Page 57 of Bloody Kingdom

She’s been gone for over three hundred years, but the grief in his voice makes it sound as if he’d just lost her yesterday. I’m torn between wanting to hug him for his loss but also feeling jealous of a woman that’s been dead for centuries. “She’s the woman in the painting, right? It’s her stuff that is preserved in those display cases?”

He gives me a curt nod. “Yes. Those items belonged to Cecily, but I don’t wish to talk about her with you Quincey.” He turns from me, leaning on his hands on the back of the couch.

“Why not?” I frown. “She obviously meant the world to you. For God’s sake, you’ve carried around random trinkets that belonged to her forcenturies, Silas. Shestillmeans a lot to you and that makes me want to know about her.”

With his insane vampire speed, he whirls around to face me, his dark eyes full of frustration. “I can’t talk to you about her because I made a vow to Cecily when I married her that I would never so much as look at another woman, let alonecarefor another. I’ve broken that vow many times over the years, but it was only sex. Meaningless fucks with women whose faces I hardly remember.Youaren’t a meaningless fuck to me Quincey, you’re so much more and because of that, I can’t talk to you about my dead wife. I have to keep you two separate, or the guilt will grow to be insufferable.”

My heart breaks a little hearing this. “You feel guilty being with me?” I question softly. “It feels wrong being with me?”

He kneels in front of me, his hands grab my hips and pull me toward him. “No,mon soleil. It doesn’t feel wrong, it feels right and that’s what makes me feel guilty. Each time I think of you, each time I touch you.” His thumbs caress back and forth over my bare skin. “Each time I kiss you, it feelsright. It should feel like the ultimate betrayal against her, but it doesn’t.”

Understanding settles in me. He doesn’t feel guilty because he’s cheating on her. He feels guilty because of hislackof guilt. I cup his face in my hands. “I don’t know much about her, but I do know she loved you and that makes me immediately like her. If she loved you the way I think she did, she’d want you to be happy. She wouldn’t want you to be miserable for the rest of your life, Silas.” Very few people—if any—have had the honor of seeing the vulnerable look on Silas’s face right now. I feel incredibly lucky he’s dropped his impenetrable wall for me, even if it is only for a second. “I’m not telling you to erase her from your heart, she’s part of the reason you’re the man you are and for that I’m thankful to her. All I ask is you make a little room for someone else, it doesn’t have to be me, but allow someone else to love you the way Cecily did.”

Even if Silas wakes up tomorrow and decides I’m more trouble than I’m worth, I hope he’ll open himself up to someone one day. No one should go through their life without feeling loved, Silas deserves someone too.

His hands engulf mine, pulling them from his face gently. “A little room?” he repeats, his voice just a rasp. “Fuck Quincey, can’t you see that I’ve already given every piece of my heart that I can to you? She’ll always own a piece of it, but the rest is already yours.” My own heart thuds painfully in my chest, filling with joy as I absorb his words. “I know I shouldn’t. I know being anywhere near you will only put you in danger, but I can’t bring myself to stay away. Not anymore.”

“Don’t run from me,” I whisper my plea, anxiety that he’ll leave creeping into my bones.

“I couldn’t if I tried.” Silas kisses my knuckles tenderly. “This is new to me, Quincey. I don’t know how to do this—I don’t know how to have you in my world. I ask that you’re patient with me as I figure this out.”

“As long as you’re patient with me as I get used to this wholevampirething,” I counter. “There’s bound to be a learning curve.”

His lips pull ever so slightly. “Indeed.”

The smile disappears, and his face grows serious once more. “I need you to promise me something, love. I need you to promise that if I ever tell you to run from me, that you will do so, no questions asked. I need you to promise you’ll get as far away from me as possible, as fast as you can. If I lose control and you’re around, I will kill you before you can beg me to stop.”

“But—”

“No buts, I need you to promise.”

Stiffly I nod. “I promise.”

“While the plague ran rampant through London in sixteen sixty-five, another unknown killer was also taking lives. Almost a quarter of the population died in just over a year. Many of those deaths weren’t from the black death. They were from vampires. Oronevampire.” He lies next to me in bed staring at the ceiling while I stare at him, memorizing each of the angles of his face. “Andreas was the first vampire in existence. How he came to be is still a mystery, but there are a lot of theories that it was a virus of sorts. For hundreds of years, he was the only one of his kind. Andreas was smart, one of the smartest men I’ve ever known, but he allowed emotions to dictate his actions. When the plague hit London hard and people started dropping dead, he decided he was going to save them.”

