Prince Xavier

Chapter 27

Xavier's POV

Jason Grimes, Alex Drew and Chase Simonds. Dead at my feet. Not all in one piece I might add.

And now I had one more culprit to attend to. My father.

After my youngest sibling was cured from insanity with the deliverance of Eddrick's blood, my brothers and I had spent numerous hours feeding the cure to each infected vampire. It wasn't easy, we had to do it one by one.

I wasn't concentrating very well because my father was on my mind. He had to die – it was the only way to fully establish my place as rightful King. I also had to avenge Caitlin.

"It's about time we both attended to our father," Darrius walks up to me from across the dungeon's hall after feeding the last vampire with the cure. Johnathan is at his side.

"I am coming also," Johnathan states, his voice strained.

"No," I command, "You don't need to see what Darrius and I do to him, you can't handle it. Go find Claudia and sort out your issues with her." This irks Johnathan to suddenly rush at me – quite slowly considering he was temporarily human. None the less he faces me, nose to nose, eye to eye.

"I'll make my own decisions and I will be going with you to see our father," he snaps, "You can't stop me."

"You should go see Claudia," Darrius reaffirms, quite harshly, grabbing Johnathan's shoulder and pulling him back easily. Johnathan shrugs Darrius off and glares at both of us.

"You'll be no better than him if you kill him," Johnathan's tone drops an octave, "Remember that."

Thankfully, he chooses that moment to turn and leave us, giving in to our command.

"Let's go, Darrius," I nod to him and he walks with me to the last dungeon at the end of the hall. The one cell with no bars – just a steal door... which is partly open.

"Shit," Darrius hisses. I'm already running for the door, swinging it open to see if he has indeed escaped.

I stand there, frozen to the spot, shocked and mind-blown at the sight before me.

"Xavier," The woman holding the body of my father is shocked to see me, and equally shocked to see Darrius appear next to me. She is holding my father's unconscious form to her – a weak heart beat emanating from his chest. He was still alive, "Darrius... I've given... him... the... blood," her words are slow and weak.

She is exactly how I found her when I went searching for her.

A half-reawakened body.

"You're... a-alive," Darrius can barely get the words out of his mouth, in a husky whisper. Tears from vampires were extremely rare, even more so from my brother.

"Y-yes," she says, slowly. Her skin was grey, her black hair also turned grey. Her movements were slow but she was holding her husband's body close to her anyway – probably using all her strength to do that one thing.

I watch as Darrius rushes over and kneels by our mother, grabbing her chin gently to look her in the eyes.

"What happened to you?" he asks, before reaching into hug her just as gently.

"I'm... not... here," she whispers back. I watch the exchange with a lump in my throat but with a cold expression.

"She is not alive, Darrius," I say bluntly. It was the same as Caitlin's sister. I hadn't told Caitlin yet because I didn't want to upset her... there was no way to save Abbey. Or the Queen.

"What do you mean?" Darrius pulls back to glare at me.

"She even knows it," I say straight forwardly as possible, "Someone tried to bring her back from the dead. But she was never brought back fully. She is not alive – I don't know what it is. I've been trying to find out for ages."

"You knew and didn't say anything?!" Darrius is clearly about to attack me but our mother reaches out a hand to stop him. It works, he pauses and looks to her, hesitating. Confused.

Our father suddenly gasps for air and is jolted awake and Darrius and I go silent as we watch him see our mother directly over him, still holding him.

He starts crying almost as instantly as he sees her.

"Xeria," he gasps out, grabbing her to him a little too roughly as he sits up, hugging her, "You're back!"

"Don't hurt her," Darrius growls, "She is weak."

"This changes things, Darrius," I say quietly as he stands up to walk towards me.

"Where was she this whole time?" Darrius asks.

"In a grave, until someone brought her back – like that," I explain, "She is not there, not fully. The fact she speaks is a miracle."

"Where did you find her like that?" Darrius asks again.

"On the other side of the country."

"How did she get here?"

"I have no idea," I admit, "We can't do what we were about to do... we can't." We couldn't kill our father.

Somehow our mother had made it back here, I didn't know how. I needed to find out. Maybe, just maybe, Caitlin had an idea I hadn't come up with to save Abbey. It was a long shot but maybe we could bring her back to life fully.

Including Queen Xeria.

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