NIGHTS OF HALLOW-Chapter 245: The King’s History

★AN: The mistake of the previous Chapter has been rectified. I sincerely apologise for that mistake. Thank you<3.

"My life outside the castle is not one to be proud of. It was merely filled with days I wished never came." Sthena began, his voice distant as the memories came flooding in.

"The late king, when he was young and still a member of the court and the royal family had courted my mother. After which he married her a year later."

"Not until things changed. His greed to become king blinded him so much he cast those who truly cared for him aside, that included my mother." Sthena exhaled. Done brushing Perdita’s hair, he dropped the comb back on the bedstand, her head still on his thigh. He went on narrating,

"I was only a two year old then, though a lot of things didn’t make complete sense to me, I figured things were not going well between my mother and the late king. And that was where my hatred for him started." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Perdita noticed the subtle darkening of Sthena’s eyes when he spoke of his father. He noted how he only called him the king unlike his mother he addressed as his mother. She listened as he continued speaking.

"To gain more alliance, he abandoned my mother and me like we meant nothing to him. A useless piece on the chessboard like he would always refer to people who meant nothing to him. My mother, fed up, took me with her and left him. Months later, news came to us that he had married a new wife and within that period, he was crowned king."

"Lady Rosamonda?" Perdita quizzed, now understanding why she and Sthena never met eye to eye.

"Yes. He married her as the final stepping stone to sit on the throne." Sthena exhaled once more. "It bothered my mother even though she pretended that it didn’t. We lived together, just the two of us in the outskirts of the kingdom, away from the royal family and the late king. However, no matter how one tried to run from trouble, it always found ways to lurk around."

"Two years later after his accession to the throne, his new wife gave birth to Prince Regan. This began the real start of misery we experienced."

"Rosamonda was not happy that the king had a son outside, one that was legally his and alive and is also the first son. She wanted me gone so her son Regan would have no threats on his way to the throne."

"I was not allowed to go near the castle, not that I wanted anything to do with the king or his greed. I was happy and content with just living together with my mother." A smile slid across Sthena’s lips on the memory of his mother that wiped off the next second as if it had never appeared.

"At first, the rumours began that I was a cursed child. They always said, which normal child would be born with red hair? A blood sucking leech cast aside by his father."

"You see, darling, my popularity goes way back to the past," Sthena joked and he lightly chuckled. "The rumours became so prevalent that people refused to sell to us or even allow us work. We were isolated, avoided, and treated like a plague."

"Then my mother fell sick from not eating properly and bearing the stress of taking care of us. As I was of a considerable age then, she had asked I returned to the king saying it was my right to be there but I refused. I didn’t want the castle life, all I wanted then was for her to get better. I had planned to take us out of the kingdom to a neighbouring kingdom when one faithful day, something that changed me happened."

The day he had made his first kill and vowed to take out those who stepped on them.

It was the time of noon and one could hear the chattering of the people as they moved around in the local market, doing the things they usually do every day. Buying and selling.

A little boy of seven walked in the hustle and bustle going on, not bothered about being pushed and turned to the side by the impatient huge bodies that slammed against his tiny one.

As a boy of seven, he was tall for his age, except for his lean figure, one would mistake him for a boy of ten.

His red eyes burned, and his face contoured with anger he was using to hide the hunger in his stomach that made the worms cause chaos in his stomach as he had no access to blood as a pureblooded vampire should.

He walked away from the busy market and entered the secluded part of it, away from the prying eyes that haunted him with evil glances cast on him because he was a creature of the night.

But this was not the only reason for their hatred towards the boy who didn’t know and didn’t beg to be born that way. It was all nature and fate that made him the way he was. They hated him for who he was. The cast out cursed son of the king.

Sometimes, when the pain of going hungry and being humiliated over and over again, being beaten to the brink of death, he cursed at nature for making him the way he was. For letting him come into the world as a vampire and also being the son of the man he hated the most.

But as time went on, the mind of this little boy changed from the hatred he felt for nature to the people who treated him and his mother like a plague.

Why run away when he can have the upper hand and drink the blood of his tormentors? He once thought and had tried it when his fangs for the first time pierced the neck of a boy older than him, and he had drunk him almost to the brink of death just like they did to him.

But was that where it ended? No. It didn’t end as he thought. The satisfaction was there for a minute but the pain came at him ten folds more than what he felt earlier when the same people by the order of the king then, raided this little house and had killed his mother before his eyes.

