Chapter 126

The silver cut through her flesh and she bit back a hiss, the pain that went through her was lessened by the mate bond she shared with the King, much more lessened than she had thought it would be.

The image of the documents that she had found stuck to her medical report flashed in her mind and she set the automatic ninja shooters again, before going in front of it to fight its attacks.

She defended herself against each strike, moving out of the way with speed and turning just in time to miss the sharp speeding blade, but her mind got distracted again and one slashed right through her arms, past her cloth, and deep into her flesh.

She hissed this time, pulling it out of her skin and falling down in pain. It was a good thing that no one was here to witness this.

An audience would have been terrible.

The image stayed right in front of her eyes and her lower lip trembled at the words she had read on them.

She was never supposed to see that, Valerick had been hiding it from her but she had seen it because Lady Delice had somehow made that document and her medical report stay together.

Lady Delice had pulled her out of the bliss of oblivion to reality.

Valerick had been changing her kind, turning them into vampires in order to provide the one thousand armies that he has promised Lavida, to make up for some of the armies they had lost during the Dark Times, and to strengthen their military force. It was a plan they had from the beginning, part of the reasons why making all the werewolves their captives had been a "must" mission.

It was all there in the document, and her arrival as his mate had not stopped him from progressing with the plan.

What a king.

His people over his mate.

What an easy decision to make.

So far, the transformation had failed and approximately two hundred werewolves were dead.

There was a break in the

Transformation Process and the physicians were working on a new approach, one that they said would take them about a month before they could start the testing again.

Another massacre for her kind.

Werewolves and vampires were not the same.

Changing them was like spelling death on them, Valerick knew this, and still--

Zezi flung the ninja stars across the room, her blood dripping from them as they embedded themselves into the walls.

She watched it with eyes filled with hatred and anger.

She hated herself.

Hated that she had thought for a moment that she would be enough to save her kind.

Hated the fact that she had come to love the vampire despite how hard she had fought against it.

She hated what she had become, all her moment of weakness with him, and how she had enjoyed more of it than she wanted to admit.

While they were together, he was killing her kind to fulfill his promise to his people.

Kept an innocent face and acted like she was a priority.

He had fooled her.

But what did she expect?

He did not become King by entertaining weakness and she would not be her kind's liberator by doing the same.

A part of her mind told her to talk to him but she was convinced that her words would do nothing to change his mind, except that why was she standing at his door right now---

When did she even get here?

She attempted to turn around but the door of the study was thrown open.

"It's been two seconds but I'm already starting to lose my mind waiting for you to knock or just bust in, especially with how much you reek of blood." As much as she hated him right now, his voice made something in her settle and she stepped into the study.

Before he would even get the chance to ask her what happened, she answered, "I was training."

She wanted to stop at that but she was here now, she might as well speak her mind. So, she did while she stayed a good distance from him so he would stop roaming his hands around her body to fix her injuries, while grumbling about how much he hated this kind of training and how he wanted her to stay away from it.

Right now wasn't the time to get distracted, for either of them. She knew the scent of her blood would already be doing something to him and she didn't want him to get touchy enough that things would escalate and her mission here would be ruined.

She knew he had control, far more than others, but she was in no mood to test that.

His replies had been unexpected for a part of her that was a sick mate that didn't want any reason to go against her mate, that part that wanted him to be good in her eyes, but for the other part of her mind that was a war general, she had expected it.

He hadn't been angry that she had gotten her hands on the document but it was obvious the document was something that he had wanted to hide away from her.

"The promise is a long-standing one for my kind. They are agitated that our military is not strong in numbers," he paused, "if the quality wasn't so important, I would have recruited the werewolves as they were without thinking to change them." His words were sharp, he spoke like a King with only the thoughts of his people at heart, as if these Werewolves he was talking about, weren't connected to him in any way.

As if her kind were just mere resources of labour that he could make use of in any way that he deemed fit.

His slaves.

But wasn't that what her kind was to him? With the hellish contract that he had forced them to sign, they were anything but. She was a fool to think he would think differently of them.

"Do you know how many of my kind will die for you to have your one thousand armies, four of every five werewolves changed, dies---"

"Approximately four thousand werewolves will die. Asides from the ones we have already lost in the testing." He said curtly, his face expressionless.

It was as if she was talking to a different person.

But she wasn't, this was just a side of him that he hid away from her.

"Zezi," he came closer and she tried to step back but something made her stay rooted there and when his arms went around her, she couldn't find the strength to shrug him off.

Pathetic.

"I understand how painful this must be for you, but you must understand that I have no choice. I am a new King for my people, their trust in me is already wavering because I have a werewolf as a mate, if I go against what we have already agreed on, a revolution will spring up. We cannot afford an internal war. I must show them that I still prioritize them." He leaned further into her, the space inbetween them, a hair's breadth.

When her silence drew long, and the tears in her black eyes welled up even more, he added, cupping her face and pressing his forehead against hers.

"Everything I do, I do for the good of Lavida, for the good of our Kingdom. You are one of us, a future Queen and your sacrifice will go down in history."

Her sacrifice?

Four thousand lives that weren't even hers?

"I will not be so cruel to ask you to join me in this, but please don't fight me, Zezi. It will be too painful."

No, this was too painful.

The determination in his voice was too painful.

It was obvious that even if she told him about the White Circle right now, there would be no difference for her kind.

Maybe he would even demand a larger number.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and pressed her lips against his, her fingers moving into his hair, as she stood on her toes to deepen her goodbye, suppressing the pain of her cuts, as she savored the kiss.

He kissed her back with the same intensity, and while the bond in-between them bloomed with joy at their intimacy, her heart twisted with pain, knowing what she had to do to put an end to this madness, to save her kind from this insanity.

She had to kill this vampire...

...and a month was all she had to it.