Well Kept Secrets
Luka’s top lip curled when the prisoner spat at his boot. Luck of the gods, he missed, but the gods wouldn’t prevent him from ending the feral being’s life.
“What is your name?” he asked. “Your given name?”
He nodded when he received nothing but silence. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected the man to speak so easily.
“How did you find him?” Matilda asked the dukes.
“He’s a mouthy fellow,” Duke Gustafson answered with a satisfied smirk.
“As you know, I have eyes and ears all over Night Falls as well as a few in Moonshire.
Our friend here had consumed too much mead one night and lay with one of my spies in the brothel.
Chalices were passed as heat was exchanged and the young man ranted about his disdain for King Alesi and the huntress who failed to end him.
I was alerted to the treachery, and the spy kept him entertained until my men could fetch him.
“You piece of shit,” Gregorio muttered.
“Ah! He speaks!” Duke Gustafson said, finding amusement in the prisoner’s tenacity.
“Shall we end him now, or end him publicly?” Duke Mirren inquired, ready to shed blood as always.
“What are you thinking, Duke Mirren? Hanging or guillotine?” Duke Brennan asked, kicking Gregorio in the back.
Duke Mirren grinned. “The messier, the better.”
“Let’s not make a snap decision out of haste,” Luka warned. “I have questions. Who hired you? I don’t wish to make assumptions, but a man with your wealth doesn’t frequent brothels. A man of such stature would have a consort of concubines.”
Matilda snorted. “Where are your concubines?”
Luka narrowed his eyes at her. “I have no concubines. You are aware of this.”
“‘Tis a shame that your ugliness scared them away.”
“Yet, you are here.”
“I’m here for the coin. Why put my life in danger for thousands of gold coins when I can have so much more?” she asked, rubbing her fingers together greedily.
“You fucking whore!” Gregorio shouted. His face turned crimson, veins straining against his neck as he walked on his knees towards Matilda. Ezra captured him by the scruff of his neck, halting him from advancing further. And if that didn’t stop him, Luka’s blade to his neck did the trick.
“That is not how you address the Queen of Night Falls,” he voiced, pushing the sword further into his neck until blood beaded against the blade. Luka crinkled his nose as the scent of wolf tinged with vampire filled the throne room.
“You are a hybrid.”
“It seems I was correct,” Matilda voiced.
He ignored her and continued with his questioning. “Who is your benefactor? Is it Prince Lykaon?”
Gregorio smiled gruesomely and said, “You want it to be him so badly. It would be easier for you, am I right? I say it’s Prince Lykaon, and then you will slaughter my people before the sun rises.
I won’t give you the satisfaction. ‘Tis true I don’t have possession of absurd wealth, but I did, once upon a time.
It was bestowed upon me by my father, who loved my mother in secret. ”
“And who might your father be?” Luka pressed.
“If there is one thing to learn about vampires, it is that they’re hypocrites. Rule for thee, but not for me.” Gregorio’s eyes slid over to Matilda before returning to Luka. “You’re just like him. Loud about your disdain and disgust for hybrids, but eager to make them.”
“What say you?” Luka growled, losing patience with every second his questions weren’t answered.
“I will answer your question, King Alesi. However, I must know something first. Why do vampire men bed other species?”
“You tread dangerous ground with that question,” Luka warned.
“Dangerous, perhaps. But necessary,” Gregorio said, lifting his chin higher.
“You praise your women, and say they’re necessary to uphold a strong, pure lineage.
Yet half your men sneak into the beds of wolves, witches,” he paused to glance at Matilda, “humans,” he drawled.
“Is it because your women are as frigid in bed as they are to the touch?”
“Mind your tongue,” Luka said in low warning.
“I am only asking what no one else will. If vampire women are so revered, why do your men seek warmth elsewhere? Why do they hide their appetites like shameful secrets? Why do they create laws banishing the very beings they enjoy creating? Why do they promise the world, and give nothing but grief and desperation? Hm? Why did your father—our father—King Reynard seek my mother?”
