A Feast For The Vampires

XLVIII

Everyone listened silently as Kimi snickered dryly, his hand covering his eyes as he shook his head. "I already fucking know that." He dropped his hand and curled his fingers to form twin fists. "And do you want to know how I know that? Because Mr. Marshall told me that before he fucking ripped my heart out. I didn't ask for what the fuck you are! I asked you why the fuck you've been lying to me!"

Kara began to wring her hands, her gaze on the floor. "I'm sorry. I was only doing everything I could in order to keep you away from bad people."

"Bad people like who?!" he spat. "Aurum?! Mr. and Mrs. Vdélla?! You?! My sister?! Myself?!"

All around them, cadavers were murmuring to themselves, still waiting to hear the whole truth. The Pristines stood by the entrance, their faces one of worry and shock.

Kara shook her head. "No. I had been doing it to protect you from people who want to misuse power. People like Ace Jaeger. I hadn't even known that his family had been the one behind all of the things that had been happening for more than three decades."

"Three decades?" Aurum asked lightly.

"Yes, three decades. Ace isn't the first person who had come after cadavers. His father had, and back then I hadn't even know who Ace was. Rumours were going around that we were being hunted like animals by some human, that's how Anxo lost his wife, and that's how I had lost my first husband, Kidagakash's father."

Kimi scoffed gently. "What are you going to fucking say now? That I'm not your son and I had fallen from the fucking sky?"

"It's true," Kidagakash whispered, stepping forward. "You and I don't share a father, but we share a mother. My father had been killed a while back by an anonymous person we believed to have been going after cadavers. So I had told our mother to go into hiding, taking my heart with her. To protect herself, I told her to cut all ties with cadavers. As a cadaver, being without my heart couldn't kill me so that's how I knew she was pregnant when she came to my grave to tell me.

"She had found a new life and she was pregnant—pregnant with you. But the fear was that she had fallen for a Hunter, Michael Mikaelis, your father. I decided to let her put my heart in you in order to keep it safe. You were the perfect blend between cadavers and Hunters, and your existence would have been unsuspected. It wasn't until twelve years ago that she finally left, leaving her past behind her."

"But why had she left?! Why had she kept my true identity a secret?!"

"Because... Because I knew something had started becoming fishy. I started having my doubts about Ace when he mentioned something concerning Kidagakash. So I decided to come back to lay my doubts to rest. But before I could actually get answers, the Hunters caught on. I had stayed far too long away from here and they needed answers as to why one of their own had been murdered. But before I could give them answers, I was kidnapped."

"But you had been planning to leave. Again," he growled, throwing his hands up.

Kara's eyes welled up and she pressed her palms together, placing the side of her hands against her lips. "I was doing that to protect you when I realized what the wicked people were planning to do from the way they were killing people. And—"

"UGH!" Kimi gripped his hair and tugged at it. He moved around a spot as he grumbled, "protect me this, protect me that. And how did your protection go?! I still got killed and now I think I'm completely a cadaver! Why do you keep doing this to me? All I want to do is rest from all of this, yet you keep waking me up whenever the secret you've tried hard to keep erupts. I don't think I can ever have it in my heart to understand why you're just... why you're just so..."