1. Casandra
Author's note:
Hey everyone ❤️
Before you start reading this story, I'd like to mention that this is the second part in the Crowned series. You can find the first part complete on my profile: Crowned in blood: Fated to the enemy.
This is not a stand-alone and you have to read the first part before starting this one.
If you already read the first part and you enjoyed it, please leave a review.
If you're enjoying this story, please react, comment and review. It means so much! ❤️
BTW - the theme song I had when writing this was Billie Eilish - You should see me in a crown.
Hugs!
-Bee
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My eyelids feel like they are stitched shut, glued together by a thick, heavy fog that refuses to lift from my brain. When I finally manage to force them open, the world doesn’t rush in. It creeps. Everything is blurry, a smudged canvas of dark grays and deep shadows. My tongue tastes like iron and dust, and every breath I take feels like dragging sandpaper through my lungs.
I try to move my hands to rub my eyes, but I don’t even get them an inch off the floor.
A sharp, biting hiss escapes my teeth as a familiar, agonizing burn flares in my wrists. I blink rapidly, forcing my vision to focus on the cold, heavy metal.
Silver.
Silver cuffs are chained tightly to my wrists, biting into the skin, and when I shift my legs, the same heavy clinking sounds from my ankles. The metal eats at my flesh, sending a low, constant vibration of static through my nervous system. I close my eyes and reach deep inside myself, searching for the spark of speed, or the unnatural strength that usually thrums beneath my skin.
Nothing.
The silver acts like a neutralizer, turning my power off and leaving me with nothing but the fragile, aching limits of a human body. It doesn’t surprise me. Silver does that to our kind — it not only burns our skin, but also dampens the magic in our blood, and turns us into sitting ducks.
I take a slow, trembling breath and force myself to look around, mapping out the space. The floor beneath me is solid, uneven stone, freezing cold against my skin. I’m sitting in a square room, roughly ten by ten. Three walls are concrete, damp with moisture that trickles down from invisible cracks above. The fourth wall is made of iron bars, spaced just far enough apart for a man to look through, but tight enough to keep anything from slipping past.
A cell.
As the fog in my head begins to clear, the silence of the room is suddenly shattered by a rush of memory. The dam breaks, and the events of the dining hall hit me with the force of a physical blow.
The shattering glass. The splintered doors. The chaos of snapping jaws and howling wolves.
And then... the daggers.
My breath catches in my throat, a suffocating knot forming in my chest as the visual replays behind my eyelids. There are only two ways to kill a vampire. Decapitation, or a silver dagger straight through the heart. The two men in tactical gear didn’t hesitate. They didn’t miss. I remember the exact sound of the blades piercing flesh, the sudden, violent freezing of my parents’ expressions, and then the horrific, unnatural crumbling.
They turned to ash. Right in front of me.
In the dining hall, where they stood as untouchable monarchs just seconds prior, there was nothing left but two gray piles of dust. There is no coming back from that. No healing factor can reassemble ash. They are gone.
A tear slips down my cheek, burning hot against my cold skin, but I violently wipe it away against my shoulder. I can’t afford to break. Not now.
My mind frantically shifts to my brother. When the doors blew off their hinges, I had caught a glimpse of him. The raw panic of a child watching his world turn to ash. He is just a kid. For all his arrogance and royal breeding, he is still just a little boy.
My feelings toward him are complicated but the thought of him being hurt makes a protective, vicious snarl rise in my throat. I look around the empty, dark cell, my heart hammering against my ribs. I can only pray he isn’t locked in a cage like this one.
A heavy, metallic thud echoes from somewhere down the corridor outside my line of sight.
I go completely rigid, pressing my back against the wall. The sound of footsteps follows—slow, deliberate, and entirely unbothered. The heavy soles of leather boots click against the stone floor, growing louder with every passing second.
A figure steps out of the shadows, stopping directly in front of the iron bars of my cell.
The dim light catches the sharp lines of his jaw and the perfectly styled silver-blonde hair.
Lukas.
