Kidnapped By The Vampire Prince

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“Seven,” I told the worker, who stooped down and pulled out a size seven pair of bowling shoes and gave them to me. I passed the money in my hand over to him. “Thank you.”

The worker smiled briefly before turning to Vincent. “Shoe size?”

“Ten.”

I threw him a surprised look. “What? Giant feet!”

He rolled his eyes. “No, that’s average for someone my size, stupid.”

“My size is average for my size too and I’m not that big!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were a guy.”

I scowled at him. “I’m not!”

“There you go. Women sizes are different than men,” he appraised me; taking the shoes the bowling ally worker was holding out to him. “Pay for me.”

“What?”

“I paid for the movies.”

Heaving an irritated huff of air, I paid for Vincent’s bowling fee. Together we made our way down to the lane on the far left of the ally. From the distance, I could make out Kai, Fiona, Joel, and Alli. When Kai caught sight of me, he waved excitedly, jogging to meet me half way. “I thought you weren’t coming to come!”

“I wouldn’t ditch,” I protested, frowning.

“You might, but he might’ve made you stay home,” Kai insisted, nodding his head toward Vincent. He lowered his voice, coming closer to me. “There’s something weird about him… Almost inhuman,”

Vincent snorted as I jerked away from Kai, my eyes widening. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Kai said innocently, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Come on, let’s go set up your names in the box.”

Vincent and I followed him to where the others were. Fiona and Joel gave both of us an enthusiastic greeting which ended with Vincent punching Joel hard enough to make him stumble backwards a few steps. Alli threw them both an amused glance before turning to me, raising an eyebrow. “Where’s Leah?”

.

.

“Jake went to pick her up,” I informed her. “They’ll be here soon.”

“What a waste of gas. You all should have just driven together.”

I looked pointedly at Vincent. “That would have probably ended up in a crash.”

She smirked. “Brother doesn’t like the bad boy?”

“At all,” I told her, letting out a small sigh. “That and Vincent doesn’t let anyone but himself drive my car.”

“Not even you?”

“Nope.”

Her face wrinkled. “What a jerk.”

“Leah!” Kai suddenly shouted, waving his arms like a maniac again. “Jake! Over here!”

Vincent shot him an annoyed look, crossing his arms over his chest. I fought back the urge to smile. Kai was loud and obnoxious (in a good way): something Vincent despised. As Jake and Leah approached, Vincent tensed, keeping his back to them. Jake made the first move, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “Well, what do you know? The hermit Vivi is out to play? Who would have thought you had an announce of socialness inside you?”

“Get off me,” he demanded, shoving Jake’s arm away.

“In a bad mood already? I hate to think what you’re attitude will be like when we start playing and I beat you.”

“Actually,” Joel interjected, flashing my brother a handsome smile. “I do believe I will be the victor here.”

Jake waved him off. “Joel, you can’t even run a lap in gym class.”

“I can. I just choose not to.”

I raised an eyebrow at Joel. “You refuse to run in gym?”

“I’d have to run like a slug,” he told me, making a face.

“You don’t run fast?” Kai asked.

I blinked, realizing Joel’s mistake. For a vampire, fast running was really fast. So running at a human pace must feel like walking incredibly slowly for him. “Come to think of it, Joel is a really slow runner…”

He forced out a laugh. “Ah, yeah. Leg problems…”

Leah gave him a pitying look. “That must really suck. So I take it you’ve never done any sports?”

“Nope.”

“Your pretty toned for not doing sports,” Jake commented. His eyes slid to Vincent. “You too.”

“I guess I’m just lucky,” Joel responded with another awkward laugh. “Anyway, shall we start playing? I’m ready to kick some ass. What are the teams?”

“We’ll split in two for each lane,” Kai suggested. “Emily and me-”

“Kai and me,” Alli interjected, shooting me a surreptitious wink, “Leah and Jake, Fiona and Joel, and Emily and Vincent.”

Joel grinned at Fiona. “We are definitely going to win.”

“Definitely!” she chirped.

For a second I debated about telling them to slip up, but decided against it. Even if they were vampires, it didn’t mean they were awesome at bowling. Kai, Leah, Alli, and I went bowling a lot. Not trying to brag or anything, but we were pretty advanced now. “We’ve got this,” I said to Vincent as we headed to our lane with Kai and Alli.

” I’ve got this,” he told me. “It’s okay if you get a gutter every ball.”

“Ha,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “We’ll see…”

.

.

As it turns out, today was not my day for bowling. Each ball I sent down the lane either hit five pins, three pins, missed them all, or went into the gutter. Luckily for me, Vincent had got a strike every time, keeping us ahead of Alli and Kai, but not by far. Kai was getting really into the game, shouting in victory every time he got a strike or spare. Vincent, on the other hand, was completely expressionless when it was his turn. Not once was there a flicker of triumph on his face with every strike he got. It was making me increasingly frustrated. We were down to three more sets before the game was over now.

“Do you best!” Kai cheered as I reached for my bowl.

I glared at him over my shoulder. “Shut up.”

He smirked. “What? I’m only cheering you on.”

