Vampire King Chapter 31

onfrontation
*Kane*
+25 BONUS
I make my way swiftly to my brother’s room, doing my best not to lose my cool before I get there. My hands are balled into fists, and I am doing everything I can to keep from slamming one of them into a wall.
In my mind, I go over the conversation I am about to have with Lex. I am cool, calm, and collected, as I ask him if he has any idea how badly he has f**d up this entire situation.
But when Lex opens the door to his room and says, “What?” I am no longer cool, calm, and collected.
I slam my fist right into his face, causing him to splash the glass of blood he is holding all over himself. When he winces and glares at me, I am only upset that most of the blood now dripping down his face is not his own. “What the f**k?” he asks me, wiping at his white shirt that will now be permanently pink.
“What the f**k indeed!” I shout at him as I step over the puddle at the entrance and slam his door behind him. “You are the biggest f**k up I’ve ever met in my entire life, Lex, and just for once, for ONCE, I was praying to whatever f***ng gods might be listening that perhaps you wouldn’t manage to f**k something up, but not only did you f**k it up beyond imagination, you literally f**ed up the one thing you didn’t need to be involved in.”
Lex stares at me for a moment before he goes to his kitchenette and grabs a towel to wipe his face off. When he pulls it away, I see I did do some damage to his pretty face at least. His lip is bruised, and his nose is a little crooked. He straightens it, and I just want to punch him again to knock it out of balance.
“What’s going on?” he asks me, his tone conveying he is managing to keep his emotions in check a lot better than I am.
“Guess who I just spoke to?” I ask him.
He shrugs
“I don’t know. The Queen of Sardania?”
I glare at him. “I wish.” Sardania is one of our allies, and the only reason he thinks that might be funny is because the queen is probably six hundred years old and has always had a thing for me. She looks like she’s about ninety and smells like mung beans…. “I spoke to King Peter. And we have a problem, dear brother. A f**ing major one!” The idea of how the news Peter had given me complicates the situation has me seething again.
“What is it?” he asks, and I see genuine fear behind his blue eyes. “I’m sure whatever it is that Opal has told him isn’t true.”
“Did you f**k her?” I ask him.
-Somehow, his bulging eyes grow even wider. “F**k Opal?”
“Answer the go**n question!” I say, slamming my hand down into the kitchen counter and cracking the quartz.
“Yes!” he says quickly. “I did… a few times. But… we always used protection. Wh-why are you asking?”
Where did the protection come from?” My brother has never been a genius, but he isn’t an idiot either, so I don’t know why he wouldn’t have enough sense not to trust Opal as far as he could throw her, but it is beginning to sound to me like he is a lot s***ider than I have ever recognized.
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“Uhm… she had condoms,” he says with a shrug. “There were other people in the bed….”
#25 BONUS
“Any other born vampires, brother?” I continue to chew right threw him with my eyes, and he is beginning. to get where I am going. Slowly.
“Only Jacob. But he didn’t have sex with his own sister, of course. Why?”
I take a slow step toward him, not answering him, just waiting.
“Why, Kane? You’re… you’re scaring me.”
When my nose is almost touching his, I say, “You. Know. Why.”
He takes a deep breath but then begins to shake his head wildly, stepping away from me. “No, that’s not possible. I was careful. I made sure-
“She **ng tricked you, Lex! You were her backup plan, and now that she’s in this situation, she’s going to use your own child against us!” I shout at him, watching a plethora of emotions sweep over his face. Realization that he’s going to be a father-the fear and elation that goes along with that-dread of knowing his own child will be a pawn in the child’s mother’s schemes, knowing I am about to rip his head from his body, and he would deserve it completely for f**ing up royally in only a way a royal can f**k up. “But… she could be lying,” he says, grasping at straws as he runs his hand through his hair.
I shake my head. “No, she’s not. Even Opal wouldn’t go to those sorts of lengths. She’s too smart for that. She’d be discovered soon enough, and when her father found out she was lying, he’d punish her. Even King Peter has his limitations,”
“Well, we can fix it,” he says, taking a few rushed steps toward me. “Just because she’s carrying my child, that doesn’t mean that we are bound to her. I mean… it’s not like it’s a child I wanted anyway.”
