Breakout: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Academy Bully Romance (Royals of Sanguine Vampire Academy Book 3) Read online

  Breakout

  Royals of Sanguine Vampire Academy Book 3

  Sofia Daniel

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  23. Epilogue

  From Sofia Daniel

  Copyright © 2019 by Sofia Daniel.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Want teasers for upcoming books? Join my reader group, Sofia’s Study Group.

  www.SofiaDaniel.com

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Nobody moved.

  I trembled from my hiding place under a dining table, still wrapped in that bundle of ropes.

  A moment ago, I thought Lady Mantis would kill me for having broken out of the knocker enchantment, but this last-minute appearance of the hunters had saved my life.

  Right now, I didn’t know whether to hug Zarah for bringing reinforcements or to wring her neck for unleashing the vampires’ predators. I still wasn’t clear how much time had passed since I had been turned into a knocker.

  With Nero and Dante currently imprisoned and likely still suffering from wounds inflicted by infrared weapons, I was certain the appearance of the hunters was going to make things worse.

  A chuckle broke through the silence. I twisted around and fixed my gaze on Radu, the very first frumosi, my great-great-great-times-whatever grandfather. The man’s golden hair tumbled down his shoulders in the same tight ringlets as Dracula’s.

  But where Dracula’s features screamed fierce masculinity, Radu’s were soft and feminine. Long, tawny lashes curled out from large, blue eyes with enough red in them to appear violet. He wrinkled his straight, thin nose and curled his pouting lips into a smirk.

  On a man with a slight figure, the face might have looked charming, but Radu stood nearly six-and-a-half-feet tall and was broader and bulkier than any of the vampire guards.

  An over-inflated man with a monstrously beautiful face.

  Nobody spoke.

  It was as if the mention of his name had struck everyone dumb. After all those frightening Hunters 101 classes, I wasn’t surprised.

  Captain Tanar and the others at the head table lowered their weapons, seeming to have given up all attempts of trying to fight against Radu’s might.

  Rocking back and forth on her heels, Zarah turned and faced the frumosi students, who also cowered under their dining tables. “We’re safe,” she said, her voice high with delight. “I’ve brought more of our kind. They’re going to free us.”

  Nobody crawled out to rejoice.

  Zarah spoke louder. “From now on, vampires will fear frumosi and not the other way around!”

  I grimaced at her proclamation. Something about it rang untrue.

  Radu turned to the female warriors at his side. “Subdue the vampires.” His voice was as soft as a woman’s, but it just made him sound more sinister. “We will hunt for those who escaped.”

  “Wait!” Captain Tanar stepped forward. “The Sanguine Academy belongs to Lord Dracula, and all vampires within it are under his protection.”

  Radu’s lips stretched into an inhumanly wide grin. He flicked his head at the woman on his right. “Remember him, Justine?”

  “Of course, I do.” She removed her helmet and let it clatter to the floor.

  Gasps filled the room.

  I craned my neck and peered up at a head that had been sliced from brow to ear. Her left eye was missing, as were all the bone and flesh that had surrounded it. My throat convulsed with shock. How on earth could anyone survive with a third of their head missing?

  Justine’s single, green eye glowered at Captain Tanar, and her lips curled back into a snarl.

  The female hunter raised her hands, each finger releasing streams of brilliant light that lit up her face like the sun shining on a buttercup.

  My breath quickened. I didn’t need a history lesson to know Captain Tanar had inflicted this terrible wound. But would she kill the vampire or make him suffer?

  “Retreat!” snarled Captain Tanar.

  Vampires rushed toward the doors that led to the kitchens. I twisted around under my table to watch them leave, just as light formed barriers around them. They were the same kind of light Justine had shot from her fingertips.

  Someone by the barrier screamed, the scent of burning flesh filling the air. But it was nothing compared to the blood-curdling screech of Captain Tanar as his knees hit the ground.

  A circle of light spun around his head. The older vampire pulled at it with his gloved hands, but it burned through his leather and into his flesh.

  “Stop this,” cried the captain. “I surrender!”

  “Not until I dish out the pain you inflicted on dozens of my kin!” snarled Justine.

  Captain Tanar’s screams curdled and twisted my insides, making me feel pity for the vampire, despite his reputation and despite the pain and humiliation, he had inflicted on Miss Margolyes.

  No one deserved such prolonged torture, but Justine laughed like a madwoman every time the captain implored her to stop the torment.

  I rolled out from under the table to get a better look at the magic. It was the color of a candle-flame with a stream running through the middle as incandescent as the sun.

  Was this what the onion woman had been teaching me when she told me to set the paper alight with my mind?

  A pang of guilt struck at my heart. This was much like the time I had set Dante’s hair alight. Except Dante had escaped my clutches, and Justine knew how to twist and bend and control her magic to keep the captain alive and suffering.

