And I couldn’t suppress my grin as I spoke. “Did you know he turned me?”
His face contorted into a snarl as he lunged for me. Before he could even make it an inch, Sebastian had him pinned to the wall by the throat.
Olivia retreated to Mother’s side. Her arm draped around Olivia, holding her close. I couldn’t meet their expressions at the news.
Pari came into the room, having heard everything by the look on her face. She placed her arm around my shoulders, kissing the crown of my head as she squeezed me tightly.
“It wasn’t enough for you to be an outcast. You had to throw your life away. You had to become amonster.” The words he chose to break his silence were a monumental disappointment, one that would stay with me for the rest of my existence.
“I am what you made me.”
He scoffed. “I should have let the newborns kill you long ago.”
The hurt that slashed through flesh and fragile bone wondered why he hated me, but I knew it was not about me. He didn’t see people; he saw tools. And I was the tool that granted him power, though I could just as easily break and take it all away, just as I had.
Sebastian punched him in the face. The sickening crunch of his now broken nose elicited a shriek from Olivia. It was the first time a blatant display of violence didn’t make me sick.
I saw it then, what Alaric had been trying to show me all along. We both had someone who was supposed to love us, care for us, protect us, but they wanted to end us instead. Alaric could not fight off his demons, but I would. I’d do it for the both of us.
The main doors flew open. A half dozen guards donning royal colors filtered in. The news had traveled fast.
Alaric was dead, and Arthur Windsor brought vampires into our world.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Piecing the manor back together was like mending the severed parts of me, each stitch hurt. My entire life, judgmental eyes had followed my every move because I looked different, and they despised it. When Alaric started haunting me, the people of my world no longer had to hide their poorly concealed disdain. To know now that it was all inflicted by my own father, and he wasn’t even sorry. Even he was bothered by my existence. The weight of the truth held firm over me, the soil giving way beneath my body as each second passed.
The only thing that held me together was Sebastian, Pari, Olivia, and even my mother in an odd way.
It was difficult for Olivia to accept at first, but the shock of discovering what Father had done fogged reason. She didn’t know what to believe. We had both been taught to execute vampires on sight. We believed they were demons of the underworld, but seeing how Pari accepted me as a vampire helped her along. Mother was impossible to decipher. She didn’t speak to me, but she didn’t avoid me either. She observed me, quietly coming to terms with everything. Her lack of outright rejection gave me comfort.
Once Father was hauled away by the king’s guard, everyone turned to me. Mother seemed torn by Father being taken away but was clearly still processing the last twenty-six years. Olivia examined me with reticent eyes.
“You’re a ... vampire?” Her voice was small, like she wasn’t even sure she should speak the word out loud.
“Yes.”
She examined me a moment longer. “But you don’t seem any different.”
I smiled at the echo of Pari’s words. “I don’t really feel any different.”
She nodded, absorbing everything.
It was evident she was tiptoeing around me for a few days, until an upturned trunk we were trying to right revealed a rabbit’s foot.
“It’s Faffy!” She held the furry foot out to me, her eyes alight with excitement. For a mere moment she forgot who I was now. We were just sisters as we always had been.
When Faffy died, a member, Leo, had removed one of her feet and had it preserved. He presented it to her as a gift. A lucky rabbit’s foot. He meant well, but Olivia was horrified to receive it. She broke out in hysterical sobs, and I had never seen a member so afraid. Despite her reaction to the gift, she always kept that foot with her. It was a piece of Faffy she could always keep close. When she lost it, she was devastated.
Her joyful grin faded to concern as she looked up at me. “Leo,” she whispered. “Is he ...”
“We’ll find out.” I hoped he survived. I didn’t know how much more grief she could take.
He had always had a lovesick crush on her, which was obvious to everyone but her. She thought of him as a friend. When Father noticed how close they were getting over the years, he sent Leo away on missions that would keep him away from the manor, away from Olivia. They eventually grew distant. Now I knew why Father did that. He was the thief of all joy. The true demon of Kilthorne.
The soft click of my bedroom door broke me away from my musings as I looked out the window. A heavy fog rolled across the darkened land. Large arms wrapped around my waist. Soft lips pressed a kiss to the crook of my neck. I smiled. My back melded with his hard chest as he held me close.
“How are you doing, mannyenska?” He asked the same question at the end of each day.
