"Get out, let Soran's sister do her job, your nagging will disturb her." Aleron said and pushed out Kai with his older brother and Lun. The three vampires stood at the corridor, looking at each other, awkwardness in the air as they locked eyes.
"You shouldn't have said that, especially in front of my father." Xan told Lun and the brown haired vampire scoffed.
"Why? Is it because the truth hurts?"
"Even after what I entrusted you with you still don't understand why my mother is like this?" Xan asked him, looking at him intensively.
"What did you tell him?" Kai questioned his older brother, his blue eyes flying between them.
"Nothing."
"Your family is not the rightful heir to the throne." Lun said, ignoring Xan's angered expression as he heard him reveal what he had told him a few hours ago. Kai gasped, thick lines forming on his flawless forehead as he frowned, unable to think of anything to say. "Yeah, your uncle was supposed to be the king, did you know you had an uncle? I certainly did not. But your mother and father killed him, taking the throne. That's why your mother is so obsessed with perfection, she is afraid things will get revealed one day, if you make a mistake your enemies will come at you and find out everything. Your matter with the bloody people made everything worse." he said, feeling Xan push him to the side.
"Am I a game to you? You told me I could trust you. Do you think this is some kind of silly gossip?"
"Your brother should know, secrets only make situations escalate the wrong way." Lun told him, making the crown prince sigh.
"Still it was not your decision to make. Learn to respect the trust others show you. That's the least you could for me after becoming my lover."
"Your what?" Kai asked. Information had been tossed at him from every possible corner, he wasn't even able to blink from the surprise as he processed the news. From the most important to the least one he didn't really know where to begin. "Xan, is what Lun said true? About the throne?"
"Yes, Uncle Arthur had gone mad, he killed mother's family in a huge fire because her sister had rejected his courtship and then mother decided to take revenge on him. Then she met father and after killing Arthur since she loved him she was forced to become queen."
"Shit." Kai mumbled, his blue eyes landing at the closed door where his mother laid, unconscious. He had no idea, he had never even imagined that things were like this. How would his mother feel all these years? Alone, bearing a role she didn't even want just because she loved Aleron, fighting to keep three children at the top so they could live and not die just like her family. The youngest prince shook his head, confused.
"That does not erase her mistakes." Lun added, making Xan roll his eyes.
"No one said that. All I tried to say but you seem to be deaf is that you can't understand the tough decisions a leader has to take. A leader does not decide to make others happy, they decide so they can survive, a woman on the throne, alone while our father was god knows where, do you even understand what she would have to face or did your privilege make you forget how women are treated?"
"A feminist aren't you?" Lun teased him, a faint grin on his face and Xan shook his head.
"No one has forgiven mother, no one will probably ever will but being able to put yourself in someone's shoes is not an ability any of us has and that is why we could never comprehend what she is thinking. I at least get to appreciate that she kept me alive, all this time even when I didn't know about it."
Putting yourself in someone else's shoes, Kai thought. That phrase meant a lot. It meant empathy and understanding, things he believed his mother did not have. He didn't think she had a heart actually, the way she sat on her throne, the lethal vampire queen, the one who did not blink once before she executed people. After knowing all that Kai had to see her in a better light? After everything she had done to him, when he didn't even receive an apology? The youngest prince was a nice person, he at least considered himself to be, but not that nice.
"She shouldn't die." Kai said. "But I don't think I see her any differently."
"She cut off her hand for you." Xan said.
"I don't think she did it for me. If she had done it for me she wouldn't have tried to take her own life later. Something else happened. At least my oath is broken now." Kai said when the door of the room opened, his father appeared, an exhausted expression on his face as he looked at the three men.
"She is fine, you can come in. Olivia stopped the bleeding. But please, don't just fight." he told them and opened the door. Kai looked inside, seeing how Nelia was at their mother's side, her face worried as she stared at her woken up mother. Their eyes met for a second and chills went down his spine. Kai didn't want to go in there, even if his mother was looking at him,in the brim of death just a few minutes ago he didn't wish to see her.
"You go in. Tell Ash to escort Olivia out, I don't have anything to do there."
"I will come with you." Lun said, not giving a damn about the queen.
"Kai…" his father called out, his eyes pleading for a truce.
"I can't" the prince told him, walking away from them.
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