Chapter 52

Her words stunned him.

Either distracted him from the pursuit of her or justified her reason to be let go. She didn't know, there wasn't a way for her to understand the workings of his selfish mind.

It didn't even matter what his dubious mind worked out, as long as he wasn't standing her in her way or going after her anymore.

She bolted out of the garden.

She wouldn't be fooled and bought over by a fancy dinner.

Not in this life or even in the next, if that even existed.

Be more kind.

Be more kind?

BE MORE KIND?!

Then why hadn't it worked?!

His claws snaked under his goblet, thick brown claws clicking against the bottom of the golden cup as he raised it leisurely to his lips and sipped the red thick liquid. The taste was almost the same as the one he had some minutes ago, with an almost lacking sense of life.

Lacking almost all sense of life was a common feature with sealed and preserved blood. Part of him missed when he had rich drinks bustling with life. When his Father and his witch of a stepmother had forced different creatures into his dungeon when he was clearly filled with blood lust from how much he had been starved.

The fights after were usually gruesome, as most of them would normally put up bloody fights in search of survival. The more of them he defeated though, the easier it became to take. He grew stronger, immune to their attacks, and soon just became unbeatable. As much as he might seem to have been enjoying himself, every life he took was torture. Many times, he had tried to let them go, but his bloodlust was always spiked by his stepmother, who needed him filled for her evil magic.

So when he became the King, he did two major things. Banned evil magic and brought back the 'Sealed Blood System'. Was the system working? Yes.

That was how he had wanted tonight's dinner to work.

Instead, the words he had received were those that cut through his non-existent soul and turned his heart even more cold.

He moved slowly to his bed that had around it four pillars with designed craft on it, an artistic tapestry on the ceiling, and his tiles pearly white, walls with a vibrant blue.

Colorful.

He had been searching for color for a very long time now, trying to fill the space of his empty soul, and now that he had found her, she had already made herself delusional enough to think that she was another's.

He was King.

Her King.

Why would anyone disregard absolute power and choose another, no matter what that other was offering?

It just didn't make sense.

A squeak from the side, the vampires that froze to their feet surrounding his bedside side, their eyes glazed over, their bodies stiffened and painfully straight.

They were traitors, thrown in the dungeons and deprived of blood for going against him, and now, they were still what they were, with the difference that he would now feed on them.

Food for his soul because he lacked it and needed it.

Aside from blood, that was what he fed on.

Souls.

He didn't know how many souls he had consumed, they were never enough, and they never would. He still remembered the first time he had consumed one, the very first one he had devoured.

His Father's.

He knew he didn't have a soul or at the most, he believed he had sacrificed it. Laid it down at the blood-dropping altar of a witch, a vital part of him, an exchange to get immeasurable power that could take down his father, along with his mate.

It was only fair that they had been the ones to be laid to rest.

If things had been otherwise, they would have used him for their soul-consuming quest. So instead, he banished them forever to the land of the dead.

Eat or be eaten.

Wasn't that how they had taught him?

And he had learnt exceptionally well.

No matter how slow that learning process had been.

Ten years ago, like yesterday and now, in place of his soul was darkness.

He knew why she hated him, but still, he couldn't help but want her affection and love. For someone without a soul, a soulmate was something he thought he would never have.

An absolute miracle.

He was lucky.

But not totally.

Because...

Here he was, crowned the King of Darkness, suffering for the sins of his Father, having the evil King's reputation as his.

Yet could he be entirely angry? He wasn't totally blameless in all sincerity. His own evil doings had piled up against him, his own quest for power, his own hunger and desire to always have things his way.

He moved away from his bed, so he could look into the mirror opposite him, at what he had become. The vampires moved with him, maintaining the circle, the force over them painfully controlling.

The black veins moved fast across his hands towards his neck and the base of his eyes, above his cheekbones, which were slowly turning a shade darker.

The zig-zag lines crawled visibly beneath his skin, to that dark base, turning it entirely black, while it spilled into the abyss above, making the white of his eyes just as black as the orbs in them.

The darkness grew in him.

Day and night.

Never resting.

Without his soulmate nearby, like a shiny light at the end of the tunnel, without her fullness to fill his emptiness, he would become his father or even worse.

Blood dripped out of their mouths, noses, and ears as he reached into their souls. Tugging. Dragging. Devouring.

Their cries of pain filled his ears, as he took one long sip from the goblet. The screams of pain around him reduced as he took and took till there was nothing left to take.

A soul Seizer. The most powerful creature there would ever be.

The tapestry on his ceiling narrated a long-ago prophecy.

A Soul Seizer that had no soul of his own.

Him.

Power was controlling, power was beautiful, but absolute power, it was ecstatic.

The vampires finally stiffened, their bodies going slump around him, dead at the same time, their blood forming a small red pool that sipped beneath his boot, the metallic smell in the air, bitter and filling.

Insanity was the peak of power and he was slowly attaining that peak, his fights against it, powerless.