Caspian's face dropped, and he looked back at the body.
“What are we to do then?”
Sickness swirled in my stomach again.
“We follow the plan and hope that one of them gets angry enough to kill the other. There's no way we'd survive one, let alone both.”
I pulled at the itchy fabric of my outfit for the evening.
Caspian and I were a little off after ourexcursion. The whole point was to go and find the witch who was helping them, but now that they were dead and I had confirmation that the general had likely taken the lives of many witches, we weren’t sure what to do.
I filled in both Vesper and Aurelia, and just like us, they had a moment of realization that we might be in over our head. But our princess was the first one to snap out of it.
It will work. I know my brother, and I know how to force his hand.
And so, trusting our princess, we got ready for the night. Caspian had graciously provided us both with outfits, maybe because he felt bad for what we experienced that morning—or because he was just a kind vampire.
Regardless, we accepted them anyway.
Mine was a full dark green ensemble with glitter and gems placed in a very particular but obviously witchy way that made me stand out like a sore thumb.
Even if somehow the entire kingdom hadn't heard the rumor that Vesper and I were back, that would be clear now. Though, from the looks of it, people were less worried about having a witch in their midst than they were about the new king.
“Weird that the two bodyguards are dressed up for this,” Vesper muttered, tugging at her own clothing.
I looked at her, my eyes roaming her slim figure dressed in black with deep red accents. The majority of her chest was out, highlighting the scars and the now slashed-out tattoo on her neck, like they wanted to call attention to where she came from.
She looks damn good in that, though.
Her eyes met mine, slightly reddening at the iris.
The bond meant that I could feel every emotion coming from them. Including the bloodlust that was still lingering at the back of Vesper's mind. No matter how much blood I gave her or how much human blood she drank from the reserves, it never left.
Her injuries were too severe. Every ounce of blood was going into healing her body, and while she looked fine, I could tell that she still couldn't stand for long. She sure as hell would not be able to fight.
I fucking hate all of it.
I felt for her. And I hated that I had some part in it. Not only did I not go with her as backup, but she wouldn't be a vampire if I had made it to her sooner, so they wouldn’t have targeted her. I knew the hunters. I read about them in our archives. More than that, I knew Vesper. I knew how she was brought up. How her entire world was killing creatures just like her. It was my fault?—
“Stop blaming yourself,” she whispered, her eyes narrowing on the princess. “I'm fine now.”
“Are you?” I couldn't help but push back. All the emotions from what I witnessed earlier and the panic and fear were getting to me. Which was probably why I added, “Do you not hold a single ounce of hatred toward me for what you've become?”
A burst of pain told me I shouldn't have said anything. I made it a point of telling her I didn't care about her being a vampire, yet here I was, ruining it because of my own unstable emotions.
And because I knew she might be harboring some hatred toward herself and her new condition.
To me, she was the same Vesper. I didn't care about any of it. Vampire Vesper, human Vesper. Both were mine.
“This is not the time or the place,” she hissed. “Let's focus on the princess, and if you still want to hash this out, we can later.”
That put an end to our conversation and forced me to look in front of us. We were in the throne room again, a place I was getting sick of.
The magical explosion opened up my senses, forcing me to take in things I previously hadn’t. I had overlooked the lingering bits of magic embedded into the stone of this place. It felt… corrupted. Disgusting. Its tendrils slithered up, wrapping around our ankles and brushing across our hands.
Almost like it had a mind of its own.
It made me want to crawl out of my skin. It was similar to the magic I felt in General Lee’s hideout. Something about it didn't feel right.
