Blood Blossoms

17

"You will leave my girls out of this." Johnathan hissed with a clawed fingernail pointed towards the smirking vampire's face.

"You still have yet to give us a reason why we shouldn't bring this to the attention of the Royal congress." Anthony said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "They have a right to know why their citizens aren't being updated on a new location to call home. This town has been under your supervision for the past decade, your highness."

"Exactly. My supervision. There are more and more vampires moving here on a nightly basis. We have to slowly migrate, we can't just cause an entire genocide, humans and starving vampires don't mix well all at once. It'll bring attention to the human authorities." Johnathan hissed.

"And your little whorehouse hasn't raised any eyebrows of human authorities?" Anthony speculated.

"No. I'm not foolish enough to bring any unwanted attention. My company is succeeding. We're buying out the entire town, the economy here is garbage to mortals, more and more humans are moving out because of it. Just let me and my boys do our due diligence without your interference." He grit pacing his study in aggravation.

"I would love to just go back to Romania and continue with leading my committee but when a reliable source brings ear perking information about a siren witch living under the roof of our almighty king, my family and I just had to come and exterminate the vile creature." He snarled disgusted as he continued to sit comfortably on Johnathan's couch.

The dark candelabra lights illuminated the large space of the two story study. Both gentlemen glared at one another until Anthony caved and looked away.

Johnathan could feel his anger rising, he could feel the darker side of him fighting to come to the surface. "No one touches a hair on any of the heads of my girls. Not even the likes of you, Anthony."

Anthony laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, or you'll sic the little mutts you claim princes on me? Or your new little witch? Poor Rhonda never stood a chance. You better pray to the dark lord that Ophelia doesn't get close enough to slit her throat over the demise of her sister."

"Rhonda is severely charred for a moments time, but she isn't dead." Johnathan deadpanned. "If anything, I should be the one snapping their necks for what they've done to my poor Rose. I told them the second they arrived on my doorstep—in the light of day might I add— to leave my garden untouched. Rhonda and Ophelia brought what they have coming to them."

"Mmm." He hummed. "You have heard of the old tale of the great Count Marius Christine, my father's third great grandfather, yes?" Anthony asked as he sat up straight in his position on the couch.

Johnathan nodded as he continued to pace the space of his study with his hands folded behind his back. "The tale of Count Christine. What of it?"

"Back when vampires walked the sunlight, Marius was searching high and low for a way to upgrade the vampiric race, to configure ways of making our kind much stronger than we already are than humans."

"I know the story of him coming across a witch somewhere overseas in Spain. A woman named Serena or Sheanna, something like that."

"Sheila Kareem."

Johnathan's ears perked at the familiarity of that name. His neck hairs stood on end, his throat dried a little at the unsettling feeling he was suddenly washed with. He stumbled over the maroon throw rug under his feet and caught himself within milliseconds before he fell.

"Kareem was her birth name from her home land of the Caribbean seas, a banished sea siren posed as a slave woman who was renamed by the family who owned her. Her master allowed her to keep Kareem as her surname. She's an immortal Caribbean sea witch who bent the rules of time with magic."