Vampire King Chapter 44

Not Good Company
Not Good Company
Kane
+25 BONUS
I’m not in the best mood after talking with Clark. As much as I dislike him, he is right about some things.
I Delivering awful truths has always been something he relishes in. Clark practically snickered as I left his suite, enjoying how his words affected me. I needed to go to my office afterward to get some work done and think about everything he told me. Hours pass by, and I haven’t gotten much work done. I’m worried about the war, the baby-everything.
It’s time for dinner, and the thought of being surrounded by the nobles exhausts me. I could make an excuse and not show up, but Emory’s sister, Lola, is having her first dinner in the castle, and I can’t leave them alone with the pit of vipers. Even with Opal and her terrible friends gone, the other nobles aren’t much more accepting of anybody they deem beneath them. I just have to suck it up and get through the meal.
I’m late, but nobody will say a word about it. There are perks to being the king. The meal starts when I arrive. They’re all seated when I enter the dining room, but they rise from their chairs and bow. It’s not untill I take my seat at the head of the table that they sit down.
Emory is usually seated to my right. I have insisted on it, wanting to make sure she is close to me and away from the venomous whispers around her. It would be impractical for me to cut out the tongue of every person that says something mean about her, but the urge is there. My bad mood only makes the bloodlust worse.
To my surprise, Emory isn’t seated at my right. She’s seated at the end of the table next to my mother. Lola is there at Emory’s side. The twelve-year-old eyes the room from the large chandelier to the sn**ty
faces of the nobles.
I catch her gaze, and her silver eyes widen in recognition before she turns away. The last time I saw the girl was when her own father tried to sell her off as a feeder to pay his debts. I can’t blame her if she associates me with a bad memory. I still remember how she begged not to be taken away, and how she cried when Emory volunteered to take her place.
The two sisters clearly love each other. I am unfamiliar with the feeling as my relationship with my brother has always been complicated. Lex vacillates between being a nuisance and a rival. I have never been able to get myself to count on him like I would Rainier. He has always been too volatile to be fully
trusted.
I look to where Lex is seated in the middle of the long table surrounded by nobles he ignores in favor of his meal. I can still picture in my mind him being friends with Opal and her sycophants. All of them brought out the worst in each other by being petty and self-involved. And Lex fit right in, never bothering to ask himself if he could be better than that.
My brother looks almost lonely without his old friends around him. He’s not part of the nobility around him but not excluded either. Across the table, our mother is talking to Emory almost warmly.
I gesture for Rainier to move closer so he can hear me ask, “Why is Emory seated next to Mother?”
Apparently, they ran into each other in the rose garden, and they spent the day together. They had lunch at the gazebo. And Queen Agatha insisted Emory and Lola sit on her end of the table.”
“All of this happened today?”
Not Good Company
“That’s what I’ve heard from the guards and s**ts.”
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1 eye my mother warily. I never had to doubt her motives before. She was a formidable figure during my father’s reign, helping him keep his power through her own machinations. She took a backseat in court politics after I ascended to the throne, preferring to give me advice when I ask for it.
What is she doing with Emory? Surely, she isn’t going to try and hurt the woman I love. My mother might not be the biggest fan of wolf shifters, but she helps maintain diplomatic relations with the wolf packs. And she hadn’t been happy with me when the war started with the Moonraker pack.
“Keep an
eye o
on Emory,” I tell Rainier. “And have somebody taste her food before she does from now on.”
“You don’t think the queen would poison her, do yo
you?”
“I wouldn’t underestimate her. Her mother, Queen Nerissa, gifted a poisoned hat pin to an enemy once.”
Rainier nodded, grimly. “I’ll get the food tasters by tomorrow morning.”
Emory
Queen Agatha never runs out of stories. One perk of living for so many years is having an interesting life. Her stories about her childhood in Cerise Port and her subsequent marriage to King Michael that brought her to Crimson Peak are fascinating. I’m so focused on listening to her that I don’t immediately notice Lola’s discomfort throughout the dinner.
I glance at my sister and find her not eating, moving her food around on her plate. She keeps her head down, her dark blonde hair covering her face. I see the condescending looks from the nobles and know they’re the ones to blame. They haven’t treated me any better even after I defended the castle while Kane was away with his army. I almost died to keep their home safe, and they don’t care at all.
They hide their insults in whispers and pretend I don’t exist unless Kane forces them to. Being treated as a ghost is better than being subjected to vicious insults. It’s easier for me to ignore, and I have thick skin. Lola is more vulnerable. My sweet sister doesn’t deserve their vitriol.
I lean closer to her and tell her quietly. “Ignore them. They’re just bored and mean. They have to say bad things to other people to make themselves feel like they’re important.”
Lola looks up at me and asks, “Why would they need to do that?”
“Look around this room. The only person that has any real power is King Kane.” I nod toward where he’s seated and conversing with Rainier, “His best friend, Rainier, is the second most powerful because Kane listens to him and values his opinion.”
