Bride To His Darkness
Chapter 131: A New Birth

Chapter 131: A New Birth

Turning around to meet Ivan’s crimson eyes that flashed with intent, Draven remained unaffected as he approached the spiraling stairs where he stood. His amused gaze lowered to Ivan’s fist that had balled at his side, he was clearly controlling himself not to snap and send a powerful punch to his face, but Draven knew more than anyone that Ivan could not do it, not unless he wanted to face the consequences of provoking the Four Lords, infact, it wouldn’t matter anymore as they were already provoked by his recent actions and attitudes.... Most especially when it came to that woman.

"Where is the orb?" Draven’s calm voice resonated within the hall, and the corner of his lips lifted as he asked. "Where is the young woman? She has to return with me to Vesunard. For a human possessing the powers that match the tales of an old legendary Orb, it is not safe to keep her within the surroundings of your beloved humans. Do you understand?"

"I’ll understand when three divides a hundred." Was Ivan’s monotonous response to Draven, and his eyes narrowed, forming a suspicious slit as he took a step closer. "I find it rather strange, you wanted to end her life earlier by sending her into public humiliation, but suddenly... the four Lords are elusively interested in having my little lamb and shipping her to Vesunard...which of course won’t happen unless you trample over my dead body," he arched an eyebrow, "what is it you’re not telling me?"

"Did you read that quickly?" Chuckling once, Draven turned around with his hands folded behind his back, his cloak swishing at his abrupt movement before descending down the stairs, and he said. "What I did was merely staged, Ivan, and trust me when I say there are many things you are yet to figure out." He paused for a moment before proceeding. "Her revelation, her trial, everything, it was all part of my one big plan to deceive Carina and her foolish children into convincing the three Lords to send the servant out for public disgrace! It wasn’t because I wanted her dead, I was trying to trigger an effect, but whatever the case may be, If I hadn’t done that, she would have faced tribunal judgements and you would meet her dead, so instead of blindly accusing me when my actions kept her alive, you should be thanking me."

"I’m not in for your mind games today, Draven!" Ivan’s hand grasped the rim of the stairs, and he gave it a squeeze in order to control his temper. When he descended down the stairs after Draven, taking his hand away from the rim, he had unknowingly left an indentation on it due to the pressure he had channeled through his fingers, forgetting his own strength.

"It’s not a mind game, it’s a fact." Draven asserted with all seriousness as he turned around to look at Ivan. "I saw everything, what she did to Claire, Carina, Eamon, the guards... you blindly aiding her to take them out and that was the trigger I needed. I don’t know if your conscience is letting you deny the truth but you’ve been searching for the obvious without knowing it was right in front of you. That human you so wish to get married to is the missing Orb, she’s the mystic Orb that you’ve been desperately searching for."

"What?" Ivan’s crimson eyes snapped wide in disbelief, and the momentary silence that lingered after that felt still, even the sound of a pin dropping could be heard.

"That is nonsense!" Ivan shook his head in denial as he eyed Draven, "she’s a human being, technically, but the orb is not."

"We were the ones who handed the orb to your Father, it has been in our possession unless someone needed the Orb for reasons that would grant them the ability to access it." Draven asserted yet again, with more rigidity in his tone. "Your Father needed it to bring back the nature this land had lost, and that night when you saw the human advisor take the Orb away, the reason for that glow was because.... A new birth was going to be made! Her existence is not meant to be, she needs to return to what she truly is now out of my way so I can rectify the mistake your Father has made." He declared, eyes gleaming with a hidden threat that gave no promises.

Ivan was yet to recover from what he just heard when a chill wind whispered through the tall, arched windows in an eerie manner, extinguishing the flickering candles on the candleholders. As the room grew darker with Ivan taking a calculative step back, about ten shadow knights emerged from the very essence of darkness, their bulky forms shimmering with a malevolent energy that didn’t miss Ivan’s keen senses.

