31. Hayden
31
HAYDEN
"You've fooled around with her enough, Hayden! Initially, I approved of her marrying you because maybe I do like seeing my troubled son find some type of peace. A new leaf he's turned since meeting her and a break from his demented outbursts and immaturity. Now that I know she doesn't want to truly join our family, kill her and initiate your powers! Since she's a Valkyrie, her memory doesn't erase after you drink from her. She's a risk. A risk that is too golden to let go to waste!" My father roars, with eyes so heartless they look empty. As usual, he's disconnected from me and unable to understand that I've fallen in love with a person who is forbidden. He doesn't understand what that's like. His journey with my mother was always smooth sailing.
I plan to change that when I become King. When Immortals find themselves a Valkyrie, it's written in what we deem our version of the bible and commandments that we must leave them alone because the sin of Greed will lead to lust for power. Terrible, terrible sins that lead to carnage and bloodshed amongst each other.
I was keeping her alive for my selfish reasons, and it paid off because the Southern King jumped at the opportunity to steal her back, and now I have evidence that this was his evil plan from the beginning. Keeping her alive spared me from going to trial…and it worked. I got my revenge, but what I hadn't planned for was to fall in love with Millie. But now that I have, everyone and everything can go fuck themselves because there's no way I'm ever letting her go. I've always been selfish, and now that I have someone that makes me feel alive? I'm supposed to just let her go?
NO .
She is my prey, and I am her hunter. She is the ethereal of light in my vast, never-ending darkness. She is my undeserving forgiveness for all of my mistakes. I know she is. She has to be. Why else has God made us cross paths?
Before her, religion held no place in my blackened heart, but after meeting Millie. There is a God.
"Killing Valkyries is against the law!" I remind him of the laws put in place after the war between all Vampire Kings took place centuries ago in Europe. "Why would I tarnish the Drago name by putting our family line at risk by doing that? Millie and I love each other!"
"You forced her to!" he interjects. Spit flies out of his mouth as he snarls. "Don't think I don't know what's been going on between these halls of our Cathedral!" His eyes are beaming red, expecting me to recoil from his horrifying outbursts.
It won't work on me. Not this time. Not ever again.
I transform and let my emotions take over. I fix the cuff of my sweater, as I always do when trying to keep the monsters in my head at bay, especially when it comes to my own family.
"I will marry her, Arthur. She wears my mother's ring perfectly. I have my mother's blessing, and that's good enough for me. As soon as I take reign, I will propose a new law that says we can marry a Valkyrie. They're rare, and we haven't encountered one in hundreds of years. But if another immortal has the luck to find one and fall in love, then they should be allowed to marry them. When it comes to the powers, well…I'll leave that up to the council to decide. All I care about is marrying her. I don't give a fuck about the powers!"
His nostrils are flaring, and his long, thick fangs glint underneath the red stained glass illuminated by the sun outside.
"Don't you talk to the King like that!" Holland blares over our snarls. He walks with a cane and gets in between us as if he'll be able to de-escalate the situation when he only riles me up even more. Kallum stands in the corner, watching with fear, drinking blood from a red crystalized cup.
I smirk; it's sinister and conniving. Hollands hates it when I grin because he knows whatever comes next out of my mouth is never good. I've never given him a genuine smile. He grips his cane and takes a step back.
"His reign is over," I tell him, slow and unremorseful. "There's a new King in the North. I'm marrying Millie this week. We don't need a grand wedding. She doesn't care about money or such things like that." I grab my cigarettes and take one out. "I take it if you're such a rule follower, father , you know that once my marriage to Millie is finalized, you can retire with my mother and move to Europe like she's been wanting. You can't stop me. The only thing that can stop me from taking reign is my demise. But you wouldn't dare do that to your"—I tap my chin mischievously—"your villainous son? I think that's what I remember you and Mom telling me. That's what I'm good at, right? Playing a villain when I need to be?" I challenge him.
He stands there quietly and lets out a heavy breath.
"Big brother, why are you so invested in her? You know how your relationship will end if she doesn't consent to turning." My body runs colder when he brings up the facts I've been pushing far back into my head, hoping I'd forget about the truths.
I turn to Kallum and light my cigarette. The bitterness kisses my tongue harder than usual. I look at Kallum as he swallows the blood in his cup, and he meets me with those brown eyes he got from our mother.
"If you turn her, her heart will stop beating, and you will unlock your powers whether you want it to happen or not. Everything about her is forbidden," Kallum continues nonchalantly.
"I'm hoping that marrying her will cancel out that fact. There's a law in place allowing us to marry humans. And at the end of the day, she is a human," I retort, throwing my cigarette to the floor.
"You're living on hopes and dreams that will send you to your damnation in the Inferno," Holland cuts in, his eyes sending daggers my way, but I send them right back with glares of my own.
My father has checked out. He sits on the couch and pours himself a drink of red like he's given up on me. Good. I don't need him to tell me that Millie isn't mine. She's mine and always will be, despite the truth.
