeshift lace tablecloth over the table and even went so far as to place china on top of that. "Oh Anna it's beautiful. How did you manage all of this?"
"I asked Mandala to help me. She told me that she would and she did. I put the things on the table though."
"Mandala is a very busy servant." She commented offhandedly, thinking about the times she'd heard of the many accomplishments the woman had. "So what is it you want to talk about over our…blood, Anna?"
"Only the King has ever called me Anna." She said wistfully.
"Do you mind being called that or do you want to be called Annabell?"
"Oh no that is all right mother. It is just that nobody but you and the King have ever liked me enough to call me that. Everyone else thinks that I am a curse."
"No they don't. I am sure that you are exaggerating."
"No, really, mother. Ever since I was born I have been looked at as cursed." Hermione sat down at the table and picked up the glass in front of her to sip from it. It tasted wonderful, but, she realized, it wasn't just blood. She also realized that she had broken her fast but she figured that it didn't really matter since Draco had helped her with that earlier. "Anna what is this?" she asked off topic.
"Chocolate and rabbit's blood." She announced. "I really don't like tea-blood and I know that this isn't the best blood but it was the best that I could get so fast."
Hermione hid her surprise by sipping again. "When we are done with our…chocolate-blood, you must show me where your room is."
"Why?"
"Because I might want to visit you sometime and I would like to know where to go."
"You could always tell the guard. The solder would get me for you mother. You don't need to be walking so much because of the babe. The solder would get me."
"You sound like your father and very grown up for your age." She said smiling.
"How am I supposed to sound?" Annabell asked confused, momentarily sidetracked from her goal to get her stepmother to take care of herself.
"Well I don't know. Not so very worldly." She announced. "Human children your age are not this advanced in their thinking or language."
"Are human children twenty-seven years old? I believe that I am older than you mother."
She was right. Suddenly Hermione felt like an outsider. Draco's own daughter was older than his wife!
Her startled expression must have shown quite plainly on her face because Annabell suddenly leaped out of her chair and ran across towards her. "Mama! I am sorry. Was it something that I said? Is it the babe? Should I go and get Daddy?" she cried. Hermione sat stone-faced and didn't respond. Annabell looked wildly about her and then ran off in the direction of the castle.
There were just too many shocking things happening to her today. Hermione thought. She'd found out that Ginny was doomed to the same fate, no matter what she tried to do to save her. She'd found out that Draco would refuse to love her under any circumstances. She'd found out that she had a daughter, and now, she realized that her daughter was in fact, older than she. All she could do was think. She was right in thinking that Ginny couldn't be saved. She was sure that what Draco had said was true, that her baby would be born into a loveless marriage. And she was sure that her daughter was smarter than she, a blow to her pride and new motherly role.
Hermione was so wrapped in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the man who had come out from behind the bushes.
After the dismissal of his men, Draco invited Gabriel to the library to muse. "We should have a secret word that only we know about. That way when she says that it was an order I gave her, you could ask for the password." Both men laughed. Draco found his Queen's cunning charming, if not immensely annoying. "I should just order that damn ring to make her stay out of my business." He considered. "Still, I want her to feel at least some freedom here."
"You are very kind to your Queen your Majeste." Gabriel chimed in. "She was very convincing when she petitioned to me about her friend. If it wasn't your plan to begin with King, than I probably would have fallen for it anyway."
"I know. And that is what scares me."
"King, King." Annabell called from on the other side of the door. She was banging on the door so hard that Draco was sure she would hurt herself.
"Allow entrance." He commanded the guard outside. Annabell burst through the opening and ran to him. She threw herself into his arms, not caring about the audience they had and whispered into his ear loud enough to wake the dead, "It's Mama, Daddy. Something is wrong with her. She was as still as stone when I left her and she wouldn't talk to me. I asked her if it was the babe but she didn't answer."
Draco was out the door before anyone could stop him. "Where is she Anna?" He demanded.
"In the park gardens."
"My Queen." The man bowed. "I heard that you are looking for a bedding partner. I am here to apply for the position."
Hermione looked at him without saying a word.
"I believe that I could pleasure you Your Majeste. His Majeste wouldn't ever have to know if you are scared about that possibility. But I don't know why you should be since it is your right." The man knelt down next to the chair Hermione sat in and took her hand. "What think you?" he asked.
Hermione stared at the man trying to weasel his way into her bed. "No I don't believe that you have heard correctly Sir." She replied, looking the heavy man in his beady eyes. "I will not be taking lovers until after my child is born." She lied. "You are wasting your time." She said honestly.
"Well then, at least let me audition like the rest of them." He said getting bolder by the minute with no solders coming to take him away.