Years passed like a withering flower and this same boy had grown into a fine young man of eighteen years. His short red hair caught the attention of many and this too did not sit well with the same people who wouldn’t leave him be after brutally ending the life of his mother they termed that they were eradicating evil from the land.

’Look, it is the red-haired leech,’ One of the young men of his age shouted across the street, and just like flies attracted to sweets, they all rushed towards him with weapons in their hands.

’Hey, leech! What are you doing sitting there? Huh?’ Another young man asked and others laughed and cheered.

’Why? Don’t you like as I am here?’ Sthena questioned with a smile, as an evil plan swirled in his head.

’What’s with the creepy smile huh?!’ The first young man shouted. ’Do you want me to stick this rod into your heart just like how it plunged into your mother’s heart?’

A roar of laughter echoed around the place as the young men taunted him.

’Of course,’ Sthena replied, barely showing any emotion of being reminded of what they did to his mother. Of how they murdered her in cold blood on her sickbed. Meanwhile, behind this facade was a young man boiling with rage that was going to engulf the world soon.

’You can try and stick it in,’ He continued and chuckled. ’But I think you can barely hold it in your weak hand.’

The words of Sthena were enough to boost the ego of the first young man and he rushed towards him with the rod in his hand. He held it in a firm grip wanting to end the life of the bloodsucking leech in their village.

By now, onlookers had gathered while watching the scene. They all anticipated what will happen as they all wished to end the life of the vampire once and for all, but what happened in the next second had their eyes wide with fear and anger.

Before the first young man could pierce the heart of the red-haired boy, the rod was caught in a firm grip by Sthena whose eyes now blazed red with anger.

With a swift movement, he twisted the rod such that it was now pointed at the heart of the first boy.

’I told you, you’re too weak to hold the rod’ Sthena tsked. He held his hair in a tight grip and his fingers elongated and now pointed at his heart replacing the rod. He asked the onlookers, ’Whose son is this?’

No one dared to speak. They all cowered in fear with their hearts beating widely in their chest with one thought in their minds,

’Do not anger the red-hair devil, else you get burned.’ And they were all going to get burned soon.

Now they knew the tale was true as they stared at the bloodthirsty young man looking all savage as if he couldn’t wait to destroy the world and the people in it.

’Seems like nobody wants to claim you.’ He spoke in the ear of the first young man.

’He’s my son!’ A voice shouted and a woman came running through the crowd that had formed. ’Release him at once!’ She shouted when she was just some feet apart.

’Oh, here comes the mother hen.’ Sthena laughed. Only he could see a situation as this funny. Just like how the laugh started, it abruptly ended and was replaced with an evil smile.

’Too late, Mother hen,’ He clicked his tone in fake sadness. ’Your son committed a grave sin, and I’m going to help cleanse the evil from the village.’

’What are you saying?! You’ve gone mad! You’re the evil one. Release my son now!’ The woman cursed and shouted with tears running down her cheeks.

Sthena stared at the ranting woman with his head bent to the side as he regarded everyone that gathered in the village. Even the friends of the young man he was holding were nowhere to be found.

His cold and burning gaze went from one face to the other, instilling fear into their already shaken bodies. He spoke in a loud voice.

’Consider this as a present my magnanimous heart could give the village as I cleanse the land from evil just like you did on the day you all brutally killed my mother.’

Immediately he finished speaking, his nails slowly pierced into the heart of the man who struggled to free himself but to no avail.

The fear-stricken humans could only watch as the nails of the red-haired vampire they have always bullied and had gone as far as to kill his mother retaliate with equal evilness.

The nails of Sthena found the heart of the boy and he pressed it, to let the dying boy and the people know what it means to pluck one’s heart.

Having created the fear he wanted in the people, he finally pulled the heart of the boy out and dropped it on the ground to the horror of everyone, marking the first kill done by him.

He bent and tore the clothing of the dead man and used it to clean his blood-smeared hand. He looked up and said, ’If you have more evil to clean, please do well to call me as I would be more than glad to help you all.’

Perdita had her lips parted in shock and the horror of Sthena killing at such a young age. She asked him, "Killing him didn’t bring you any trouble?"

"It did," A wide crazy smile tugged at his lips at the response his action had gotten him. "It got me in trouble with the king. He had personally come to punish me."

"What then happened?"

"Take a guess," Sthena replied, his smile widening.