CHAPTER ten: A warm welcome to Ancientrova

　　Breathless, drained, turned out, he could barely open his eyes but he had to. He must to.

　　“My lady?” Confused, that was all he could say.

　　No response from her.

　　He pulled her away from him, staring at her through vision blurred with tears—blood—he had snapped her neck during his throes of pleasure. He dazedly pressed an index finger over his bleeding bite wounds to help seal it.

　　“Cat…C-Catalina?” he choked out again, a pain like knife sticking through his heart.

　　He leaped away from the divan and bounded outside the room with her in his arms. King Fehr rounded the deck, plunked out on the cliffs, and willed his wife awake. He gently placed her on a bed of rocks, forcing out his fangs, he pierced her silky throat and drained her of her blood that was already running cold. Instead of losing her he would rather make her into a vampire like him, although it wound him terribly that she would lose her freedom as a human and be restricted forever as a creature of the night.

　　After the rituals, he left her lying there and looked up at the sky, it was almost dawn, and he just had a few hours of darkness left. He dropped to his knees beside her and struggled to hold his tears at bay.

　　If it was successful, she ought to have opened her eyes now…

　　FEAR.

　　When last had he felt that?

　　Maybe five centuries ago, when he was a Spartan as he battled in a war for his country.

　　That was when he lost his life as a lowly soldier on a blood-bathed battlefield. And then His Maker had found his crumpled body and turned him into a creature of the night.

　　He had had absolutely no regrets but now as he gazed at the unmoving body of the light of his life—regret ramped though his entire soul and he moaned in pain, folding himself into a ball. He wept hard.

　　Then he remembered.

　　She was a full blooded Valkhrian.

　　They were immune to vampire blood and vampire magic can never affect them.

　　Besides, she was just too pig-headed, not even the underworld powers could influence her to awaken from death.

　　But what had gone wrong?

　　One minute they were making love passionately, a searing of two souls and an entwining of two bodies, and the next he lost control and twisted her neck just as she fed from him for the first time.

　　He held off still, hoping she would turn; at least she took a bite out of his blood before she died in his arms?

　　He waited till the sun rose and he almost burnt to a melted puddle of vampire goo before he crawled into his coffin, hoping he would die before the next night.

　　Now, the thoughts of her neared despite all the obstacles he had created in his mind, he waited for the pain in his heart to ebb away.

　　A hundred years later, the pain still felt as raw as it had that night. Thick fogs that covered his lands wouldn’t stop her. And it wasn’t by road that she had come. The wicked wench had found the path carved in the depth of his brain that led to his heart, unstopped by the fog. Thoughts of her tormented him with all he must endure to be in her presence and the danger it would pose.

　　Soon she would realize her mistake, gracing him with her presence from the afterlife. It was crazy that after all these years she would appear to him in his dream, looking for a grace that had gone with her the day she’d died. A grace he no longer possessed. He had lost that grace many years ago as the darkness and loneliness consumed him. She sought forgiveness and answers to questions which he himself doesn’t know.

　　She asked him why he killed her.

　　Moments like this he wished he could plant a stake into his own heart and end this unending torment but he had a duty as the king of the vampires.

　　A sigh left him as he placed his crown back on his head, falling into his suppressed mood even more so as he mourned his queen over again.

　　A figure stepped out from the shadows and bowed, “Lord Rahl, the king of the bloodhounds seeks your attention.”

　　He raised a brow in faint interest.

　　This was going to be interesting.

　　The young king wants to have a dialogue. He wondered how the young wolf would be now and especially how he would react to him since it was he, Rahl who in fact slit his father’s throat.

　　“If he sent an envoy, send him back with the message that the King should come himself if he wants to talk.” Fehr answered in a clipped tone dismissively.

　　“The King came by himself.” Came the curt reply and Fehr was actually taken aback.

　　‘Now, what could the hounds want?’ he thought, impressed that the young wolf found his way through the forest. That damned forest separated the two creatures and it was probably for the best but the magic made it hard to cross over to each kingdoms.

　　“I’d be over in few minutes.” Fehr said and the figure literally disappeared as his speed was inhuman.

　　He left the balcony that looked out onto a coast and traversed through the walls and passages that still maintained like the pride and joy they always had been and through a hedge maze so he could attend to his visitors.

　　There, off in the den, he found the young king, bent over a form laid out on a seat. A familiar scent wafted through his nostrils and he stilled in their wake, stopping for a moment to ascertain that smell.

　　The young werewolf king looked up from worrying over the form and approached the vampire king but Fehr tore past him to the still form and when he was close enough to see her face, a cry choked through his lungs and he dropped to his knees.

　　He should have known she was near when all that tormented him for five moons were thoughts and memories of her.

　　It was her. BUT HOW?

　　Catalina…His Catalina