The throne room collapsed into silence. The air thinned, as if they’d ascended toward the moon.
Every soul in the room stilled, waiting for Luka’s reaction.
Even the child that had been doing somersaults in Matilda’s belly had come to a sudden halt.
The dukes glanced at one another in terror because they knew something irreversible had just been spoken aloud.
Luka stood motionless and unblinking like a marble statue. He simply stared at the man kneeling before him, as if his words hadn’t reached the part of his mind capable of processing information.
Eventually, there was a shift. Not a grand one, but a flicker—a tiny, involuntary narrowing of his eyes. He wasn’t angered. Not yet. He was simply suspended in disbelief.
Luka inhaled sharply through his nose and his shoulders stiffened as he straightened his spine.
“The men closest to death lie the most,” he whispered.
“Dead men tell no lies,” Gregorio rasped. “I can prove my claim.”
Luka shook his head. “I will not fall for your cheap tricks, and I certainly will not entertain your blasphemous claim.”
“Blasphemous?” Gregorio sputtered with a laugh. “You speak blasphemy with a human queen? Please tell me you jest!”
“Finish him, King Alesi,” Ezra interjected, sick of the mind games.
“I can prove my claim! My pendant! It was given to me by him!” Gregorio exclaimed. “It’s around my neck.”
Luka dropped his sword with a clatter and didn’t hesitate to snatch the thin leather necklace around his neck. He held it up, and his throat worked around the sudden buildup of emotion.
The gold pendant was small and unassuming to anyone else, but to Luka, it was a ghost from the past. His breath stuttered, and his pupils contracted, zeroing in on the golden disc. He knew the pendant — knew it very well.
For a moment, the throne room dissolved around him.
He was a child again—a boy sitting cross-legged on the floor of his father’s study.
Tired of being ignored by his father speaking to his advisors, Luka climbed into his lap and reached for the pendant dangling from his father’s neck.
His father laughed, teased him for being bothersome, and allowed him to hold it.
Luka sat quietly, tracing the engraving with curious fingers, while his father explained how precious the item was.
And then, one day, it was gone. His father claimed it was lost, and young Luka found it peculiar that his father would lose something so treasured.
He remembered asking his father about it, only to have the question swiftly dismissed.
His father insisted he had more pressing matters to concern himself with.
Luka’s eyes lifted slowly, locking onto Gregorio’s face with undesired clarity. His disbelief cracked, slowly transforming to recognition and fear.
“You lie,” he mumbled, voice cracking as his hand fisted around the necklace.
“The only lie being told is the lie that you tell yourself. That pendant belongs to our father, Reynard Alesi,” Gregorio spoke with conviction.
Luka lowered the necklace and ignored how his stomach reacted as if he had consumed spoiled milk.
“My King,” Ezra whispered. “What say you?”
“I-I need a moment,” Luka whispered, leaving abruptly with Gregorio’s laughter following behind him. His lips tilted into a faint smirk when a slap resonated against the stone walls, and Matilda demanded that the bastard be silent.
Luka secluded himself in his study and positioned himself before the portrait of his sire.
The medallion in the portrait was taunting him.
He recalled his father guarding the medallion with his life, even demanding that he be buried with it in the afterlife.
Luka had asked for it once, and his father solemnly expressed that it would have to be pried from his cold, dead hands.
And yet, he gave it away. He gave it away to the bastard he despised in theory.
The hybrid bastards he swore were abominations and decreed would be put to death merely for existing.
“It was probably your mother who felt that way about hybrids,” Matilda said from the doorway. “She was jealous and embarrassed. You know how vampiric supremacy works—you all are better than the rest of us.”
“That’s not true,” he whispered.
“I know that. You know that. But that has been the standard for centuries, at least in your species eyes. Your mother hated the thought that your father loved a werewolf more than her, so she insisted that a new law be in place.”
