Page 77 of Clash of Kingdoms

“Huntley, it’s more complicated than that?—”

“It’s not complicated. If it were Ivory, I know what my choice would be.”

“With all due respect, you’ve never been offered immortality?—”

“You could make me a vampire right now,” he snapped. “I would be stronger, and I would live forever. But that doesn’t tempt me whatsoever. I will die and be buried beside my parents in the cemetery in Delacroix, and then one day, Ivory will join me. We will be together in the afterlife, our souls bound as one, for eternity.”

My eyes shifted away.

“Look at me.”

My eyes came back to his with my own anger. “When I told Harlow this, she completely understood. You’re getting angry about something that is frankly none of your business?—”

“None of my business?” he asked coldly. “My daughter’s heartbreak will always be my business.”

Huntley and I had forged a relationship of friendship and camaraderie, and now, it was long gone. We were enemies once again, an invisible line between us. “As you know, we are no longer together. So this conversation is moot.” She’d dumped me, and in the days that had passed, she seemed to hate me more. I’d lost hope that there would be a reconciliation. Her pain was still hot as a bonfire, so it was physically painful for me to be around her.

“I want you to leave, Aurelias.”

I heard the threat in his voice.

“I appreciate what you’ve done for us.” He had to force it out, force himself to be diplomatic when he didn’t want to be. “But your time here has come to an end. You’re no longer welcome here.”

In a daze, I sat there, hurt by the request on so many different levels. “The crystal?—”

“We’ll destroy it with the detonators.”

“You can’t speak to Beast?—”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“If they attack again?—”

“Then your presence will make no damn difference.” He slammed his fist on the desk as he rose to his feet. “We may not be vampires, but we are not weak. We defeated those demons, not once, but twice. Don’t take pity on us because we don’t need it. Now grab your things and leave.”

I remained in the chair.

“Leave.”

I slowly rose to my feet. “I’ve lived over fifteen hundred years.”

He gave a quiet sigh, like he didn’t want to hear my tale but didn’t interrupt me.

“I’ve lived fifteen hundred years as one of the strongest vampires in nature, a creature at the top of the food chain, with abilities that make me nearly invulnerable. But it wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, I was human. My father and my brothers and I left our farmhouse to transport our harvest to sell at the market. While we were away, raiders came to our farm and raped my mother…and burned her alive.” This story might be ancient history, but it still hurt to tell it, to know that my mother had died a gruesome death when she was the most loving person I’d ever known.

Huntley’s anger dampened…like my words were a bucket of cold water.

“We were too weak to defeat the raiders, so we turned, all of us. I never want to be weak like that again, to fail a person I loved because I was physically inept. That’s why I can’t be human, not because I don’t love Harlow, but because once I’m human…I’ll be unworthy of her.” I swallowed, picturing myself as a weak man who couldn’t help my mother. “I wish…more than anything…that Harlow were already a vampire. But she’s not…”

Huntley was quiet, staring at me with the desk between us. “Tell me why you won’t turn her.”

My eyes had drifted elsewhere as I’d told the story about my mother. Now they’d found his again. “You don’t want that for her?—”

“I still want to know why.”

I remained silent.

“Aurelias.”