"No I don't believe so.'
Then without warning, the man grabbed a hold of her and lifted her out of her chair.
"What do you think that you are doing? Put me down now you bastard."
"I am not a bastard Queen. My name is Ferdinand."
Oh hell, she thought "I order you as your Queen to put me down or I will call my guards."
"They aren't here though are they? No need to get commanding on me. I just want to get to know you better." He started to walk into the trees with her lopsided in his beefy arms.
"Your King will hear about this."
"Bosh. The only thing he will hear, is about my elevated status as your lover. And he will thank me for pleasing you. He will give me the land then because I will outrank all of the others he would otherwise have to consider."
"What are you talking about?" Hermione demanded.
"Man's business Your Majeste." He said.
"You will explain this man's business to me. I am your Queen and the decision of who I take to my bed is mine."
"Not if I take that away from you." The man said. "Now don't look at me like that Queen. You will like what I will do in the end and beg me to become your lover."
'Are you planning to rape me?" she asked horrified by her thoughts and the up until now, un-thought-of possibility.
"No Your Majeste. I would never rape you. I am just going to make you want me. That would not be rape."
"It is in my book. Now put me down!" she shouted to the vile man. He just grinned down at her trapped form. Hermione started to struggle then. She slapped him and wiggled in his hold, she even scraped her nails along his face hoping to draw blood. Then she realized that he was a vampire not a human being. He couldn't bleed. And he had the strength of twenty muscle builders. What could she do?
Hermione screamed. The man cursed quite fluidly and held her mouth closed with his hand. It was then that Hermione acknowledged that she was trapped. No matter what she did to the man, he would not be in the least fazed. The man walked and he walked and when he stopped walking, they were at a small cabin set far from the village, surrounded by trees. Hermione instantly knew that someone abandoned this cabin and that nobody would find her here.
"You don't have to worry about anything Queen. I just want my fair shot is all. I want to make you like me."
"At this moment I would like to kill you. And the only way that that emotion would change is if you suddenly showed me the way back to the village."
"I will take you there myself Queen after my fair trial." The man opened the cabin's door and stepped into it. He set her down on the dusty bed, then stalked back to close and lock the door.
Hermione realized, as she looked around, that there was no way out of the small cabin. She saw a window on the far end of the cabin but she knew that it was a long shot and that she would just make this man furious if he caught her trying to escape. He was acting like kidnapping one's Queen was not against the law and punishable by, she didn't know, but it wasn't good. Then she had another thought, what if this was okay in this vampire world? How that could be possible, once again she didn't know, but she wouldn't put it past them to not have any laws, theirs being a perfect society and all. She got the chills.
"This is ridiculous. I refuse you as my lover and there is not going to be any way that you will change my mind. Your King is the only one who will ever touch me and that will be only when he isn't being a stubborn, highbred butt—" Hermione paused. "King." She amended. "Now you butthead, I order you to let me go."
"Do not you wish to at least taste me Majeste?" the man asked, clearly disappointed. His eyes were downcast and he was creaping toward her as if there were a possibility that if he didn't look at her she would change her mind.
Hermione was on the verge of saying hell no, but thought better of it and settled for a weak but efficient "No." He stopped, standing directly in front of her, and looked into her eyes. Hermione stood up from the bed and almost laughed when she realized that the devil was almost four inches shorter than her.
"I still feel that we could have something." He said. 'I need that land." Hermione had a moment to catch her breath before he grabbed her about the shoulders and pulled her into a kiss.
Draco ran for what seemed like forever. He could not figure out why he felt like something was wrong but it seemed that ever since he had left the castle she had been sending him mental distress signals. She had not sent him those since she had first become a vampire and was unsure about whether she should believe in it. This was a distressing sign in itself because in order for Draco to receive these signals his life-mate would have to be nearly or completely panicked. "This is where I left her King."
Draco set Annabell down. He searched the entire flower planted area for his Queen. "Where was she exactly?"
"She was sitting in this chair as still as stone when I left King."
"And where were the solders watching you two?" he demanded.
"Getting yelled at by you King. And Mandala would have been with us but she went to feed our enemy."
"I fed my Queen the woman's lunch." Draco remembered. He sighed to himself in understanding. "Very well. Let's find her." He kissed his bondage ring and whispered into it.
Hermione struggled and struggled to be free of her ravisher. She kneed him in the groin, pulled on his ears, and even slapped him until she got tired of it. Nothing worked. Her fight soon began to wear down and she had a hard time even concentrating on her goal. Just when her situation began to look hopeless a harsh voice whispered inside her mind. This annoying voice began repeating itself as she tried to focus in on it. It kept fading into the distance and coming back again persistently. It was telling her to, it was telling her to…oh, she didn't know. But she did know that she wanted to bite the man in the neck.