I listen to his words and try to hear what he’s saying, seeing him grasping for some way to try and justify this, to make it all right. But it’s not all right. I won’t allow any relation of mine to be abandoned in that kingdom with that woman as his or her mother.
More importantly, this will mean war. I have Jacob as my prisoner, and King Peter is already demanding to have him back. He believes the child Opal is carrying is mine. He will attack if I don’t acknowledge that the agreement we made has already been carried out.
I try to come up with a way to explain that to him, that the damage has already been done, and we can’t just ignore it.
“He thinks the baby is mine,” I say, my words measured. “He thinks that we’ve already consummated the relationship, and in his mind, that means that I have to marry his b**h daughter!”
Lex understands now, and his eyes are wide as his mouth opens and closes quickly like a wide-mouth bass. “Uhm… it’s okay,” he finally says, his shoulders up around his ears. “I’ll tell him. I’ll call him and explain.”
I shake my head slowly. “He won’t believe you, and even if he does, he won’t care. He has what he wants, Lex. Thanks to your balls, he has me by mine.”
I am done speaking to my brother about this. There’s only one person in this world I want to see right now, only one person who can even begin to calm me down so that I can try to figure out how to handle
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this. How do I get my brother’s baby without having to put up with that b**h who tried to kill Emory?
I don’t know, but I’m not going to find the answer in this room.
As I turn to go, Lex is still shouting after me, “Don’t worry, brother. I’ll figure it out.”
+25 BONUS
I take about five steps down the hallway before I turn to face him. “You know, Lex, for once, I was beginning to feel a little bit proud of you, like maybe you weren’t quite as colossal a failure as I’d made you out to be. But now… I can see that I’m wrong. I appreciate your attempt to help Emory, but you are still a long way from being a responsible adult.”
He says nothing, only stares at me, and I know that I’ve hurt him, but at the moment, I can’t let it bother me. He’s needed to hear the truth for many years, and now that I’ve told him, I don’t feel any better, and I don’t think that he will do any better either.
My feet carry me swiftly to the healing center, thinking if I don’t see Emory right away, I’ll go mad. I don’t want to tell her anything that’s going to worry her, but at the same time, I have to see her face. It’s the only thing in the world that can calm me now.
When I arrive at her room, a wave of confusion washes over me. She’s gone, Panic wells up inside of me as I stare at the empty bed.
One of the healers comes into the room. “Where is she?” I demand.
The woman jumps a bit in shock. “Uhm, she’s. in her room, sir. She
was released a little while ago.”
I don’t apologize for being so rude, even though I know I should, and I hurry down the hallway toward Emory’s room.
As I rush to Emory’s room, a thousand thoughts flutter through my head. I had thought she was gone again. Terror had pulsed through me as I stared at that empty bed, thinking about what might’ve happened to her.
It is clear to me as I reach her room that this woman is special to me in ways I am not yet ready to face. pause outside of her door, taking a few deep breaths, attempting to calm myself. I can smell her here. I can feel her heart beating beyond the wooden barrier. It’s slow, relaxed, and it makes my heart beat slower as well.
I knock on the door, but she doesn’t speak, and I wonder if perhaps she’s asleep.
Slowly, I push the door open and step inside. My questions are answered as I hear the sound of running water from the bathroom.
I should leave, give her some privacy, but my longing to see her is overwhelming. Against the gentlemanly voice in my head, I approach her closed bathroom door and wait.
The thrumming of her heart increases slightly as she realizes I’m here. I take a breath, and it shutters releasing from my lips.
Ifil enter that room, I will claim her in every way imaginable.
“Kane?”
My name is a whisper on her lips. She calls
to me like a siren. I am powerless to turn away from her.
“Emory.”
Confrontation
+25 BONUS
It’s not a question. I love the feel of her name on my lips.
The sound of water rolling off of her skin tells me she’s in the bath. I can smell the scents of flowers and oils now, but they are in the background compared to the scent of her I’m longing for.
I hear a soft whimper escape her lips and know she is longing for me the same way I want her.
No longer able to control myself, I push the door open. My eyes meet hers, and everything else in the world fades away.