A Hymn of Snakes

TWENTY FIVE

TW: TALK ABOUT CHILD ABUSE
AND SELF HARM

     I was asked to attend a Keeper and Vampire Peace Conference, the Queen asked me to go in her place alongside some other Ambassadors one of them including Holstien. However, instead of normal clothes I had been courted and dressed in a long flowing navy dress that reached to the middle of my calf. I had grown accustomed to wearing heals since my father had me dressing in them since I was a child. My hair had been getting longer in the bliss of September and over time I let the color in it die down back to my natural black.

The meeting was in an uproar, people argued from the tops of they lungs and there was nothing more then a spur of curses. I was excited when it was announced to be dismissed, considering nothing got done those of us from the Night Court just remained silent until the meeting was over.

The true test of my patience didn't start until a familiar voice called out to me, my father's face cold as he watch and simply waited. His eyes ran deep into his hatred as a chill formed up my spine, Leon stood between him and I but there was no stopping a Greerson man. "Cordelia Beth Greerson, I command you to stop this at once and turn yourself in." He started immediately, I didn't have the energy to listen to him right now. Turning my back as Holstien and I made our way to the door. It wasn't until his voice scorned me again did I show any form of emotion. "You were always just like Miranda." He said my birth mother's name with so much poison in his voice.

I stopped in my tracks, turning to face him. He was a complete and utter reflection of me, there wasn't an inch of me that resembled my mother only in my actions. "Don't you dare talk about her like that." I started, pointing at him as he walked closer to me. My mother on his arm like a doting wife, making me weak in my knees and sick to my stomach.

"She was my wife just like you were my daughter." Pride over filled my father as he realized he was getting under my skin. He was always good at that, brewing a storm in me and pushing my buttons. He knew that he could make me cower into a ball like I used to, but with Leon and Holstein by my side I tried to keep my head up. "I can say and do as I please." That's what he used to say before he got really mad at me, then his hand would raise and strike me down.

I was heart broken right now, but Alexander Vladimir Tepes wasn't the first man to disappoint me. Henry Greerson held the crown first, there wasn't a single kind word I could use to describe my father. I was raised in a big suburban white house and sent to a boarding school, taught to act like a proper lady. Sure the Greersons were rich but that didn't mean any of the money came to me, my mother had her hands wrapped around that more. When I was back in my father's house, his rules were absolute and when my father was angry his response was to raise a fist to me. He did the same to my birth mother and now here I stand. "Yeah, until you killed her." The words just fell from my mouth, twenty years of a secret that I was afraid to tell.

"Cordelia." He started.

Insanity rolled off my shoulders, I didn't remember anything from the time my birth mother was alive but I knew what had happened. I remember staying at Master Nicholson's house during the trials, I remember kids asking me if he really did it. I didn't need the evidence to know, "What? Afraid this might just ruin your reputation? That the council might find out." I asked as anger blistered from my smile, laughter cracked between my teeth as I looked like a heathen. I shook my head, "They already know, they're the ones who covered it up." I yelled, throwing my hands up away from the distress my body called out too.

Henry took a step closer to me, I took a step back. "You don't deserve the Greerson name." He cursed out at me.

"Good, keep your damn name. I don't want anything to do with a murderer anyway." We looked like two children arguing but I never had the chance to yell at my father. I was always too afraid to move against him, too worried he might do something to me. Scotland had changed me in full. After I graduated from the Academy and spent a year and a half away from my father- the Vampires had changed me. Then Natalia solidified my rebellion.