The shadow knights, who were all identical in appearance, stood tall and motionless after they had the vampire Lord surrounded. Each knight wore a sleek obsidian-black helmet that concealed their faces, except for two piercing glimmers of glowing, blood-red eyes. Underneath their armor, they possess an unnatural fluidity of movements, like shadows taking corporeal form, and Ivan recognized them to be knights from Vesunard, whilst he glanced at Draven’s hand to see a dark mist swirling around them, and he knew exactly who had summoned them.

As they stepped forward, their movements were synchronized, each a slow deliberate ballet of menace as their armor occasionally emitted a dark, ethereal mist. Taking a step back, Lord Ivan could feel his heart, or whatever remains of it, race with a mixture of apprehension and bloodlust. He clenched his fist and tilted his head, a sinister smile crossing his lips as he looked between the approaching shadow knights to meet Draven’s firm stare.

"If you wanted war, all you had to do was ask." With a mere flick of his hand, the knights that approached him at full speed instantly lost their ability to move as they dropped to their knees in the form of a bow, rendered powerless, and without shifting gazes from Draven, the orange-yellowish light that signaled something burning reflected from the corner of Ivan’s eyes, and as he walked past each shadow that bowed before him, they caught on fire, burning in their misery till they eventually dissipated.

"I forgot to tell you that my powers had been opted." Ivan cocked his head slightly, and Draven’s eyes moved to see he had gotten rid of all the shadow knights he had assembled, then he heard Ivan say. "Orb or not, you’re not allowed to see her, talk more about taking her anywhere with you." A predatory glint entered Ivan’s blood-red eyes as he continuously glared daggers at Draven who straightened himself, and then he acknowledged Ivan’s choice with a slight nod.

"If that is what you want, then so be it. I tried to be considerate, but you leave me with no other choice but to take this matter into my own hands." Meeting Ivan’s challenging gaze, black hue swirled around his right hand, and more shadow knights materialized in front of Ivan, surrounding him once again, but the problem this time was there were a different species than the ones he took down.

"Calling your minions?"

"They’re enough distraction!" Smiling cunningly, Draven vanished before his very eyes, and Ivan didn’t need to think deeply in order to know where Draven was heading. In an attempt to go after him, the shadow knights that appeared to be more than a hundred had him trapped in their middle. Taking them down wasn’t going to be a problem, but the problem was each attempt to strike would only make them regenerate twice, and the only way to knock them down completely was by targeting their exposed spines, and if he wanted to do that, it would be too late to reach his little lamb.

"Damn it!"

"Need some help?" Tobias’s voice suddenly resounded across the room, gaining not only his attention, but everyone else within the premises. When the shadow knights turned to see who had disrupted their moment of attack, a scythe was swung at lightning speed in their direction, tearing them in half while aiming for their exposed spines, and as the shadow knights began to dissipate, Tobias’s scythe almost had Ivan split in half if he hadn’t evaded it on time.

"Hey!"

"My bad." He apologized after catching his scythe, sounding sorry, yet not sorry at all. Alistair stood at the opposite side of the upstairs railing, looking below while munching on another wrap of chocolate that had Tobias scowling internally.

"Alistair!" Tobias facepalmed.

"What? It’s for stress!" His brother defended, earning a slight glare from him.

"Are you serious?! Right now?!"

"Killing stresses me out okay!" Looking away from Tobias’s judgemental gaze, he brought out his own scythe that hung in his back, whilst averting his gaze to the shadow knights below.

"Sigh... these minions of darkness." And he jumped down from the upstairs railing, landing smoothly on the floor. "What a shame, our darkness doesn’t seem to blend, and most of all, I hate... trespassers."

Ivan, who glanced at Tobias, signaled with his eyes that he would be back soon before using the Shadow knight’s distraction to go after Draven.

Meanwhile, when Draven made it to Lord Ivan’s chamber, he bursted the door open, and when he stepped inside, the room, to his bewilderment, was empty.