could anyone be so cruel, so evil as to steal a baby; a helpless, innocent child?
“Why?” Arrick wrapped his arm around me as I shook with pain and anger.
“The only way to keep Lilith and Samael from openly attacking the throne was to reestablish my power. Without that, I would lose the support of the other vampires in the region. They wouldn’t stand beside me should Lilith and Samael execute their plan to steal the throne.”
“You knew they were plotting against you. Why didn’t you just simply have them killed?” Arrick tried to keep the level of his voice down. Several of the vampires around us were attempting to listen in, while others shifted away; uncomfortable with the conversation or unable to handle whatever truths might be revealed.
Nicolae’s face lost its sadness and filled with regret. “I thought that I could change their mind. I hoped they would see reason. When I took my role as king I vowed an end to the killing, to death. I wanted to avoid it at any cost.” His face hardened at Arrick, but grew soft again when he looked at me. “I thought I could give you a good life, Claire. You are loved more than you’ll ever know.” His eyes drifted away from me, so I followed them.
Evilyn sat at a lone bench in the far corner of the courtyard. The hood of her cloak had remained draped over her face, but the light of the Astraia flower that she still held in her hands illuminated her ruby red lips. A long braid woven with black velvety ribbons spilled out of her hood.
“There was nothing she wanted more in this world than a child,” Nicolae said, his voice filled with sorrow. “She prayed and prayed to Nyx for countless years, and was never blessed with such a miracle. Perhaps Nyx was punishing her for marrying me…” I looked back to him. I could feel the desire to pull Evilyn into his arms seeping out of him like honey. He must have felt my eyes on him, because he jerked his face back to me with surprise. Maybe he got lost in the pain, or the memories of seeing his wife begging the goddess for a child that would never come.
“When I learned of your birth I saw it as an opportunity. I could give my wife that which she most desired and I could protect my region from being ruled by Lilith and Samael. I always knew they’d never fully accepted our new way of life, but I refused to admit it. When they’d agreed to follow me I thought they’d relinquished their loyalty to The Dark. I was wrong.”
“You fought against them in the dark ages?” I asked, suddenly intrigued. I’d never heard that piece of information. I didn’t understand how Nicolae could have ever trusted them. What did they do to make him believe they’d changed their ways?
“We did.”
He moved away from a crowd of vampires as they made their way to the stairs to exit the crypt. I watched as their eyes surveyed our faces, and I could feel them flicking out feelers to sense our emotions. I clenched my grip on mine to be sure no one could sense anything from me. My expression might betray me, but without knowing the truth in my heart they’d never know for sure.
“After the last battle we searched the wreckage to recover our dead; to give them a proper burial. That’s when we found them. They were new to the mutation and hadn’t fully changed. Many of our kind wanted to kill them before they had a chance to devolve, but I couldn’t do it. I convinced my followers that by killing them we’d only be inviting darkness into our hearts. That it was against everything we were fighting for. I was convinced that the only way to save them was to accept them, and allow them to welcome the goddess into their hearts.”
Arrick groaned beside me, obviously unhappy about the decision Nicolae had made so long ago. Against my initial desires, I was starting to understand him. Nicolae really did want peace; he just very often made the wrong decisions. It was about time he started making the right ones.
“Centuries later and they still haven’t changed. All those years and you didn’t suspect even once that something was off?” Arrick asked.
“No. When they’d taken Ana as their daughter, starting a family for themselves I thought that was a sign they