10: Dark History
Dominic
Seeing her again, it was like acid in my throat. Though I’d never declare it out loud to anyone living or undead, the woman was a vision even after all these years.
Her beauty struck me from where I stood and took my breath away. Not that I breathed, but around her I was prone to silliness and poetic speeches.
I loved her still.
However, betrayal and disdain burned in her glorious eyes the very second they landed on mine. For good reason, though I wished there was something I could say or do to prove my allegiance was always hers and not his.
My brother, the King, in the years leading up to the Uprising, betrayed our kind for his own self-interest. It was not uncommon for our kind, but my brother did something unforgivable even I had trouble reconciling.
He surrendered himself to a true, from the very depths of Hell, demon.
Demons were nightmarish creatures that only knew greed, hunger, and the taste of sin. Even I feared their black reach.
My brother sold himself to that very thing — the temptation of glory and an unchallengeable reign too powerful a desire to ignore. But to do so, he sacrificed his most loyal to the demon’s insatiable hunger.
Many of my companions inside the castle went missing. Each one was dismissed by my brother, who had some excuse or reason for their departure. I neither cared nor thought too deeply about it to wonder beyond his reasoning.
Not until it was someone near and dear to Raquel. Only then did I truly ponder what could be happening. But by then, it was too late.
Raquel’s dearest sister and friend disappeared five days before the demon destroyed our castle. Raquel searched and demanded answers, knowing her sister would never leave without telling her. She was silenced by the coven and turned out two days before everything was revealed.
I thought her mad and intended to go after her when my business had finished, but I was never given the chance.
A week before the Uprising, the demon claimed my brother, the King, entirely. It consumed him body and soul.
On its exit, the demon set fire to the King’s chambers, and that hellish fire spread in seconds to all the other rooms in our beloved castle. I was sent to my private estate, like many of us Royals were forced to do, in order to reorganize our coven.
Displaced from our highly secure home, those dogs who were our personal slaves at every estate were given a perfect opportunity to exploit the chaotic aftermath.
Like many of the coven, Raquel blamed me. She and the others were convinced I knew my brother was in cahoots with a literal devil. But despite her theories, I was just as blindsided by his association as the rest of them were.
Before the dogs attacked, I planned to make it clear to them how I was as little aware as they. But with the coven under her rule and her eyes confident with my betrayal, it was going to be one hell of a road to prove my innocence.
I had always been oblivious to my brother’s woes, and his personality had always been vicious and toxic. When his heart blackened with greed and desire to corrupt everything he touched, it didn’t seem completely out of character.
But an association with a demon only ever ended in death and destruction. His demise was determined the second he surrendered himself to that demon, and had I known, I would have disassociated myself with him and overthrown his reign.
Instead, he tore the entire coven down with him. He ruined us, and Raquel’s disdain for me was understandable. Still, she wasn’t built for leadership. She cared too deeply for others, and it would damn her and the coven.
Only I could rule.
It was especially true now that she used the very things that sought to destroy us as a way to regain power. By my standards, there was little difference between dog and devil when it came to obtaining our position in the world again.
I stood, guarded by men who had once been some of my closest companions. I eyed the two of them with interest, smelling her on them.
“Miss me?”
Kai looked away, clearly not ready to talk to me. But Atikin stared straight into my eyes and offered a short reply.
“You betrayed us all. It’s lucky she decided not to bury you this day. I would’ve been the first to sink my sword into your heart,” he said, rage igniting his eyes. “And while I’ll do whatever my Queen commands, the temptation to kill you is more enticing than you know.”
My lips rose in amusement. “I missed you, too.”
The two vampires shifted uncomfortably, and I sighed melodramatically. With my eyes on the ceiling, I organized my thoughts and attempted once more to communicate with two individuals who would rather rip me from limb to limb than be forced to stay here, conversing with me.
“When was it that she sold her soul to a dog?” I started, eyes on Kai.
His mouth formed a thin line. “You haven’t any right to judge what she’s done. You and your brother sided with the devil himself.”
I hummed low in my throat. “That’s where you’re wrong, old friend. I never once pledged myself to that demon. If I had, it would’ve taken me with my brother.”
It was clear my words struck a chord with both, because they knew I was right. If I’d been aware of the demon and pledged myself to it the way my brother had, it would’ve consumed me alongside him.
“Say I offer to concede some and agree to rule beside her, what say you?” I inquired, postured like the Royal I was.
Both men hesitated, and I knew right then that they weren’t at all happy that she’d allied the coven with those damn dogs.
Good. If her closest were upset by the collaboration, then the rest of the coven was no doubt just as bothered by it. And that was where I’d start.
To be continued…