I grimace, knowing where Silas is going with this.

“He didn’t save them because he felt like it was the right thing, he was simplylonely. Very few survive being turned, the process wreaks havoc on a human body. Vampire blood more times than not turns into a poison when a human ingests it. The body decays from the inside out as it eats through healthy veins and muscles. It’s a horrifying sight. The poor people who died were written off as other casualties from the plague. Those who survived were forever altered, changed to be just likehim.”

My hand takes his, squeezing gently.

“When the change is complete, many don’t come back with their humanity. It’s as if the change burned away anything that made them human. There is no sense of right or wrong, the only thing they know is they’re starving and anything that gets between them and fresh blood is as good as dead. These—creatures—are the ones the stories are based on. These are the true monsters.” He swallows hard before continuing. “We’d just moved away from France the year before to London. We left in hopes of a better life, but unbeknownst to us, it would be the thing that ruined us. Cecily got sick first, she urged me to leave her, to save myself, but I refused to leave her side. I fell ill shortly after. Andreas found us on our literal deathbeds. With the fever, I was disoriented and unsure as to what was happening, but I remember him telling me he was going to save us. He forced his blood down both mine and Cecily’s throats. The pain of the blood moving through my system was excruciating, but as my heart slowed and my body turned cold, the pain left. When I opened my eyes for the first time as a vampire, I’d never felt stronger—healthier—in my life. I felt invincible, because to an extent, I was.”

“What happened to Cecily?” I ask.

“She wasn’t next to me when I woke up. I found her hours later with her fangs in a little boy’s throat. She killed him and threw his body to the side like a piece of trash. When I looked into her dead eyes, I didn’t recognize her. The gentle look that had permanently resided in them was replaced with something evil. The Cecily I married had a bleeding heart that rivaled yours. She would cry for the pigs and chickens in the cages at the market, but she killed the boy who couldn’t have been older than ten without a single ounce of remorse. Her only concern was feeding. I was famished myself, but I still had restraint. Cecily never got enough. For days, I watched her rip through people and never grow full, and each day that passed it became clearer to me that my wife was gone.”

“Oh, Silas.” My heart breaks for him. No one should have to see the person they love turn into a monster like he did.

“No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reason with her. She was completely lost to me and when she attacked a mother and daughter next, I knew I couldn’t sit back and watch any longer. The Cecily I loved would have been devastated to learn that she’d caused such destruction.” He pauses. The next words he speaks are low but so clear, devoid of any emotion. “I killed my wife with my bare hands because I knew if I didn’t, she’d never stop taking innocent lives. As I sat there on a dirty London street with my dead wife in my arms, something broke in me and I’ve never been the same. The anger I used to become the man I am today corroded my soul that day, the darkness crept in and I welcomed it with open arms. I wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t.”

It makes so much sense to me now, how he’s been able to hold on to that fury for so long. An event like he went through would have broken a weaker man, instead, he let it fuel him and make him stronger. It also corrupted him at the same time. The devoted husband became the ruthless king.

“Killing her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but killing Andreas was the easiest.He was moving through Europe, going town by town, turning sick people. I followed behind him, leaving a trail of dead in my wake. I was no better than Cecily, the only difference was I wasn’t being fueled by an uncontrollable hunger, it was rage. I only had one goal in mind, and I killed anyone who stood in my way. By the time I finally caught up with Andreas, the blood of hundreds was on my hands,” Silas explains, still staring up at the ceiling. I wish he’d look at me but understand why he can’t. “Other vampires followed Andreas like he was their king, all because he granted them immortality, but I knew the truth. I knew he was a selfish bastard and the power had gone to his head. He never saw it coming. His arrogance made him foolishly believe I was another one of his sheep. He believed I would be thankful to him forsaving me, so when I ripped his head from his shoulders, the surprised look still remained on his face as it rolled through the dirt. He almost killed me in our battle, but I prevailed. My fury made me stronger. Just like that, I dethroned the king.”

Understanding hits me. “And that’s when your reign began.”

Finally, his head turns, black eyes full of years of anger and pain peer into mine. “It was never my intention. I’d planned on killing Andreas and then walking into the bright morning sun so I could be reunited with Cecily, but I knew if I didn’t take control, vampires would run rampant through the world. A plague would be the least of their worries. Humans would never stand a chance. My word became law amongst the vampires. It was understood that if you stepped out of line, you died. I was the judge, jury, and executioner. Nothing has changed in almost four centuries, it’s just easier now with modern technology to keep track of things.”

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