“Your family live in a pyramid?” I ask, confused.
“Spark…” Daire sounds pained.
“They live with the Shadow Devils.” Lanlin leans forward, patting his demonic lion’s flank to urge her forward. “But the deads’ shades live on in the tombs.”
I wince.
Lanlin rides toward the villagers, who are dressed in simple linen tunics with wooden lotus decorations in their long hair, who are flocking out of the houses.
Touched, I smile.
Bard rejected me because he didn’t want to tell his family that I was his mate. The first thing that Lanlin wants to do, however, is introduce me to his family, even if they are dead.
All of them have died?He has no one?
So, he is just the same as Daire and me.
“He’s not what I was expecting.” Daire watches, as the Shadow Vampires line the path through the village and drop to their knees in front of Lanlin. The Eternal don’t keep them back. Instead, the King strolls on Devil casually through them. “Well, apart from the unhinged, brutal killer part.”
I study the way that these villagers are prostrating themselves with a fanatical reverence before thisunhinged, brutal killeras he passes.
They’re chanting:Void Vampire, Void Vampire, Void Vampire.
It sets my teeth on edge.
What does it mean?
I can sense burning eyes in the night peering at Daire and me from doors and the tops of roofs.
I tighten my hold on Daire’s waist.
These villagers in the heart of the kingdom are worshiping Lanlin like he is some type of god…or perhaps, Shadow Devil.
Aurelius was never treated like this.
“Is Lanlin this loved?” I mutter.
“Or feared,” Daire replies.
Suddenly, a little Shadow Vampire with grimy cheeks and a tangled mess of hair, who is hardly old enough to walk, toddles out in front of Devil, clutching a lotus flower.
She holds it up to the snarling demonic lion.
The villagers around her gasp in shock.
One, who I guess must be her mom, cries out in terror.
My heart stops.
Will Devil kill her?
Will Lanlin?
“Please,” I cry out.
Before the word has fully left my lips, however, Lanlin has slipped off Devil like smoke, reforming in front of the demonic lion to shield the young vampire.
He kneels on one knee, gesturing with his hand for Devil to back away.
