THE OLD MAN clenched his hands, but in the end, he said, “No, your highness. Please proceed with the initial punishment.”
“Very well,” Swan said and patted the father’s back before turning to a female mage who was crying. She wiped the latter’s tears away before taking her in her arms. She healed Sarah and fixed her dress using a spell.
“Hush now. You are okay, Sarah. You are safe,” she whispered.
“Thank you for standing up for me, your highness.”
She smiled. “No problem.” But when she must have realized that all eyes were on her, she bit her lower lip, and tapped her forehead as she turned to me and then to the birthday celebrant.
Her cheeks were still red when she raised her chin and in a defensive voice, she said, “I am not going to apologize for hitting that drunkard. He deserved it. However, I would like to apologize for the commotion I caused. I should have dealt wi
(Zach)ALUCARD didn’t seem surprised when he found me sitting on the couch inside his living room. It was as if he knew he was being traced. I had the mages put a tracking spell on him while he was dancing with my wife. After closing the door of his apartment, he went to the wine cellar and grab two bottles of bourbon.He sat on the counter and drank straight from one bottle. Without looking at me, he raised the other bottle. “You must have been bored waiting, your majesty. ‘Want a drink?”I infused my sword with my hell fire. In a blink of an eye, I was already standing behind him, the edge of my sword was pointed at his neck.“If you tell me where the rest of the Hunters are, I will give you a quick and painless death.”“I can tell you where they are but you cannot see them anymore.” His hand bled when he held the blade. Slowly, he turned to me. “I am not an enemy, your majesty. I didn’t
(Kate)‘KILL HER!’‘Kill that wench!’‘What are you doing just staying there? You lying son of a bitch! You betrayed us!’‘We will never let you get away with this! We will drag you to hell with us, Alucard!’They say the most powerful mages could see what other supernatural beings couldn’t. It was probably true. In my case, I get to see the shadows lurking around Alucard. There were hundreds of them. And when I saw him flinch, my hunch was right. He could also hear the voices.How long had he been haunted like this?How could he endure it? If I were him, I would have gone crazy. The witches and the hunters surrounded him, they were like shackles surrounding his body, taunting him and messing with his sanity.“Why are they around you? What did you do?” I asked and held his hands. I entwined my fingers with his. In a blink of an eye, the voices disappeared and I s
AFTER I threw the last blue rose on Alucard’s grave, I received a call. It was from the butler. The mages were still in the middle of their ritual as their way of sending Alucard off when I stepped out of the cemetery. I would have wanted Swan to attend the funeral but Alucard would not want that.He might rise from his grave if I’d let her know about this.“I’m in the middle of something important right now so this phone call better be worth my time, Larry,” I said after answering the call.“This is important, your majesty. We currently have a vampire on the loose!” he reported in a tensed voice. In the background, I heard the sound of people screaming and something breaking.“Right now? Where exactly? And who?”“Here in the castle, your majesty. It’s… the Queen.”“Tell lord Valencia to lead the warriors. I will be there soon.”I clenched my ha
THE DARKNESS hadn’t completely taken over Kate yet or else, she would have been unstoppable. If her body could still respond to me like this, it meant that her body still remembered me and my touch. In her state, it would be impossible to lure her through blood, but I could lure her through something else.I pressed my lower half against her bottom and softly bit her shoulder. She was still resisting when I slid my fingers inside her tight opening. She clenched around me instantly.And heck, I got hard.“See that, swan? No matter who or what you become, you are still mine. You still crave for my touch.”“I am not yours, you moron!”“You deny it so vehemently and yet, you are already this wet just because I touched you once.” I wedged my knee between her thighs and rubbed my erection against her bottom and she stopped fighting. She began rolling her hips.“Swan? Are you back?”She d
“ANYTHING but that, swan. That’s a three-hundred-year-old vase. The butler had been taking care of that diligently for the past centuries. If you throw that, Larry would freak out for the next three hundred years,” I told Kate when I saw her raise the poor vase. That was her newest victim. “Come on, swan. Hand the vase to me. You used to like that, too.”I only got a hold of the real Kate for a while. This dark side of her had been dominating her body for the past fifty-eight hours. And she doesn’t sleep. We cannot afford to lower our guard for even a second because this sexy killer was awake all the freaking time which meant that she had been trying every possible way to target my ass for the past fifty-eight hours.If I don’t try to find a humor in this situation, my subordinates might end up sending me to a mental asylum.Kate’s actions these days had been heart-wrenching, but at times, when I look into her eyes, I feel like I could see the old her, begging me to save her.Yesterda
(Kate) “I WANT A DIVORCE,” I told Zachary when he came out from the bathroom. He had a fresh bruise on his right cheek, multiple scratches on his neck and chest, stab wounds on his arms and thighs that were just starting to heal. When Zachary caught me staring at his body, he put some clothes on but it was too late. I had already seen the damages I caused not only on his body but around me. Our room was a mess. There were broken chairs and windows. I could still smell his blood from the shattered glass from our wedding portrait, from the painting, from the vase, mirror, and the chandelier. The leather couch was ripped. Even the cotton from the throw pillows were everywhere. Zachary’s hair was still wet when he sat on the bed. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping for days now. I was not sure how long I was not myself. I was not even sure what I did before opening my eyes this morning. I just knew that my destructive side had caused all these. The chain
(Zachary)KATE’S words seeped deep into my mind and pierced my chest. She has a husband, a daughter, countless knights, and hundreds of subordinates. Yet, she suffered in silence all by herself to stop all of us from worrying. She must have been so lonely. Still, she hung in there.Seeing Swan like this was causing me unimaginable sorrow. Remembering her horror-stricken face as she stared at my face and body made it hard for me to breathe. This woman was still trying to be a queen as she bore the weight of the kingdom on her shoulders by still thinking of their welfare and by sacrificing herself.“If only I could suffer in your place, I would.”“I’m sorry, Zach,” she replied instead in a wistful voice.“For what?”Her trembling hands finally reached out to me although I could still sense her hesitation as if she was afraid that she would hurt me. I closed my eyes when I felt her hands on my face.“For being selfish. For asking you, of all people, to do this. If I die, my suffering wou
(Zachary)“I’M starting to hear them, Zach. Their voices, their screams. I thought I had pushed them all away already. But I didn’t. They are here.”Kate and I were lying on the bed. This was our third night since she came back, since I asked for seven days. And since then, I keep seeing her change. Her body was almost freezing now, she was wearing layers of clothes. My hell fire no longer helps in keeping her warm.I was behind her the whole time, embracing her, but even that was not enough. I pulled her closer to me.“I think I’m starting to lose it, Zach.”“No, Swan,” I whispered in her ear. “Don’t listen to them. What the voices tell you don’t matter. Focus only on my voice.”All of a sudden, we heard a sound coming from a musical instrument. It started with only the flute. And I know where it came from. It was from Jonathan. But a few seconds after and we started hearing the piano, the harp, and the violin.The symphony they were making filled our ears.“Do you hear that, swan? T