  “You bastard!” screeched a voice from the direction of the head table.

  Miss Margolyes sprinted from around the back of the dining room, barefoot and still clad in her skimpy bikini top and loincloth. She tripped over my trembling form, landed on her hands and knees, then cast me a dirty look.

  I scowled back. Did Miss Margolyes think I’d made her fall on purpose?

  Once she righted herself, she sprinted over to the captain’s screaming, writhing form and kicked him in the chest with her barefoot.

  “You miserable excuse for a vampire,” she screeched. “Things will be different for me now that the hunters are in charge.”

  Radu turned to Justine, who shrugged. With a flick of her finger, she shoved Miss Margolyes aside.

  A shocked breath escaped my lungs. How on earth had she done that? It was time for me to get out of these restraints. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pushed all my magic into my fingers and set fire to the ropes around my hand. The scent of burning stung my nostrils, but it was nothing compared to the stench of cooked vampire flesh.

  The ropes around my hands and hips came loose. I sat up and pulled the others free.

  “You.” Radu strolled through
the tables, his violet eyes fixed on my cringing form. “Why is a knocker lucid enough to escape her bonds?”

  My heart flip-flopped like a dying fish. Of all the people to have noticed me, why did it have to be the most powerful hunter? I still didn’t entirely know how I’d gotten free. It had something to do with the onion woman keeping Gates and me in a room while she forced garlic and goodness-knows-what down my throat.

  I flapped my mouth open and closed, trying to think up something plausible. The onion woman would never forgive me if I told Radu of her existence. Her time with Dracula had given her a fear and disgust of hunters that I was beginning to understand.

  Zarah ran to Radu’s side. “This is Alicia Stephens, the girl who helped me escape.”

  I held my breath, hoping this revelation wouldn’t earn me even more unwanted attention.

  “Indeed?” Radu reached down, wrapped a meaty arm around my shoulder, and pulled me to my feet. “The vampires turned you into a knocker as punishment?”

  My gaze flickered to Zarah, who nodded, her way of telling me it was safe to talk.

  “I’m in trouble for a lot of things,” I whispered.

  Zarah chuckled. “Alicia’s the most rebellious frumosi in the academy. They set werewolves on her and turned her into a blood whore, but she still managed to help me escape and find you.”

  I stared at the floor, my insides cringing with a mix of annoyance and dread. Didn’t Zarah realize that her skewed version of events would turn me into the enemy of every vampire in the room?

  She’d completely glossed over having blackmailed me and then left behind information that implicated me in the murder of Micalla. And now she was phrasing events to make it look like I’d sent her out in the world to find the hunters.

  Although Captain Tanar continued thrashing within his ball of fire and filled the air with screams, I didn’t have a single doubt that every vampire’s attention was on Radu and the bullshit Zarah was currently spouting.

  “How did you break your knocker enchantment?” asked Radu. “Do not lie, or I will know.”

  Fixing my gaze on the burgundy armor covering his broad chest, I whispered, “They put me in a room and filled it with gas that made me unconscious. The next thing I knew, I was outside and close to the wards.”

  Before Radu could order me to elaborate, Captain Tanar slumped on the ground, silent.

  A knot formed in my stomach. Both in fear for myself and for fear that the only person with experience in fighting hunters was probably dead.

  “Justine, you may release Tanar,” said Radu.

  She thickened the stream of light emerging from her fingertips. “But he—”

  “Release him,” he said with more bite in his voice.

  The female hunter flicked her fingers, and the ball of light around the captain’s head burst into bright sparks that spread toward the walls. A few of the sparks hit the vampires, who let out pained gasps.

  Once my eyes readjusted from the flare, I dropped my gaze to the captain, whose face was a blackened mess.

  Tutting at the state of Captain Tanar, Radu turned away from me.

  All the tension around my lungs loosened, allowing me to exhale.

  “Vampire elites.” Radu stalked back to the middle of the room, his massive arms spread wide. “I am Lord Radu, the being who Dracula fears, the great legend who keeps the likes of Stryx and Lilin hiding in their vampire kingdoms.”

  Zarah nudged me on the side and beamed.

  I forced my features from twisting into a grimace. What did she want from me? A round of applause?

  Her smile faded, and I turned back to Radu, wondering if I was ungrateful. The arrival of the hunters now meant that I wouldn’t become the mate of Captain Tanar or Dracula, but the dread rolling through my gut told me that it meant something worse.

  “Resist me,” Radu said in that soft, slippery voice. “And you will face two outcomes.”

  The second female hunter removed her helmet, revealing golden hair the exact shade of Radu’s. “The first outcome is a torturous existence, much like Captain Tanar. His just reward for hurting many of our brethren over the centuries.”