“He didn’t love her,” Luka said, lying to himself.
“His prized possession says otherwise.”
“You believe it,” he muttered in disbelief.
“I can see the resemblance. It’s slight, but it’s there.”
Luka pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. The tension in his shoulders didn’t ease as he had hoped.
“He wants to challenge you for your throne as the ancient texts allow.”
Luka snorted. “Challenge me? It would be a suicide mission.”
“Aye. I told him there would be no such challenge. He tried to argue, but he wasn’t in a position to.
The ancient texts are barbaric and useless, and there is a reason why the creators are no longer living.
Night Falls needs new blood and leadership that isn’t constrained to dead men’s ideology. Our plan worked.”
He glanced at his queen over his shoulder.
“What plan?”
She stepped further into the office, closing the door silently behind her.
“It was an impossible feat. Seduce the vampire king, have his heir, and take over the kingdom,” she said, slowly approaching him.
Luka narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You kid.”
“And the garlic rolls were a bonus,” she mentioned, lips sliding into a smirk.
“You kid,” he repeated.
She shrugged softly. “Perhaps.”
Matilda rolled her eyes when she felt the tension and confusion roll off of him.
“I jest, my King. Ease yourself. What we have cannot be contrived. The gods have seen to it.”
Luka offered his hand. She accepted it gracefully and sighed in his embrace as his hands caressed her swollen belly.
“His name is Draven,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to his chest. “I have entrusted him to capable hands.”
“Whose capable hands?”
“The physician. When I found him, he was babbling about serums and Beta David—absolute drivel if you ask me.”
“That sounded like something important.”
“For you, perhaps. I don’t care what Dr. Blackwood does to him. Draven must pay for what he did to those innocent children.”
“I shall see to it.”
Matilda’s breath stuttered and she clutched her stomach.
“What ails you?” Luka asked. He was on high alert.
Their child was growing swiftly, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the child came any day.
He dreaded the day and prayed the gods would slow time and that their baby would be patient, because the day the child came into the world was the same day his beloved would leave it.
“I think I will retire early,” she said, regaining her composure.
“I will call Dr. Blackwood.”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing,” she said, wincing at the pain.
He cared not for her bravado and immediately ushered her to their quarters. They ran into Ezra, who promptly sought out the doctor. By the time the physician arrived, Matilda was propped against her pillows, attempting to ignore the pain that radiated across her stomach to her back.
“Please excuse my delay,” Dr. Blackwood apologized as soon as he entered the room. “I came as soon—”
“I believe she is in labor,” Luka said, interrupting his apology. “But it is too soon.”
“Too soon is a myth. Children come when they are ready, not when we are ready for them. My Queen? The pain? What would you compare it to?”
Ezra gently grabbed Luka by the elbow and steered him away while Dr. Blackwood completed his examination.
“You must prepare the grave, my King,” Ezra gently reminded him. “Time is not on our side.”
Luka shrugged Ezra off and approached the bed, stricken with grief. He knelt and whispered in Matilda’s ear.
“I shall return. I have a task to complete.”
“Go. I will be fine,” she insisted, barely paying attention to him.
Luka and Ezra’s boots echoed through the halls—fast and clipped.
They stopped by the stables, grabbed a lantern and two shovels, then hunted for the sacred spot.
They’d ventured behind the castle, eventually arriving at the royal gardens.
Luka found a site bathed in moonlight and stabbed the shovel into the frozen dirt.
He disrobed until he was left in britches and boots.
He dropped to his knees and chanted a prayer to the gods beneath the moonlight until he fell into a semi-conscious trance.
Ezra stood by as a witness, bracing against the arctic winds that whipped through the trees, creaking the branches, threatening to snap. He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, praying the process would move along.
Minutes later, Luka’s eyes snapped open. They were as black as the midnight sky, and Ezra was pleased that the first step was complete.