Ileus grunted. “Blood sucking bastards! Ever since Lazarus, the king of Wilyra died, his subjects are finding it difficult to find blood to quench their thirst. Some of them have turned rogue. It’s a mess,” Ileus sighed. Rogue vampires were creating havoc throughout the Lore. They were worse than the winged demons. “Once they sink their teeth in you, they suck you dry.” His hand clutched her arm through the fur. “Though you wouldn’t have been as affected. You would have ended up as his blood slave. He would have captured you and taken away.” He shuddered. He didn’t tell her that there was a chance that she would have also turned into a vampire.

Anastasia was shaken to the core. “Are there many… vampires… around us?” she asked hesitantly, hoping the answer was no. She could have gotten herself into a much bigger problem.

“I don’t know, but the situation is terrible.”

“How did Lazarus die?” she asked with a yawn. His heat was again affecting her senses. And his smell—why did it soothe her? Her eyelids were growing heavy.

“At the hands of the sorceress Sedora, queen of Ixoviya. She killed him for his necklace.”

“That’s weird…” she said and rested her palm beneath her head. She didn’t realize it but she had shifted closer to him.

“Sleep Anastasia,” he said softly… and she closed her eyes. She felt the back of his hand on her cheek and she relaxed.

“I saw my parents. Were they calling me?” She said sleepily, her mind going back to her dream.

“No princess,” he said. “No one was calling you. I noticed that you were about to jump through the portal.”

“I don’t want to go back…” And princess Anastasia, slept peacefully. Little did she know that Ileus had crawled his hand beneath the fur and held hers.

Ileus woke up on his back. He opened one eye slightly and saw that the sky was already blue. Marshmallow-like clouds drifted lazily across the morning sky. He realized that a warm weight was on his body. He opened his eyes, blinked in confusion and lifted his head to look up when his lips bumped into Anastasia’s head. He stiffened and stared at the girl who was curled beneath the fur on his body. She was sleeping without a care in the world. His face and neck were cold where the fur had receded in the night, but the rest of his body was heating up like it was on fire. Anastasia’s head had lolled over his shoulder into the crook of his neck and her chest was pressed against his. Her hands were curled to her sides near her breasts and her legs were thrown over his thighs. They were perfectly entwined like two wild vines— it was as if she was from heaven. He wondered when she had climbed atop him, but it must have been when he had drifted off to a deep sleep.

His body started reacting to her and this was something he couldn’t stop. He didn’t know how to disengage himself from that situation, so he lifted his head to glance around and found that, except Kaizan who was on a watch, everyone else was sleeping. They were all too tired. The fire had dimmed to embers, which were glowing with the last of the heat.

Kaizan cast a worried glance towards him as if wondering what to do about it.

Ileus had no idea how Anastasia had snuggled up to him and ended up curled like a sleepy little kitten over him. Even though he wanted to think that this was not proper, he couldn’t think of a reason as to why it was improper. And the thought was disturbing him. He tried to ease himself out from below her as slowly as possible, but she moved her leg and it was now resting in between his thighs. He stifled an angry grunt when his shaft stirred to that movement. Where was his control? He had controlled himself all the time when he was at Vilinski. She had always been so close to him, yet he maintained his distance.

He had changed his form to resemble Kaizan before he had entered Vilinski. His year-long plan came to fruition when Anastasia couldn’t take it anymore. His patience had paid off.

He laid there as still as possible taking very slow breaths in order to calm down his emotions and his cock, but that seemed to just make things worse. Unfortunately, her hand brushed over his chest and rested on his nape and her leg moved down… and then up again over his already growing erection. Now he was in the most uncomfortable situation. He glanced over at Kaizan who had turned his gaze away and was not in the least bothered. He communicated mentally to him, ‘You can come here and help me you know.’

‘No, I don’t want Anastasia to lose such a comfortable bed,’ he replied with nonchalance. ‘She is a princess and is sleeping on the right mattress. Just don’t poke her.’

‘Damn you!’ Ileus scowled. He could have mentally communicated with all his men but that would mean embarrassment, not for him, for Anastasia.

He was pretty used to women sleeping next to him, but none had ever ended up on top of him. In fact he had never allowed anyone to do that. Even at his school and college in the human realm, where he was pursued with crazy interest due to his Adonis type looks and beautiful golden yellow eyes, he had kept his distance.

They said that he could travel in time, that he could change things in time, he had never been able to travel in time for as long as he could remember. It was only recently he had come to know that it was because of the medallion tied by a leather thread around his neck that he was prevented from travelling back in time. Apparently, his ability had become a nuisance and his parents had warned him never to remove the medallion. Else he would have used his ability to undo a lot of things. But according to Adrianna, changing history was just not done. It led to massive imbalance and disharmony.

For a long time he stayed just like that hoping for someone else to wake up and help him, but no one was waking up. Didn’t they have to attend to their daily needs? ‘Kaizan!’ he shouted at him mentally, but the man wasn’t listening.

‘Sleep Ileus,’ he replied with a sigh.

So Ileus just stayed like that—in a helpless position.