Page 70 of Wicked Bite
“The deadliest Queen of Potions to ever walk the Earth is in my castle right now because of your feral little vampire and you didn’t think it would be important to let me in on this information?”
When you put it like that. I flinched at the connotation of my complete lack of respect for the crown in this matter. Was he wrong? No. Did I regret it? Also, no. “My apologies, but I called in a favor.”
“We did up the security, I might add,” Sav stepped in, but when Titus hissed at him, he snapped his mouth shut.
“Like that would matter.” He leaned back in the chair. “Now tell me, were you involved with this human before you turned her?”
“Yes.” I wouldn’t lie to him, even if it would save me the tongue-lashing I deserved.
“And you cared for her?”
“Yes, but I was leaving to return home the night of the accident and her transformation. It was never the plan to turn her or stay.” It was never in the cards for me to stay with Piper or make her a vampire, but fate had other plans.
“Women are never the plan.” He sighed. “Men fall hard and often for tiny little things. But let me remind you, you and I aren’t afforded that luxury.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know!” he snapped. “Your mother is the loveliest creature. It is easy to see why your father fell in love with her, but the curse took him. You are not invincible, and it will take you too.”
“I was trying to avoid that.” If only he knew how much I tried. I didn’t want Piper to become a vampire. I wanted her to live out her human life, get married, have kids. Not walk the night like some cursed creature. But that was exactly what I’d damned her to.
“And yet she now lies in the bowls of this castle as a newly turned vampire.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m sure that wasn’t part of the plan either.”
“Clearly not.” Guilt riddled my whole body and a dull ache started in my chest. I’d messed up. “I had no other choice.”
“Death was the choice. It was the natural way of life.”
She was too young to die, and I couldn’t let her go. “Something in me just wouldn’t, and I saved her.”
He finished off the rest of his drink. “Very well.”
“Very well?” My guard went up. Titus was always calm, but when he was this calm in the face of the mess I’d created, all kinds of warning bells went off in my head. There was a cunning side to him that I didn’t want to see or cross, and yet I knew damn well I’d crossed it.
“Then she will go to be with her own kind.”
“Surly you can’t mean . . . Marius?”
Marius fancied himself as the ambassador to the made-vampires, or Night Spawn as we liked to call them. He encouraged their breeding and even more so their loyalty to him. Titus worked with Marius cautiously. It was clear the man had ambitions, but for now Titus held all vampires under his rule.
“That wannabe posh bastard?” Sav shook his head.
“Something you’d like to add, Atlas?” Titus rose to his feet and looked down on the two of us.
I shook my head, already disgusted by the thought. “You can’t send her to him. He’ll turn her into one of his cronies with the slicked-back hair, looking like common movie vampire garbage.”
“I’ll strike a deal with you then.” People wondered where I got my deal-making, convincing nature from. This right here. I’d witnessed Titus do this a million times. Give only two options, but they were two options that he himself could live with.
I arched my eyebrow. “Interesting. What is the deal, Uncle?”
“Your progeny can either go to live with Marius or you will take on the full duties of what it means to be a sire.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Let me finish.” He wagged his finger at me. “In doing so, you will stay under this roof. You will participate in the coming prophecy, and you will assume your role as Prince of The House of Shade.”
I could already feel the chains tightening around my neck, like I was being strapped here. “And if I refuse?”
He waved my question away. “Then she goes, and you continue on your path of destruction and merriment along with your magical friends.”
