Simon bristles at my question. “I did everything as you instructed.”
Simon’s one of two people on the planet that is related to me by blood. His mother is the other.
So, I trust him, but he’s young, and has let me down in the past. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
“We’ll need to protect her. Keep her safe. You know what that means, right?”
“Yeah,” he says.
But I don’t think he understands at all.
Because if I offer the protection of my crown, it won’t be him that marries her.
It’ll be me.
I flip through the old, leather-bound book on my desk, looking for an answer on whether intimacy with Allison will cause her powers not to manifest. So far, I can’t find a single word written about it. It’s dark in my study, just how I like it. I can barely see the words written on the pages, but it’s ok because I’ve memorized most of them.
When I first became a vampire, I scoured every resource looking for a way to undo it all. A way to fix the horrible things I’d done, but nothing was ever written about how I could do that. Until one day, nearly a hundred years ago, I ran across this book. It spoke of a girl who would wield the power of the light. A girl who would be able to turn dead to living. A girl who could change a vampire back to their mortal self.
I searched and hunted for that girl.
I’d almost given up, when clues from the book, telling what the girl would be like, called to me like a beacon.
Allison is that girl. The one I’ve been searching for.
However, if I know this, who's to say my enemies don’t as well?
“I see you’re still studying,” Viggo says, entering my study and flipping on the light.
It’s bright, and I hide my eyes, hissing my disapproval at the man I call my best friend.
“I’m just trying to see if there’s a clue or something I missed.” I slam the book shut. “She’s the one, right? I mean, it has to be her.”
Viggo shrugs as he sits in the leather wingback chair next to my desk. “I think so.” His eyes study me with concern. “You know Bogdan and Rao will be all over her once they find out. This could be bad for the vampire community.”
Every vampire belongs to one of three clans. The Blackmoor Clan, my own personal clan, the Vladimiri Clan, ruled by Bogdan Vladimiri, one of the most ruthless men I’ve ever met, and the Tavian Clan, led by Rao Tavian, a weak man who can’t think for himself.
There’s one area we’ve never agreed on: killing mortals for our personal food source.
Last century, it was easier to feed off humans, find unsuspecting mortals to drain for food. If a body went missing, communities didn’t have the resources to launch a full investigation. There was no such thing as a crime lab and DNA.
Now, with society moving forward into the technological age, our kind has to hide even deeper in the shadows, playing by society’s rules and finding new ways to get fed.
Bogdan and Rao still feed off the drifters of the world. People who no one notices if they go missing. However, sometimes they do.
It causes enormous risk to our kind, and we need consequences.
“I know, and I’m going to have to marry her to protect her.”
“I agree,” Viggo says. “She’s safer as your queen. It’s harder to attack a clan leader’s queen. Someone would be outright stupid to do that.”
I laugh. “Have you met Rao?”
Viggo breathes in and releases a long sigh. “You’re going to have to invite them both to the wedding.”
I’d already been thinking about this. How offended they’d be if I got married without the formalities of inviting the other clan leaders. “I know.”
“Do you think they’ll be able to tell she has powers?”