He stands there for a moment, looking down at me with an expression of amusement. The warm, friendly facade he usually wears at the academy is completely gone, replaced by a dark, triumphant grin that makes my stomach turn. He doesn’t look like a student playing at politics anymore. He looks like a victor surveying his prize.
Without saying a word, Lukas reaches into the pocket of his tailored trousers and pulls out a heavy iron key. He slides it into the lock of the cell door, turning it with a slow, deliberate click. He pushes the door open and steps inside.
He crosses the small distance between us, his movements smooth and predatory, before dropping to one knee in front of me. Though the silver burns me, I pull away, pressing myself harder against the wall, but the chains restrict me.
Lukas reaches out, his long, pale fingers sliding up my neck to gently caress my cheek. His touch is warm, but it feels like ice against my skin.
I am too shocked, too entirely paralyzed by the sheer audacity of his presence, to say anything. The words are stuck in my throat, choked out by a mixture of grief and boiling rage.
“Look at you,” Lukas murmurs, his voice a rich, smooth baritone that carries a terrifyingly soft edge. He tilts his head, his glacial eyes scanning my pale face. “If only you would have accepted me, Casandra. If only you had listened when I offered you a partnership.”
My jaw works, my voice finally cutting through the shock, rough and raspy. “Why?” I spit out, glare fixing onto his. “Why did you do this?”
Lukas lets out a short, mocking laugh, standing up and taking a step back, throwing his hands out to indicate the cell, the castle, the entire ruined world outside.
“Why?” he echoes, his grin widening into something cruel. “Because it’s finally time. It’s time for your kind to pay for what you’ve done to us.” He steps closer again, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, fanatical light. “Some might call it a rebellion, Casandra. But we call it a revolution. We are taking our power back. All of it.”
I grit my teeth, the silver chains digging deeper into my wrists as I slam my feet against the stone. “My family helped you!” I shout, my voice echoing off the walls.
The moment the words leave my mouth, Lukas’s expression shifts. The amusement vanishes, replaced by a sudden, terrifying flash of anger.
“Helped us?” Lukas snarls, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low frequency that vibrates in my chest. “Your family didn’t help us until thousands of wolves were already dead in the dirt! They sat in the comfort of their palace and watched us bleed until it was convenient for them to step in.” He leans in close, his face inches from mine, his breath warm against my skin. “And they only helped so that they could gain power. Your father had a hell of a lot to gain by allying himself with the wolves in the end. He didn’t do it because he cared about the wolves, Casandra. He did it because he wanted a crown.”
“Go to hell,” I whisper, staring directly into his glacial eyes, refusing to let him see the fear creeping into the edges of my mind.
Lukas stares at me for a long, silent moment, the anger slowly draining from his features, replaced once again by that infuriating, smooth smile. He reaches down, his fingers lightly brushing a strand of dark hair away from my forehead.
“I might,” he purrs softly. “But I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with you before I do.”
He stands up to his full height, dusting off the knees of his trousers with a casual, neat flick of his wrist. “If you had just listened to me, if you had chosen me as a partner when I gave you the chance, I could have executed my plans without hurting you. You would have been by my side. But you had to reject me.”
He walks back toward the open cell door, stopping at the threshold to look back over his shoulder.
“I could have killed you in that dining hall, you know,” Lukas says, his tone conversational, as if he were discussing the weather. “It would have been much cleaner. But I don’t want you dead just yet. I want to play with you first.”
He offers me one last, cruel smile, the heavy iron door swinging shut between us with a deafening clang. He slides the key into the lock, turning it securely.
“I’m going to kill you!” I scream, my voice cracking with the sheer volume of my fury. I throw my body forward against the chains, the silver tearing into my wrists, ignoring the blinding pain as I stare at his retreating back.
Lukas doesn’t stop walking. He just looks back over his shoulder, his silver-blonde hair catching the dim light of the corridor one last time.
“You can try, Cass,” he calls back, his voice fading into the shadows. “You can certainly try.”
