The Touch of Demise │18+

26: The Taste of Blood

GRACE

Demised forced Xerxes to take from fifteen other people, thirteen of which were lycanthrope, and two were human. Each was from the Land of Xerxes and each was more willing than the last to serve and nourish their Primus. 

Xerxes fell ill after each feeding. 

Regardless of species or sex, Xerxes couldn't hold down their blood. 

Xerxes remained on his feet even though his body seemed as if it was a colossal building awaiting collapse. He looked sick, looked worn out. But he held the same resolve as before; he was not lying. He swore his sincerity to them. 

"It doesn't make sense," she whispered after the fifteenth person was carried away. Demise never took his eyes off Xerxes who looked at her with a wild, sickly gaze. "What did you do before I was alive? What did you do twenty-six years ago?" He took from her mother. She shook the question away. "What about before my mother?"

"Your grandmother," is all he said. "Your entire lineage. All the women in your family."

She shook her head. She had never met her maternal grandmother. She thought she was dead. "My grandmother died when I was a child."

Xerxes looked at her with furrowed brows. "They never told you."

"Told me what?"

He shook his head, removed a handkerchief from his chest, and wiped his jaw. "Your grandmother was not dead. She did not die when you were a child."

Grace's stepped forward only to be ushered back by Demise. 

"Explain, Xerxes."

"She was here, in this palace, with me. We were in love. I loved her," his voice dipped low and cracked as his eyes fell to the floor. He said that word with such conviction Grace couldn't help but believe him. "Your grandfather was a horrible man, Grace. When she told him she wanted to break their mateship, he brutalized her. I took her away. She lived here, she loved here."

"But she raised my mother-" 

"Yes, your mother was out of the house by the time she came to live with me. We told your mother. I told your mother I would make your grandmother Prima."

"But.... you've never had a prima..."

"Your grandmother rejected my proposal. She said the position was for my soulmate and that we weren't soul bonded; she wasn't my true mate, but what I felt for her couldn't be anything other than love."

Grace instinctually sought Demise's touch. She grabbed his arm, pulling it around her waist. He faced her, towering over her, protecting her. It was the only thing keeping her sane. His hand was secure around her waist. 

"What happened?"

"Your mother would come to visit often. She enjoyed the palace. She had no ill will toward me, but she refused to tell her children about her mother and me because she knew that if anyone knew your connection to me, things would be different. You'd have enemies, you'd have to move, and she wanted her kids to live a happy, average life, especially after your diagnosis."

Demise growled low in his chest.

"Once your grandmother passed, your mother willingly gave her vein to me. She knew that one day you would have to do the same. She knew your bloodline was the only one that I could subsist on."

"But why?"

"I don't know," he whispered, dejected. "It's only you, Grace."

Grace looked up at Demise and then lifted her arm. She looked at her wrist and then at Demise. He looked roguish for a second but allowed her to remove herself from him. She slowly moved her way toward the dais where Xerxes remained. Right before she neared the steps, Demise called out and was beside her almost instantaneously.