"It doesn't have to be hopes and dreams, Holland. We're living on laws that were made centuries ago. It's time all Immortals change with the times," I spit back venomously.
"She's sick! She's going to die anyway. Drain her for your powers, big brother. Her pussy can't be that hypnotizing that she's changed you. You've had hundreds of women before!" Kallum tells me, slurring his sentence. He must have laced his drink with alcohol because his honesty is taking me by surprise. I know he doesn't mean to point out these facts, but he can't help it sometimes. He always has to be right. It's like he's driving a thick wooden stake through my chest.
"No, stop fucking talking!" I try to interrupt him, desperation getting the best of me. I want to fall onto my knees and put my hands to my ears, but I stay standing, burning holes through my little brother like I'm about to ruin him.
"Or have you forgotten that that's why their blood is rare?!" Kallum interjects me with an amused tone. "That that's why they're hard to find? Because they all die by the age of twenty-three! That's why they're called Valkyrie's!" Kallum blurts out, downing the rest of his drink.
I don't want to think about losing Millie. I can't… I won't.
"No…no…shut the fuck up! NO!"
I black out. I forget where I am and let the demons possess my body, and I can feel them grin sadistically inside my head as I let them take control. The thought of losing Millie drives me to the point of insanity and delirious rage. She is everything to me! I can't focus when she's not around. Millie Flores is the angel that's cursed me with her love. She forgives my sins and I teach her to welcome hers. I need her like the Earth needs the sun. I crave her like the ocean needs the moon. I will always burn infinitely for her.
I grab the closest thing I can find and destroy it. I break into it over and over again until it's in pieces. I stare at the broken chair as if that'll solve all my problems. It isn't enough, so I start to grab all of my dad's precious bottled-up blood and start smashing them.
"Millie is going to die anyway when she turns twenty-three! You might as well put her out of her misery! Do the humane thing and let her go home and return to her family. Let her spend the last moments of her life with her loved ones who miss her. Or kill her." My father growls and watches me. "Stop this madness! You've been trying to prolong her demise. Her death. You're going insane just to keep her heart beating. You're destroying yourself to find a way to keep her here with you! Enough!"
"If you dare look at Millie or talk about her in disgust, I won't hesitate to end you, father . You don't know her like I do. I know that she's found her family within me. I can protect her! I can save her!" I roar, and I'm blinded by my own rage that I have tunnel vision. I only see what I want to see. And that's my future with Millie Flores. My little Bambi. My angel.
"Stop it, son! Stop destroying my bottles!" He blares over the sound of glass.
"I am The Depraved Prince ! That's what everyone calls me, right? I'm just living up to my name and the monster you raised because you wanted me to be a strong King, able to take on everything thrown my way in this cruel world we live in! I'm just"—I smash another bottle—"Living up to my name!" I throw another bottle, but this time, it hits the side of the door, and my eyes widen with shock, paralyzing my senses. The beat of Millie's heart replaces the sounds of glass shattering. I was so enraged and so lost in my outburst that I didn't feel Millie come near. I'm always able to sense where she is, but I blacked out so severely that I didn't listen.
Millie stands at the doorway, pale and shaken, with tears running down her cheeks. The room grows quiet, and the air feels tight. I'm frozen with every terrible, sick emotion overriding me.
"I'm going to die?" She looks at me with eyes full of hurt and betrayal. "I'm sick?" She questions me, her voice breaking, and it makes me want to die even more to see her look at me like this.
She's looked at me like this before. The night I saved her the first time when she had a broken wrist. When I took her back home the first night we met. And then again the night she stabbed me with her kitchen knife. But over time, she changed the way she feels about me and hasn't looked at me like that since I made love to her.
The TV my father keeps in the corner of his room joins the chaos. I must have accidentally turned it on when I started to smash things and pressed the remote. Millie turns to the TV, and we can all hear his voice, which makes Millie's blood heat up and mine boil into wrath.
"We believe and have evidence pointing to whoever took Millie is the same person that killed Pete Flores, her father." I watch Cole wipe away a tear, and a news reporter replaces him. A woman wearing a light purple suit holds the microphone tight in her manicured hands as she continues.
"Turn it off!" I snarl at Kallum, but he's as glued to the TV as everyone is. But no one moves…hell, nor can I. It's like watching an accident; all the secrets I've been keeping from Millie have finally unraveled. The truth of my father's plans for her…what it truly means to be a Valkyrie are all out in the open, and there's no coming back from this. I can only watch as the one soul I've connected with…watch her world get destroyed, and there's nothing I can do about it. I tried to protect her from this, even if it meant lies and deception. I wanted to protect her from our dark world and destiny that she didn't ask for.
I failed.
"Twenty-year-old Millie Flores went missing about four months ago. The house was found broken into, and her father was found brutally murdered around the same night she disappeared."