“What about the queen?”
“She’s his mother. Her opinion matters as well,” I explain, conspiringly. “Only King Kane gets to decide who is important. And he has told me himself that he doesn’t care for most of these s**ty people.”
“Does he value your opinion?”
1
“I would hope so.”
She looks hesitant as she voices out, “Is he nice? He did take you away from me before.”
2/5
+25 BONUS
Not Good Company
“That wasn’t his fault. That was our father’s doing. King Kane didn’t have to take me over you, but he agreed because he knew what our father tried to do to you was wrong.”
“He still took you away.’
“Only because I asked him to,” I reason. “If you had asked him not to take you, I promise you he would have listened.”
“So he’s nice?”
I smile. “He is, but that’s a secret. He doesn’t like it when other people know that.”
“Why not?”
“Because some people need to be scared of him so they do what he says.”
“Like how our dad was?”
“He’s nothing like Bernard. Kane could never be like him.”
Lola still looks unconvinced, but she is no longer trying to retreat into herself. I have a feeling it will take
time to get my sister to warm up to Kane, but that is expected. After how we were raised to fear
distrust vampires, learning how they could be decent and kind will take time to sink in, but I am hopeful. If I could learn to see the goodness in vampires, my sister can too.
Kane
Dinner finally ends, much to my relief. I go to Emory as she and Lola are leaving the dining room. Lola still looks uncomfortable to see me, and she hides behind Emory as she watches me approach. I try to smile at her to show her I mean her no harm, but the girl holds tightly to her sister as if I am about to sn**ch Emory away from her. Again.
Emory smiles when she sees me, “Hi.”
“Hi.” A part of me uncoils at the sight of her, knowing I don’t have to use any masks around her. “How was your day?”
“Lola is settling in. She really likes her room and the gardens.” Emory turns to her sister. “Right, Lo?” The little girl nods but still looks at me like she wants me to leave.
“She’s not used to being around vampires,” Emory explains. “It’s going to take some time until she gets used to everything. Remember when I first arrived here?”
“You had a terrible introduction to this world thanks to Clark. I don’t blame you for how scared you
“I wasn’t scared,” she argues.
were.”
“I saw how you handled yourself with the guards, but you were not that good at hiding your fears around the other vampires. We could smell it on you.”
You could?”
I nod. Seeing the distrust in the little girl’s eyes makes me want to leave, so I tell Emory I will see her in
+25 BONUS
Not Good Company
the morning. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
She smiles, knowingly. Memories of us in my room together, our naked bodies tangled up in my sheets would have gotten me hard, but I willed those thoughts away. Tonight won’t be the best time for such things. I wouldn’t be good company anyway.
I move and kiss her lightly, still conscious of the gray eyes glaring at me like I am a perpetrator in my own home. “Goodnight.”
Emory smiles, softly, melting from my touch. “Goodnight, Kane.” She pats Lola’s shoulder. “Say good night, Lola.”
Lola murmurs a “Night” with no particular enthusiasm. leave because I want to be back in my room and go to bed. I reach my bedroom door as Lex appears with a bottle of blood in hand. He holds it up like an offering.
“You look like you need a drink.”
I open my bedroom door and let him in. This is an old ritual going back to our long ago days of youth. Something would happen, and we would escape to somewhere in the castle to talk it out with a bottle of the best stock. Whatever walls we put up around each other would melt away, and we would talk freely with the silent agreement that what was said during these nights would never be repeated elsewhere.
Lex takes a swig from the bottle and asks, “What crawled up your a**le and died?”
“I talked to Clark today.” I accept the bottle from him and swallow a mouthful of blood. It’s a nice vintage. “He gave me some advice.”
“Why the ***k would you do that? That fossil hasn’t had a good idea in a century.”
“Like a broken clock, he is right at least twice a day. And all he said was that I was being selfish.”
Lex snorts. “You? Selfish? You’re the most dutiful person I know. That’s why I always look like a d*ad
n**ext to you.”
“Most royals don’t get to marry for love. They marry for the benefit of the kingdom.”
“You tried to do that, but Opal is insane. And her father is a colossal **k. Hitching your carriage to that crazy herd of horses wouldn’t have done you any good.
“I know, but Emory.”
He gives me a look. “I thought you loved Emory.”
“I do. I’ve never loved anyone like I love her.”
“But?”
I drink from the bottle, swallowing twice before handing it back to him. “I’ll have to lose her someday whether that’s old age or illness. She can’t be turned, so I have no way of prolonging her life.”
Wolf shifters can’t be turned by vampires. Nature made sure that only humans can be turned into vampires. Wolf shifters can’t be created, only born. And even if I have the option to turn her, I know Emory won’t want to be a vampire.
“So you think you have to give her up?” my brother asks
4/5
Not Good Comp
I stare at him for a long moment before I admit, “I don’t know.”