"It can't be a competition if the little half-blood has already won."
Gabriel smiled at Arianna, who only seemed to get angrier by the second.
"Nothing is won yet before she carries his mark!" Arianna snarled.
"And she will."
I will?I wanted to ask. I wasn't about to join in though. It seemed like this situation was getting out of hand without my help.
"She isn't yet!" Arianna said. "And I don't think she will."
"She is his mate, of course, she will."
"The council won't accept her, nor will anyone else. Half-bloods have tainted blood. No one will support her."
It wasn't new to be insulted like this, but I looked at the ground anyway. It still hurt though. In some vampires' and werewolves' eyes, we were even lower than the humans, because of the mixed blood. We were untrustworthy. I could see out of the corner of my eye Gabriel noticed the change in me.
"I think it is time for you to go. You saw what you needed to see."
Arianna huffed but didn't fight him on this. She looked at me one last time though, and then walked out the door, slamming it behind her.
"Forget what she said. It doesn't matter," Gabriel said, as he turned to me.
"But it does, because it will matter," I told him. "It always matters."
I walked past him and finally went to that damn bathroom, but it wasn't to pee. It was to take a moment and find the strength in me to hold back the tears. I already knew my blood would matter. This was what I had tried protecting myself from. The king and I didn't stand a chance. I would always be the one to get hurt, but I was done being hurt. I needed to get out of here. Fast.
Chapter 27
-Dominic-
I received a rather upsetting text from Gabriel, as I sat in the meeting with the council. He told me Arianna had been by paying them a little visit. I could just imagine what had happened during that visit. I was not surprised her father had taken her with him. She would probably have come on her own if he hadn't. She wanted to see for herself, who my new queen was, since Lara had taken her place now, and she was not happy about it.
The council was even less happy about it. Only Damon, who had taken over the seat from his father after he died, had a smile on his lips. He had not expected anything less from me, he told me before the meeting started. He and I met a little over two hundred years ago, and we had quickly become friends. His father had back then wanted me to hunt down a group of males who had taken advantage of his daughter, and Damon had wanted to help with that. He loved his sister very much, and he said he wanted to be the one to kill them. Back then Damon had never trained a day in his life. He was to be a politician like his father, not a fighter. That had changed after we hunted down the fuckers who had raped his sister, and Damon had killed them. His father had not liked Damon training to become a killer, but as long as he promised to take over his seat and the family business after he died, he accepted it.
"She is a half-blood," one of the older corpses said.
The council was both mixed with vampires and werewolves, but it was clear that the vampires outnumbered the rest of us. They had adapted easier since they lived longer and werewolves preferred gathering in packs, which meant they were a lot more private, but it was clear after the war between the two species, who came out more victorious. There were no real winners, but it was clear one of the two sides had taken a greater hit. It didn't help we all had difficulties reproducing. The price to pay for our great abilities, such as strength, speed, and the slow aging. Werewolves aged like humans. Much quicker, but they stayed young until close to their death, and then the aging would quickly set in.
"She is," I just said.
"We cannot trust a half-blood," another corpse said.
"Because she is mixed?" I asked.
It was clear that was a yes, even if no one answered. I could see it in their eyes.
"I'm mixed," I said.
"That is different," an alpha said.
"Because I am not part human?"
That was another yes, even if no one answered me. I sighed and tapped my finger against the long table we were all sitting at. The sound seemed to echo in the big room. The house looked so ordinary on the outside, but inside hid another world. Important meetings had often been held here after I settled in the new world.
"She stays," I said.
No one liked that. Damon smiled at me though, he was sitting on my left. We both thought the same thing about this council. It was trash. As simple as that. They followed old rules and old ways. In a way, none of them had evolved very much.