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“Or run away,” I added, standing before the sofa, my smirk carved into steel. “It’s pathetic, really. Especially when so many saw you as their King. How about this, William? Rise. Stand tall. And I’ll give you the honor of watching your precious slice of the Kingdom burn.”

Counting the seconds in my head, I waited for him to rise. But he didn’t. His heartbeat only raced faster, pounding against his ribs, frantic and uneven. It would’ve been so easy to round the couch, to clamp my hand around his throat and drag him out. But I wanted him to suffer in the waiting. I wanted him to drown in his own fear. And gods, I craved it. The fear rolling off his body slithered into me like smoke, coaxing a tingling rush down my spine. Power stripped from this grown man, once so sure of himself, until all that remained was a trembling shell. I laughed, the sound low and cruel, savoring how euphoric it felt.

“The second lesson you clearly never learned,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, “is that you fight for the things and the ones you love.” Every word landed heavily in the haze. “You call these people your children, yet you listened while they were slaughtered in front of you.” I paused, letting the final screams echo through the room, piercing the flames. The turmoil settled in me like a throne. “Some father you are.” The words slipped out like venom.

“But you were right about one thing,” I continued, stepping forward at last. “There are hard decisions a king has to make.”

Finally, I rounded the couch. His body was curled forward, hunched, trembling. He was trying to make himself small before the inevitable. The flames rolled closer, their orange tongues reflected in his wide eyes. For a fleeting moment, he looked ready to leap into them, to end it himself.

But rage burned hotter in me. I wouldn’t let him choose his way out.

Seizing him by the collar of his tunic, I wrenched him around, forcing him to face me. His body flinched at the thunder of my boots, but there was nowhere left to run. “And some decisions,” I whispered, staring down at him, “aren’t hard at all.”

Fear was inevitable in his eyes. His pale blue irises had become shallow pools of panic, rimmed with red, his forehead slick with sheets of sweat, half flame, half terror. Forcing him down to his knees, I pried his spine to bow, studying every twitch of his features. I wanted to burn him into memory, to etch the look of a King undone into my bones.

A whisper clawed from his lips. “You are a picture of your mother—” I didn’t let him finish. I couldn’t let it end quickly, either. My palm pressed hard against his mouth, sealing his gasp. Exhaling, slow and merciless, I fed wind into his lungs, until it twisted from breath into torment.

The air in the building drained at my command. Fire convulsed, roaring to life as if desperate for oxygen, lashing the walls and licking across his back. His tunic caught, flames crawling upward while a cyclone of heat and smoke whipped around us.

His body locked stiff, chest expanding unnaturally as my current forced it wider and wider. Purple blotches bloomed across his eyes and throat, strangling the last color from his face. His lips darkened from pink to black, his veins bulging until the whites of his eyes ballooned grotesquely. Then they burst with a wet, satisfying pop.

William collapsed in my grip, but I held him upright a moment longer, making sure his final image was of me. Not as his prey, but as his reckoning.

TAINTED| CHAPTER 39

A Father’s Love

Alexander’s POV

A father can either build you into their legacy, or they will make you question every choice they ever made. I never thought I’d get both lessons in one night. Kleitos promised to shape me into the man I could become, every decision Mark made had cost me.

The building cracked and burned around me, but all I could think was how I never dreamed I’d be forced to choose between Mark and my future. Before he faked his death, I had pictured my life completely differently.

Heat bit at my skin mercilessly; flames clawed at me the way memories of Mark did. They burned, relentless, impossible to smother. I imagined sunlit days on a football field, Mark and Martha cheering from the bleachers. I imagined graduation, college, and coming home for summers just to annoy them. I’d make Mom do my laundry and Mark tune my car. That was the life I thought I’d have. Instead, reality was heavy in my arms. William. His corpse weighed more than any screaming crowd ever could. I hauled him up and flung him into the flames. His body slammed through the burning wall, head snapping out of sight as the fire devoured him.

When I thought Mark had died, it broke something in me. And now, after everything, I couldn’t tell if this was another fracture or the moment I finally shattered. I hid it well, but I’d been so alone. Even when Mark wasn’t emotionally present, he was still my anchor. When I believed he was gone, my world had collapsed into something smaller, emptier. I cried for months. Mom convinced me to still go to university, to live like tomorrow was my last.

A sharp crack rattled through the house, yanking me back to the present. Bomani had finished the last of them and bolted for the door. Firelight split as the stage caved inward, a familiar scream rising from the wreckage. My feet darted toward it, but before I could leap in, Kleitos’ head pushed through the rubble. He hauled himself up, covered in soot, eyes hard with purpose.

“Let’s go,” he shouted as part of the roof slammed down in a thunderous crash.

Maybe I should’ve known better back then. At Mark’s funeral, Mom hadn’t shed a single tear. She was grace in black, untouchable, unflinching. No speech, no cracks in her composure. She let me grieve alone. Now, with smoke in my lungs and ash in my mouth, I wondered how she could let him go so easily. She must have chosen me. But Mark? He had a chance to stay, and he failed me. Twice.

We darted out of the burning house, and I didn’t look back. My pride wouldn’t let me. If someone could be that cold, that heartless toward me in the end, he didn’t deserve an afterthought. He didn’t deserve another eulogy.

The moment that stage cracked open and swallowed him whole with Kleitos, I knew he was gone. And I felt nothing. No remorse. No pain. No grief. He had drained the last of my sympathy the day he went six feet under, and tonight I was finally cashing in my tears. He owed the boy I used to be at least that much.

We hadn’t even cleared the neighborhood when the fire began to spread. Flames leapt from the manor to the homes around it, ribbons of orange and gold spilling over rooftops, devouring wood and snow alike. My mouth went dry as I watched the street transform. Ice melted into rivulets that carried soot and ash down the block.

Families crowded their lawns, staring in horror as their homes lit up in the early morning hours. Smoke curled into the early morning sky. Dark amber mixed with choking black smog, carrying the sickly-sweet stench of burning vampire flesh.

Then came the sirens, shrill and sudden, cutting through the chaos.

Yanking my hood up over my face, I hid my eyes as I followed Bomani through the swarm. Sirens only meant one thing: the King’s Guard. And if they were on their way, we didn’t have long. If this was what it meant to be king, I wondered if I was ready for what came next. Ready or not, the choice didn’t feel like mine. We darted through the streets of Ameega faster than I’d ever moved, urgency thrumming in my veins. There was no time to admire the spiraling towers or snow-draped arches; our boots pounded across the frozen streets, weaving through narrow alleys until the suburbs blurred back into the heart of the city.

Bomani led us masterfully, slipping between shadows and stone to avoid the guards. Tonight, the streets crawled with knights. It was more than I had seen all week. Their golden carriages rumbled through the morning frost, hooves of warhorses hammering the snow like war drums. For a heartbeat, I caught sight of their cargo: Fae. Two were chained into each cart. Some with skin tinted in pastel hues, others rich as deep earth. Their wings shimmered in impossible colors, bound cruelly behind their backs with glowing bands.

My chest tightened. This was what Lord Draco had warned me of. The King’s Guard was using them to tame the fires. The sight hollowed me, but I couldn’t afford to dwell, not now. Politics and pity could wait. Survival could not.