Valentin sighed. "Why did you decide to give birth to a child without consulting the family first?" he asked.
At this point, the siblings’s communication had turned toxic as they both were just doing their best to hurt each other instead of understanding each other.
"I did consult my family. My husband and I agreed to keep her because she was conceived out of love," Amara responded.
She emphasized the word "love" to make him understand what she was going through. He should know since he was also in love with soone the monarch would never accept.
"Your fam—huft..." Valentin couldn’t finish the word as he was overwheld in disbelief. "Did you not think of consulting with your parents–with your brother?"
Never in a million years did Valentin not consider Amara his sister, his family. He had thought Amara also held family as dearly as he did.
"Did you seriously ask that? Brother, if you had been supportive, then I—" Amara paused, noticing a light slipping through a small gap in the door.
She approached the girl standing by the gap and patted her back. "What are you doing here, little bat?"
"Bedti story..." the child mumbled.
Even that soft voice annoyed Valentin.
He glared at the short halfling, channeling his anger at her—the weakest being under this roof. His biggest enemy was still the werewolf who had stolen his sister from him. But this child was the reason he had lost Amara forever.
With this halfling around, there was no way Amara could return to the palace. Their father would never allow it.
"Oh, right. Forgive , little bat, I can’t tonight. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, alright?" Amara seed to notice the tension between Valentin and her child. She slipped out of the door to stop him from glaring at the girl.
"Where is your father? Remus, darling, can you please take Riona to bed?" she called out. Soon after, the werewolf appeared.
Remus’s voice drew closer to the door, and Valentin could imagine what was happening behind it. "There you are. I was waiting for you in your room. How did you get here?"
Once Amara returned, she closed the door tightly. Seeing and talking with her child seed to have knocked so sense into her. She was no longer as upset and began to think more clearly.
"Forgive ," she said. "I know you’re hurt, but I really couldn’t tell you about my pregnancy and Riona."
"Riona?"
A smile blood on Amara’s face at the ntion of the na. "My daughter. Her na ans queen. Isn’t that ironic? I know she won’t ever be a queen."
Amara’s child should have been the next ruler of the Kingdom of Eira. After all, Amara was the crown princess. She was destined to lead once the forr vampire king died.
However, with a halfling child, Amara would be disowned. While there was no written rule about halflings in the kingdom, their father was a radical hater of other races. He would spit at Riona and might even order her killed if he learned of her existence.
The crown princess running away with a werewolf brought great dishonor to the monarchy. Producing a halfling was an outright humiliation.
"Brother, my life—my family is in danger," she said, looking down at her fingers sadly.
"What are you talking about?" Valentin asked, both confused and concerned.
"Why do you think we moved constantly instead of settling down? Do you think we did it solely to avoid Father’s detection?"
In fact, yes, Valentin had thought so. He nodded and confird, "Is that not it?"
Amara shook her head slowly. "No, we are being targeted. We’ve been attacked several tis."
"By whom?"
"I don’t know. We haven’t found out. We thought figuring out whose enemy it is would bring us closer to the answer, but we don’t even know that."
She sighed and massaged her temple, clearly exhausted by the ordeal. Valentin adjusted his sitting position, realizing that his being upset about the pregnancy and birth was petty compared to the danger his sister faced.
"How were you attacked? What power did they use? If we can isolate the possibilities, we can think of a solution," Valentin said, racking his strategic mind to solve the problem.
He set aside his petty jealousy, focusing solely on saving his sister’s life. There was no use in being jealous or worrying about bringing her back to the palace if she were dead.
"That’s the thing," Amara said, frustrated. "It gets confusing because sotis, Father can be a bit nasty."
She described how she was almost kidnapped during a morning excursion to the market. She had managed to escape after fighting off a group of five attackers, but she was battered and considerably weakened.
They moved imdiately after that incident.
Then, Remus was drugged with an injection. Fortunately, his reflexes were quick, and he stopped the attackers before the syringe was emptied, allowing him to maintain consciousness and escape.
"Father’s crony did the attack with Remus. As he was escaping them, he saw flashes of vampire’s power, similar to those used by the royal guards," she explained.
There were other instances where Amara and Remus were attacked, both openly and covertly.
"What scared the most was right after I gave birth. Two people snuck into our house. They almost killed Riona. If Remus weren’t a werewolf, she would already be dead."
The attackers were noiseless, their stealth even fooling the sharp hearing of a werewolf. But Remus’s sense of sll detected them at the last minute before they could harm the baby.
"They were werewolves," she added.
"So you have enemies on both sides," Valentin concluded.
"Perhaps. I can’t be sure. Can we count Father as an enemy?"
Valentin bit his lower lip. "Father wouldn’t do that to you."
Amara chuckled. "You don’t sound confident."
Because I don’t completely believe that...
Her expression turned serious. "You know how ruthless the nobles can be, right? They wouldn’t hesitate to kill . The more they once admired , the more they must hate now. I’ve fallen too far from their expectations."
She was right. Vampire nobles could be as ruthless as animals. They were obsessed with honor and self-benefit, and loyalty ran thin in their veins.
"Not to ntion, Remus is basically a public enemy."
Right. He had co to the Kingdom of Eira because of that in the first place.
Reviews
All reviews (0)