Hermione wiggled herself in the man's hold and, surprisingly enough, he thought she had a sudden change of mind and his hold on her slackened just a bit, his hands now roaming her body. It was enough. Hermione eased her way around to one side of him and then stared into his passion filled eyes. The man stood still and grinned at her. She grinned back. She reached her arms around her queen-napper and pressed close to him. She didn't know if she would even be able to pierce the creep considering the fact that vampires were supposed to be impenetrable, but she had this nagging feeling that it was the best thing in the world to do under the circumstances.
When the man leaned forward to kiss her, she kissed the butthead back to make him think that he had her total compliance. Then, as he let her have some more free room to explore him as he was exploring her, she eased her way around his beefy neck and stuck her fangs into his flesh. His flesh did not pierce, but some sort of venom shot from her teeth causing the little man to collapse onto the ground in a dead faint. Hermione did not waste time; she picked up her skirts and ran out of the cabin. Draco! He had to have been the one telling her how to stop the man. Being faced with those queasy feelings again told her all that she needed to know. Draco had been the one to make her attack her boss and Draco had been the one to tell her how to defend herself. The only thought on her mind now was 'thank God for that damned controlling ring'.
Hermione ran and ran until she needed to stop for breath. When running became too tiring and she felt safe for the time being, she started walking and looking at her surroundings. She was still deep in some kind of a forest. She continually had to step over fallen logs and make sure that she didn't trip on the mossy earth-ground. She was, of course, completely lost. Everywhere she looked there were trees. Hermione did a quick twirl-around and sighed. It was then that she remembered her savior. Maybe, she thought, if Draco could order her, then she could order him. It was a long shot, but considering that men in this world dominated their women, there was a chance that this damn ring had some kind of distress signal to call the tall, strong, and arrogant.
Hermione glanced at the ring's ruby incrusted frame and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Draco! I order you to come and get me." That sounded like living without gravity, totally impossible. The damned butthead probably made it so that only she was forced to take orders. She sat on a fat log and threatened, "If you don't come and get me then I will sit here for all eternity and sulk. Yeah, that's right. I will raise our baby right here and never move the entire time. And when the baby asks who his father is I am going to tell him that his father is the one who left us here." Satisfied with her threats Hermione made herself comfortable.
Standing on the other side of a bush across the way, a dark presence stared at his Queen. He had heard every word of what she had shouted into the looming night. Funny that. She actually thought that he would hear and obey her. He was just lucky that the woman had decided to shout her words instead of whisper them or it might have taken him hours to find her. After he had her safely behind the castle walls, he would assist his guards in showing her abductor no mercy.
He had his men searching miles for even the impossibility that she might have been taken outside the castle walls. It may have taken him a full day and night to find her on his own had she not demanded at the top of her lungs that he fetch her. Draco, at that moment, was grateful that he had the ring's power. Without it his Queen would have most likely been in a situation that he couldn't help her with. He silently laughed to himself on the thought that his Queen was probably as stubborn as he when it came to self-determinations. This meant that she would probably do just as she had said and sit on that log until it disintegrated enough to force her to find a new one. He looked at her pale face from his hidden spot. She looked tired and in desperate need of a bath. He watched as she fiddled with her ring and with a few leaves she'd picked up from the millions soon to be covered in snow and frost. She looked angelic. Draco stepped out from behind his haven and started walking toward her. He had no idea what he was going to say; he just felt this great urge to touch her.
The moment Hermione heard leaves crackle she jumped looking around herself worriedly for the possible threat. When she saw him she smiled. Without thought, Hermione ran to Draco on winged feet, just glad to be in his arms again. "What took you so long you arrogant butthead?" she whispered against his ear as she sniffed in his scent. Draco always smelled of spicy sandalwood. She wrapped her arms around his neck tightly, but squeezed gently.
"Had a hard time following a certain 'wife' of mine who had the bad taste to become easy prey."
"I love you Draco." She whispered.
Draco said nothing more, but picked her tired form up into his arms to carry her home. What she'd said scared the hell out of him. She couldn't love him because he refused to lose her. He had to make this right. Draco started planning. He would take care of her abductor and then he would take care of her love.
Author's Note: I would like to thank the following readers for reviewing my last chapter.
Sapphireuncovered0123
voldyismyfather
Lonely-Soul-Crying-Heart
StarrCrystal
TimeBringsTruth
I know that this chapter is short and has been a long time in coming, but that is what a lost muse and two jobs will do to me. If you like or even love this story, then please let me know by commenting. Comments are the only muse I need right now. The same goes for any of my other stories.