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“What happened?” I asked as the blood dens and auctions swam into my mind.
“There’s always corruption and a dark underbelly to any society. Blood dens have been around for hundreds of years, but they remained hidden, and those who ran them felt the wrath of the king if found. When Sargon took the throne, he kept to the laws at first, but slowly, he was corrupted by greed, power, and desire. He believes vampires are superior and should embrace their true natures. When your mom left him, taking you with her, he changed for the worse, and all of that underbelly became normal, or so I’ve heard. Zach and Erianna have told me stories.”
“So his heartbreak made Sanmorte worse?” I closed my eyes for a minute, finding solace in the darkness as I imagined him, the man I’d never met but always wanted to, lost, betrayed, and saddened by her absence.
“Yes. Your mom is the rightful queen, but in name only. Because she was not immortal, she never received any of the gifts or powers which came with the crown. She had no actual power, but marriage is sacred in this culture and divorce doesn’t exist. One of the few reasons why I would never want it,” he added with a grin. “So Sargon couldn’t remarry without knowing if she was dead or alive. He loved her dearly, and he was left without an heir or wife and no options to find another.”
“How do you know all of this?” I asked, considering that he had only been a vampire for three years, which in the measure of immortality was no time at all.
“I make it my business to learn everything about those in power.”
“So noble,” I snapped.
“It’s not difficult to find out. Those at court have little to do than to gossip. Sargon has also told me things about his life. He once said I remind him of his young self. That’s why I’m his favorite. The king enjoys my ambition and humor.”
“Someone has to.”
“You, however, are nothing like him.”
“No?”
“You care about others more than yourself.”
The comment took me by surprise. “You think I’m caring?”
“Yes.”
I hid my smile, mostly because I didn’t want to enjoy being in his company. Still, after Astor’s betrayal and all the lies, he wasn’t the worst person in the world anymore, although he was still using me to get what he wanted. “So my mom hurt him,” I stated, urging him to continue.
“Yes.” He sat in the chair, leaning back, tapping a finger against his knee. “He loved her more than it was possible to love a person, if you’re to believe Sargon and those close to him. From what I’ve concluded, he was controlling and paranoid of losing her. He suffocated her with that same love, and when you came along, he became a monster, obsessed with making sure no one took you from him. He thought there were people at court conspiring against him to take his crown and kill you so you couldn’t inherit it after. It drove him to decide the one thing he promised your mom he would never do.”
“At twenty-one, he declared he would turn you into a vampire once you became an adult. Until then, he was going to send you away, to lock you up away from the castle where no one could hurt you.”
My eyes widened as I imagined myself as Rapunzel, trapped in a tower somewhere waiting for my freedom. But instead of a prince on a horse, there was my dad, with fangs and red eyes. I shook my head as if to scatter my thoughts. “How did my mom get away?”
“Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Someone tried to hurt you when you had just turned one. No one knows who, although apparently Sargon tortured half the kingdom trying to find out. They found poison in your bottle. One of your tasters died. It was prolonged. You must have refused your feed that night because the poison took three hours to kill the taster.”
I shuddered.
“The story is infamous at the castle.”
Hearing my own history of a life I knew nothing about until yesterday was strange. “Then what?”
“Sargon threatened to turn your mother. She loved being a sorceress, so she refused, but he insisted, throwing her into a ceremony to become shadow kissed.”
“Huh?” I questioned, leaning forward.
“It’s a fancier way of saying‘to become a vampire.’They hold a big celebration when it’s someone important, and they are reborn. Before preparations, she used her powers to break out of the castle, with you in her arms.”
I couldn’t help but admire her for it while also feeling a little bad for the king. “He must’ve been pissed.”
“That’s an understatement. Someone helped you both get to Baldoria, a vampire loyal to her, and he was found and killed not long after.”
I glanced down at what was left of my sandwich. The entire story was awful, but it sounded like something out of a fairytale and not my reality. Not even in my notebooks of half-written scenes could I have created something so insane.
“I didn’t know they were married,” I said, finding it weird to hear my mom referred to as anyone's wife, but it should have been obvious.
“They had to be.” He paused, then changed the topic back. “Like I said, he changed after that. Many prefer the way Sanmorte is ruled now. Mortals are treated with no dignity or respect, and the aniccipere are given free rein.”
