Page 68 of Henrikk’s Secret

And he would never hold Asher in his arms.

The life he’d once dreamt of was gone. The love of his son should have been enough, but…

He was weaker than the demons that Dargotika had filled him with, and he felt them press on his mind, squeezing all other thought out.

Unless the dragon is dead. Am I deluding myself to think that I feel her presence still?

No, it was unthinkable. The only possible explanation was that Dargotika was still alive, or that somehow, her essence lived on in him. Either way, he was too entrenched, and his fate was inevitable; he would never be rid of her.

Henrikk sat straighter on his throne and stared down impassively at his son.

Nathaniel bowed his head in deference, but his hands clenched.

A thought sparked in Henrikk’s mind.

What if Nathaniel had been the one to free Barbara?

Another thought, this one twisting in his stomach. What if Asher had never betrayed him at all?

“Father?” Nathaniel asked, taking a step forward. “Are you alright?”

Henrikk did not blink. “Are you still here? You may leave.” He dismissed his son with a wave, a pang hurting his chest as he watched his son go.

He had Asher’s goodness. I hope you follow Asher’s footsteps.

Nathaniel left, but Henrikk stayed long after, lost in thought as the sun set and moonlit shadows played through the hall.

Days passed.

Years passed.

Henrikk ruled as king. The kingdoms were all under control, but he hadn’t bothered to give it a collective name or dub it an empire. He was a product of his ambition, but he was no longer ruled by it.

Cruelty was his new muse.

He eradicated the last of the dissident loyalists, those who still supported the old monarchs. Amongst them was a vampire called Arken, a nobleman who bravely spoke out against Henrikk’s policies.

Henrikk had Arken captured and brought to him, and was surprised to discover that the man somewhat resembled Asher. Arken looked nothing like Asher, of course, but he had the same steady calmness, which he found intriguing.

Arken soon became a new source of amusement.

Not that Henrikk ever touched him. That would have been a betrayal to Asher’s memory. But he toyed with him in other ways, and then he broke that toy, and experimented with all the different ways a broken man could be made loyal.

He brought the wolf shifter population to heel, and put the younger adults into Volmasque, a prison-turned school. There, the wolves were domesticated and trained to sexually satisfy their vampire masters. The idea had been vaguely inspired by Asher’s punishment. The project was hailed a success.

In a moment of devastatingly significant boredom, Henrikk decided to make the downtrodden Arken the headmaster of that school, just because he could.

Henrikk had spent many nights on the throne in quiet contemplation.

He’d never stopped grieving Asher’s loss, the pain of his lonely heart a constant reminder of how empty his life was without him. It was a void that his son could not fill.

Henrikk distracted himself by fulfilling Dargotika’s will.

With each evil crime he committed, he descended deeper into darkness, until he reached a point of no return that not even Asher could have brought him back from.

Finally, the day came when Henrikk reached his decision.

Nathaniel was the answer. He was twenty-years-old, now.