The Vampire's Luna
Chapter 205: I Chose You

Chapter 205: I Chose You

Damien stepped close to her, fury in his voice and face. "Do you even know what tough choices are? Tough choice was watching you choose another man over me. Tough choice was choosing between your life and my kingdom. Tough choice is letting someone who is like a father to me go down for me and he won’t even talk to me because he doesn’t want me anywhere near him to avoid suspicion. Tough choice is choosing to be loyal to you instead of living to raise my child."

He was trembling. Rage and sorrow flashed in his eyes. Each sentence was a dagger unsheathed, slicing open old wounds. He wasn’t shouting to overpower her. He was shouting because it was the only way to keep from breaking.

He had held this in for far too long.

"I chose you. Every time, I chose you. Even when it meant bleeding for it. And now with our child, I will choose both of you over and over again without even blinking!"

"You should have let me make my tough choice." Luna finished and walked away.

Damien turned and shoved everything on his desk to the ground.

The crash echoed through the room. Glass shattered. Paper scattered.

******

"Hey!" there was a loud bang on the bars of the prison made with sunstone metal. "The queen wants to see you."

The harsh clang of baton against sunstone reverberated through the narrow dungeon hall. The guard, a young man with dark circles beneath his eyes looked apologetic. Fear etched deep grooves into his brow, fear of the one who had sent him.

Inside the glowing sunstone bars, Veyron sat still, cloaked in the quiet dignity of resignation. His long white hair hung unbound around his shoulders, his hands clasped loosely on his knees.

"Give her the same answer I asked you to give the king. I do not want to see her." Veyron answered.

His voice was hollow.

He turned his face away from the bars, as if doing so might make his refusal more believable to himself.

"Well, she thought you might say that, so she said to tell you, she is pregnant and starving and she is going to sit there until she drops dead," the guard said. "So, I will be opening this gate and you can step out whenever you want because I do not plan on hanging for letting the queen die."

Veyron’s jaw clenched.

"Damn her," he whispered to himself.

But he was already rising to his feet.

Veyron knew the queen had him. Anything for the heir. He got to his feet and stepped out of the cell, following the guard to a private room where Luna was waiting.

Even in chains, Veyron carried the aura of a man who once bent the sky to his will.

The guards walked behind him, but none dared meet his eyes. Word of the trial had spread across the city.

As the door creaked open and he was ushered into a room.

"Your Highness." Veyron bowed. "You shouldn’t have come. I don’t want you to see me like this."

Luna stood in the corner of the room.

"Please," he whispered again, softer this time. "You shouldn’t have come."

"Sit down, Veyron," Luna ordered respectfully.

Veyron sat reluctantly as Luna turned to the guards standing in the room. "Leave us."

The guards hesitated only a breath.

"I know everything," Luna began as she took a seat.

"No, you don’t," Veyron argued.

His eyes met hers.

"Yes, I do. And I will be damned if I let you go down for this."

"You’re not just a sage to me, Veyron. You’re family. How can I sit by and let the kingdom brand you a criminal?"

Veyron sighed. "I have known the king since before he was born, and in that time, his father’s father protected us, just like his father, and exactly what Damien is doing now—protecting us. Which is what we hope your child will do, should he be raised with the same values."

He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes briefly as the lineage passed before him.

"You think this is about me being noble, Luna? It’s not. If I have to disappear into the records as a criminal to ensure the future ruler grows up knowing what it costs to protect the people no one else will, then so be it."

"What do you mean protecting us?"

Her brows furrowed as she searched his face, realizing there were layers of history, politics that even she had yet to uncover.

Veyron exhaled long and slow. "We are not like them, Luna. You know this. We—the impure, as they like to call us exist in a shadow of truebloods. The moment the wrong man sits on the throne, we are done for."

"You are queen now—not a vampire queen, but queen still. And the lives of impure vampires will be threatened if the throne falls in the hands of Gabriel. He is the reason I was caught in the first place."

"Gabriel’s eyes are everywhere. He wants me dead. He’s playing a long game, your highness. And I fear... we are already losing pieces."

The chair creaked under her as she reclined.

"It still doesn’t matter," she whispered again, as if trying to convince herself.

"We will be hunted, killed, reduced to nothing—animals—if you do not protect us by protecting the child in your womb. So, me risking my life to procure blood for the heir is something I will do a thousand times again. And there are people in place to continue from where I stopped. All we care about is that the heir is safe. The king laid down his life for you. I beg you to keep the child for us. Stay away from this. Just live," Veyron begged.

"I was turned in a time when we were hunted for sport," he said quietly. "We begged on her knees for mercy from nobles who thought our likes tainted their air. When impure vampires were burned for the pleasure of the crowd."