The Vampire King's Toxic Consort (bxb)

Chapter 11 Close to Home

Lucius still remembered when his parents sent him and Julian to Monday School, where the priests and priestess taught them the Scripture. They used to tell them the most horrendous stories about how the unholy monsters mutilated humans and ate babies, saying that only humans were good because they were God's children. And everything else was evil.

Lucius and his brother were told that humans were always the victims and never the perpetrators. As if being a human was intrinsically good.

It was a big ass lie.

"Is it true?" Lucius asked when he was alone with Anton, "That Anthor had been selling their 'unwanted' citizens to the vampires?"

Anton was checking everywhere in the house, making sure there were no hidden cameras or microphones. He put a finger on his lips, asking Lucius to wait a bit. After he was sure no one was eavesdropping on them, he straightened up and said sympathetically, "It is...as far as I know...not entirely untrue..."

Lucius slumped into the chair near him, feeling the weight of his old beliefs crumbling down, "even the Churches were part of it?"

"I don't know the details, it's just rumors I heard from the New Gospels, and they heard it from the Weeping Raven, who appeared to have a partnership with some Anthorian who had connections to very powerful people. That is why they can give us safe passage to Anthor." Anton crouched before Lucius, gingerly gazing into his troubled eyes, trying to calm him down, "Hey, I know it's horrible to hear such a thing, but...let's just focus on staying alive and getting out of Eternia first. One thing at a time, alright?"

"I knew nothing about any of this..."

"Something you can only know when you get to the dark side...Most of the royalties, apostle lords and ladies never need to know the seamy aspect of their world." Anton said dryly, "I only started to see the world in its true light in the past year, and I began to understand that everything is pretty fucked up."

"Fucked up is a massive understatement..." Lucius mumbled numbly, "How could they do this to their own people while telling us how evil and cruel vampires are? Who was I risking my life and throwing away everything for this whole time? What was the point?"

Anton didn't know how to comfort Lucius. Such things were beyond his scope, and he couldn't imagine how Lucius felt. He scratched his head and tentatively put his hand over Lucius's, "Look...if you don't want to go back...I can take you to The Guardians."

Lucius closed his eyes in exhaustion and shook his head, "No, your uncle will not risk his people's safety by helping me. Even if he does, werewolves cannot go into a war with vampires because of someone like me. It took so much work to thaw the strife."

"Then we can go somewhere far, far away." Anton fixed his eager gaze on Lucius, "The world is big. We can go to the other side of the sea."

"How? The sea is on another side of Eternia. There is no way we can make it. You've done so much for me. I cannot ask you to risk more than you already have." Lucius paused for a second and continued in a sorrowful tone, "Besides, I feel like...I cannot just run like this. This is a mess I created...I need to fix it, somehow."

"How can you fix the world, Lucy?! You are not the God-chosen miracle-working prophet like your brother! And don't get me wrong, I don't think your brother can fix anything either."

Lucius cocked one side of his brows in mild disbelief, "did you just call me Lucy?"

Anton grinned, "yeah? I've had the urge to call you that for a while."

"Oh so you also don't mind me calling you Antsy?"

"Com'on, I'm not antsy at all! It's not fitting!"Anton protested melodramatically, secretly glad he managed to distract Lucius for a moment.