The Sun's Shadow

Chapter Seventeen

These amorous woes flooding the naïve faenix hadn't the chance of building until a new dawn. Word travels fast in a castle filled with insidious vampires and their servant dhampirs.

She should have known better to trust temptation hidden under the guise of a handsome Prince.

When they broke apart from the lust-filled entrapment of their lips, trapped in one another's gaze, they both noticed the once closed door now hanging open. Any prying eye or passer-by would've had a clear view of them.

Who would come for them first... The King or the Queen? A question hastily answered when an armored body appeared in the doorway, summoning the pair to the King's private quarters.

.

.

There's no 'greater evil'. The greatest evil stared her in the face.

He stared with calculating amber eyes, only looking away from her to hold his son under the same stare. Not a word spoken in the minutes spent being unapologetically criticized. For what? For a kiss that meant nothing to the Prince playing games?

The Queen entered the office, shutting it tight so gossip didn't spread further than she could expunge. With her now present, the King deemed it time to squander the remaining moments of peace for this poor girl.

"Recently I felt enlightened." The King mused, drumming his fingers on his grand desk that offered some space between himself and those who sought to ruin his reputation as a merciless ruler. "Separating your punishments is foolish, for you children will only learn that your actions impact something vastly beyond your lust-driven amusements if you suffer together."

Greatest. Evil. "With that in mind, I've decided to turn to an archaic ritual. One that will teach you both a lesson on where you rank in my kingdom... A public mating ritual will take place-"

"No!" Kaanan bellowed with enough force to rattle the stone skeleton of the castle itself. Being that he stood beside Ele, she felt the reverberation of his protest through her own bones. But he didn't stop with the one word, "This is cruel even for you! You think me so low under your reign that I'd even participate? Ele just turned of age and hasn't been afforded the opportunities to find a mate!"

Ele needed to know what this meant, so she tugged his sleeve to pull his attention to her hands and then she signed, 'What is a public mating?'

"It's... It, um..." He struggled to find the words that might explain this old vampiric custom.

The King laughed and his joke fell on a tough crowd, "Yes, tell her son."

Kaanan narrowed his view on Ele, drowning out anyone else that could interrupt. He held her captive in his gaze and he hoped she'd, too, forget the spectators. "Well, at one time, the tradition was a sacred one that demonstrated the true nature of a pairing's love. The public mating is more than a simple wedding ceremony... It extends into the bedchambers of the newly wedded and..."

The second it sunk into the innocent soul of his faenix, she visibly expressed horror.

"Except now," He wet his mouth just to get the words out. "Now my father wants to use it as a punishment. Father, this is-"

"Wrong? Just as wrong as disrespecting my orders to find a mate for the girl and leave her be? You did this! You made this far worse than it needed to be!" A twisted perception of the world made him think like this. Act like this.

Kaanan eventually turned to his mother to put a stop to this madness. She only offered a look of despair and tilted her head away from him, so she no longer felt his disappointment in her. More than anything... He loathed her for turning a blind eye.