Snow White Queen [NaNoWriMo 2018]

Chapter Twenty

My Lady Lilia,
I have reached the summer palace and befriended Neva. I believe she has started to trust me. If all goes to plan, she will be truly dead by the end of the week.
All the best,
Alexei Ravenore

Alexei put down the pen as he finished drafting the letter. He was starting to have conflicting feelings about his task. Neva seemed genuinely kind and good. If she needed anything, she needed a friend, and Alexei felt like he had begun to become friends with the princess.

But, during all their interactions, he had been observing her closely. He had no choice but to conclude that she was a vampire, and a vampire's a vampire, and vampires lie and deceive. It didn't matter the circumstances of her turning, or how she acted towards him. She was a threat, like all vampires. A threat that had to be exterminated. And if Alexei didn't do it, then who would?

His mind made up, Alexei walked the letter to the post office in a nearby town and began making a plan to kill Neva.

~~~

Neva requested to speak with Malik - Alexei - privately after dinner. From his manner, he didn't seem to suspect that anything was out of the ordinary.

Dinner was painstaking. She made an attempt to act as if everything was normal while his betrayal clawed at her mind. All she wanted to do was collapse in on herself, lock herself away to protect herself from any further betrayal. Or lash out, attack Malik where he sat, make him like her. Like the thing he swore to destroy.

She clamped down on her instincts and maintained a pleasant smile. Revenge would come soon; she couldn't risk doing anything while she was being watched.

At last, they were alone. She maintained her composure up until the moment she dropped the note she'd found on the table in front of him.

The color drained out of his face, but other than that, he showed no sign of fear.

"Malik Sourz," she began. "Or is it Alexei? I have to say, you're a very good liar. But some things, you can't hide forever."

Malik - Alexei - bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Neva. Really, I am."

Neva kept her gaze cold and said nothing.

"My- my name is Alexei Ravenore. Your stepmother offered a job to me, and I took it. I've been hunting vampires for almost two decades. She told me what you are and that you're dangerous. I had no reason to doubt her. I've seen the damage vampires can do and her logic that we shouldn't have one on the throne made sense to me."

"So was your friendship faked, then?" Neva allowed some hurt to color her voice, hoping his compassion would turn him to her side.

"At first, yes."

"So, things have changed?"

He said nothing for a moment.

"I was bitten when I was two years old. My parents had two options: either let me die, or Turn me. They chose the latter. It's because of that choice that I am alive today."

"Alive as you can be without a heartbeat."

"I never said it was a perfect solution."

Alexei considered his next words carefully. "Do you ever wish they had let you die?"

"I used to, sometimes. I used to hate them for cursing me to what I thought was a half-life. But, as I grew older, I realized that if I weren't this, then I would be dead. Honestly, this is better than dead, don't you think?"

"You could have been normal if not for a vampire."

"But not all of us are like that. Look at me! I've never attacked out of malice." Neva bit her tongue to hide the lie in her words. "I just want people like me to be treated equally. Don't you agree that something you can't control shouldn't dictate what you can and can't do?"