  I glanced over at the captain, who appeared dead. Since he hadn’t turned into a pile of ash, I guessed that the first female hunter had caused him maximum pain in retribution for slicing off part of her head.

  “The second outcome is the fate shared by the warriors in red.” She smirked. “Would anyone like a demonstration?”

  Nobody replied.

  “You, in the red armor.” The blonde hunter pointed at one of the guards who had attacked Nero with an infrared weapon. “Step forward.”

  Lady Mantis’ guard shuffled back.

  Radu chuckled. “Renée, stop playing with your food.”

  Renée threw her arm back like a fisherman casting his rod flung a rope of light at the guard. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the room and plunged a dagger in her chest.

  My heart jumped into my throat, and I clapped both hands over my mouth. Next to me, Zarah gasped.

  Instead of blood, light emerged from Renée’s wound.

  The guard in red jumped back toward the head table.

  Renée sneered, and with a loud, whip-like crack, the rope of white light wrapped around the vampire’s neck. He screamed and tried to pull at the restraint, but his fingers kept slipping through.

  My heart quickened. These hunters were Frumosi, just like us. Except they had mastered their magic to a level I couldn’t even conceive.

  A heartbeat later, the guard burst into a cloud of ashes.

  Renée turned to the vampires cowering behind the head table and to the vampire students pressed against the walls. “That’s the second outcome of resisting up.”

  “Aren’t they great, Alicia?” Zarah whispered.

  My throat dried, and I gulped several times. When Commander Shanks and his colleague had snatched me from the Velvet Lounge, they’d murdered several girls in the bathroom and then filled the club with poisonous gas. They were murderers, and so were these hunters who had killed to prove their dominance.

  Radu gave me a dazzling smile. “Alicia Stephens? Are we not great?”

  Fear lanced through my stomach, its impact making me jerk forward. My chest clenched in sympathy, restricting my lungs. To avoid the hunter’s wrath, I gave him a frantic nod.

  He turned back to the vampires. “From this day forth, you will wear my collar. All those who refuse will be incinerated.”

  Radu stretched out his arms, and the hunters at the doors advanced in different directions, handing out thin, metal torcs that reminded me of the silver choker Mom used to wear whenever my stepfather, Steve, took her out to dinner. I paused, waiting for the rush of grief, but nothing happened.

  My shoulders slumped. What a pity Mom had shut me out of the family after remarrying. Things had gotten so bad when Daniel had been born that I had spent most of my time sitting miserably in my sparsely furnished room.

  It took several moments for every vampire in the room to put on a torc, and Justine shoved one on an unconscious Captain Tanar’s neck.

  Radu beckoned back Renée and Justine to the middle of the room. At the return of his two companions, they all clasped their hands.

  “Shall we see which unworthy vampires have chosen to die?” he asked.

  “What’s happening?” I whispered to Zarah.

  “It’s going to be magnificent,” she replied in the tone of voice of a girl who didn’t have a clue.

  The trio of hunters raised their arms, sending streams of incandescent light upward. It stretched across the ceiling, spreading the kind of sunlight I’d only ever experienced in early summer.

  Squinting, I tried to shield my eyes from the glare. This was dire. If vampires suffered severe sunburn during the day, how would they fare under this kind of attack? More importantly, what had happened to Dante, Nero, and Raphael?

  As soon as I got the chance, I would have to find them. Dante and Nero still hadn
’t completed the mating bonds, which meant they were still soulless and still susceptible to the sun.

  A few vampires around the rooms burst into ashes. Others shoved on their torcs, which looked like it offered protection from the murderous light.

  Moments later, the light faded, and dust swirled around the dining room, reducing the number of vampires by a third. I looked out for the ones I knew—Nathan and Juno. They huddled at the wall looking deathly pale, but with the torcs around their necks.

  The knockers stood unmoving around the dining room, some of them holding jugs of sangria now covered in a layer of ash.

  “I told you they were great,” said Zarah.

  A lump formed in my throat. There were no words to describe this carnage. No way for me to process the mass murder of vampires who had done nothing except try to maintain their freedom.

  “Very good.” Radu gave the surviving vampires a round of applause. “You obedient few will nourish us for an eternity.”

  “What about all the frumosi?” Justine gestured at the frightened students cowering under the tables of the frumosi side of the room.

  “Each will undergo an assessment. Only those dedicated enough to learn our ways will join our ranks. The rest will be discarded.”

  “What does that mean?” I whispered to Zarah.

  She raised her chin. “Lord Radu is here to set us free. Anyone who doesn’t want to join us can return home.”

  My mouth opened and clicked shut. Either the hunters had done something to Zarah’s mind, or she had utterly deluded herself. Nothing in Radu’s words had indicated that he would set anyone free.

  If I didn’t find where the vampires had imprisoned the Stryx brothers, they would become the food of the hunters. Or die.