“Sure,” I said doubtfully. He was probably trying to use some Jedi mind trick that would cause me to mess up. Slowly, I made my way towards the lane, holding up my eight-pound bowling ball in front of me. Before I could swing, I felt a hand on my arm. Turning, I found Vincent standing beside me. “What?” I asked.

“Swing your arm back like this,” he ordered, taking a hold of my arm gently and bringing it back in a straight line. “The ball will go in the direction you want it to.”

“Straight back?” I repeated quietly. My arm where his hand was touching me started to tingle.

He did the motion for me a few times, his hand never gripping my arm any tighter. It was one of the first times he’d touched me where it actually didn’t hurt. “You got it now?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“Do it swift and do it strong,” he said before taking a step away.

Swift and strong , I told myself. Swinging my arm back as far as I could, I brought it forward with as much force I could gather, letting it go at the second. Unfortunately, I lost my balance under the momentum, and fell over backwards, earning laughs from everyone around me. Blushing in embarrassment, I scrambled back to my feet, scowling at Alli, who was literally on the ground laughing at me.

“Shut up!”

“Look!” Kai cried and I heard pins being knocked over. “Strike!”

I whipped around, my eyes widening when I saw all ten pins lying on the ground. My jaw dropped and I faced Vincent, excitement bubbling up in me. “I did it!”

“Congratulations,” he responded, an amused smile slipping onto his lips.

“You finally smiled too!”

The smile dropped. “No I didn’t.”

I shook my head at him, moving over to take a seat next to him. “You could at least pretend to have a little more fun. I feel bad for making you come.”

“You didn’t force me to come.”

“But I knew you would if I went,” I admitted. “I thought you might have a little bit of fun.”

He shrugged. “I am.”

“You are?”

“It’s funny watching you make a fool out of yourself every time your ball goes into the gutter. It’s cute.”

His comment threw me off guard for a moment. Then I shot him a dirty look. I didn’t look like a fool. “You’re a jerk.”

“You say that to me every five seconds. When are you going to realize it has no effect?”

Huffing angrily, I pushed myself up from my seat. “Forget it. I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Don’t get lost,” he said teasingly.

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I resisted the urge to hit him. The bathrooms were on the far right of the building, by the snack shack. They weren’t that hard to find. After telling Alli and Kai I would be right back, I headed toward them. I Like It started playing on the speakers above me, and I soon found myself humming along to it. Even if Vincent was being a lump, I was still having fun. It’d felt like forever since I’d been out with my friends doing something human. Though judging by Fiona, Vincent, and Joel’s scores, vampires played bowling too. They must have played often too: all three of them were like prodigies. How was it even possible to get such a perfect score like Vincent did? He didn’t even look like it was hard, either! It was crazy… and a little bit annoying. I felt inferior to him. It was embarrassing that I was doing so worse than him. Usually I could bowl better than I had been tonight.

Suddenly something hard hit me- or I ran into something hard. Letting out an ” oof!” , I stumbled backwards, nearly falling over. A firm pair of hands landed on my shoulder, holding me up. I looked up to thank the person. My breath caught when my eyes landed on a pair of smoky grey ones.

“Are you okay?” the owner of the eyes questioned, sounding concerned.

“I’m, uh…” I trailed off, finally taking my eyes away from his, only to be drawn in by the stranger’s white hair. It wasn’t old man white; it was dyed white. I’d never met someone with dyed white hair other than Sam, but Sam was a vampire.

His eyebrows knitted together. “Your…?”

“I’m okay,” I blurted, feeling warmth rise to my cheeks. What was I doing? Checking out a stranger while he was watching to me?

“Okay, good. Sorry about that, by the way,” he added after a second. “I should have been paying more attention to where I was going.”

I shook my head. “No! It’s totally my fault. I was spacing out!”

Dimples appeared in his cheeks as he grinned. “Let’s just say it was both of our faults, okay?”

“Um, sure,” I responded, once again being captured by his smoky eyes.

“I’ve got to return to my friends,” he told me, nodding his head toward the lanes. “Sorry again.”

“Yeah, no problem, sorry to you too,” I rambled.

He smiled again before turning his back and heading toward the lanes. “Bye, Emily.”

“Yeah, bye…” I trailed off as his words registered in my head. Bye, Emily . How did he know my name? I hadn’t met him ever before in my life. I would have remembered those ashy eyes. Maybe he went to my school or something. A younger student… A wave of unease washed over me and I quickly twisted on my heel, heading back for my friends. The bathroom could wait.

When I got back to our lane, it was my turn again to go. Vincent caught my eye, his eyebrows furrowing. “What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

I stared back at him, surprised by his tone. “What do you mean?”

“You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I do?” I raised a hand to my cheek.

“Did something happen?”

I shook my head. “No…”

He took a step closer to me, putting his hand to my head. “Are you feeling anemic?”

“No, I’m fine,” I insisted, taking a step back, and cupping my elbow with my hand. Did I really look like I was going to feint? I felt fine…

Vincent didn’t seem satisfied and he scowled. “Look-”

“Whoa, what’s with that look man?” Kai interjected, appraising Vincent with his eyes. “You look like you’re going to eat her.”

I grimaced. That was actually possible. “I’m going to take my turn now…”

“Don’t mess up our score,” Vincent responded, glaring at Kai.