Crown of Ruin
Page 20
“You’ll never gain the support of all the Royals,” I say, shaking my head. “No, they are not all enamored with Cyrus and the way he’s ruled things all these years. But the vast majority do not want to see the world ruined by our kind.”
“Oh,” Lorenzo says, leaning forward. “But this is my ultimate goal, Sevan.” There’s a light dancing in his eyes, and I see passion there. I see drive. I see centuries of work. “This is how we change the world. There will be no difference, because in the end, we are all the same. Every single vampire may prove themselves. There will no longer be Born, there will no longer be Royal.”
This. This is how he wins.
Because for every Royal, there are a hundred Born.
“The division of the Born and the Royals limits our kind,” he continues. “I may have resented that I was born a privileged Royal who had to do nothing to prove myself, but it did afford me opportunities. It gave me my chance to find a way to bring our kind back into one family with no division.”
The words sound beautiful.
But the reality of it will spell the end for mankind.
“I will stop you,” I say, leaning forward. “I will kill you right here, right now.”
“And what if I kill you first?” he says. His words are ice cold, but there is a smile on his face.
“Then I will just come back, over and over. I will never stop getting in your way.”
All of my insides shake and quiver.
He smiles. “Don’t worry, Sevan. Unlike you and Cyrus, I could never kill one of my own children.”
A chill works its way down my spine at this monster calling me one of his own children.
My phone rings in my pocket and I instantly whip it out, pressing it to my ear.
“There are more of them!” my spy shouts. He sounds frantic. “Ten more cars just drove up, and I see more down the road.”
“How many?” I demand, locking eyes with Lorenzo.
“There have to be sixty-five more here,” the spy says. “In addition to the thirty I’ve already told you about.”
One hundred.
There are nearly one hundred of Lorenzo’s children here at our doorstep.
A sharp ringing sounds in my ears and I set the phone down on the table without hanging up.
“How many?” I whisper. “How many are there?”
Lorenzo, my biological father, looks up at me from beneath his eyelashes. “Four here at court,” he begins. “Thirteen in Los Angeles. Twenty-six in Ghana. Twenty-eight in Cairns, Australia.” My blood runs chill as I begin totaling up the numbers in my head.
“Thirty-nine in Buenos Aires, Argentina,” he just keeps spouting numbers. “Forty-seven in North Korea. Fifty-one in New Delhi. And exactly one hundred between my wives in Italy.”
I want to throw up.
Lorenzo has 308 children. Plus me. Plus however many others like me that slipped through his fingers.
There were just over four hundred members here at Court. And I’ve just shipped nearly twenty-five of them off around the globe.
“How many more are coming here?” I ask. And I can’t hide the quake that leaks into my voice.
Once again, Lorenzo smiles. “All of them.”
I feel like I’m having a stroke. I swear my brain is flickering in and out. I can’t process it all. I can’t take it all in. I can’t think through all of the implications.
“This doesn’t have to be a frightening time, Sevan,” he says calmly. He reaches forward, trying to take my hand, but I yank it back, glaring darkly at him. “With your support, this can be such an easy transition. There won’t need to be any lives lost.”
I shake my head. “Never. I will never, ever support you or this mutiny.”
He makes a sad breathy sound. He shakes his head, and I hate the condescending look in his eyes. “Don’t do this, Sevan. The King has fallen. This is the end of an era. The world will change. Do not make yourself vulnerable by standing alone.”
The door makes a squealing sound as it swings open.
“Oh, but she is never alone.”
It’s as if I watch it in slow motion, as Lorenzo’s face changes from smug and dark, to shocked and terrified.
It all happens in a fraction of a second. Cyrus is on top of him, fangs bared. They topple one over the other, rolling across the floor.
Cyrus is quicker and stronger. He takes Lorenzo by the front of his shirt, and drags the man out into the sunlight.
I scramble after them, darting out into the street.
But something is wrong when I look around.
There are people, frozen in the streets, their eyes turned toward the mouth of the canyon.
I turn, and my stomach disappears, my hands go numb.
I see them there. Bodies. People. Dozens and dozens of them.
I can’t count them all. But I know it instantly.
There are more than a hundred of them.
“The King may have evaded death,” Lorenzo says darkly, dangling from Cyrus’ grasp. “But the reign of this monarchy is over.”
* * *
THE END OF BOOK THREE
Also by Keary Taylor
THE BLOOD DESCENDANTS UNIVERSE
House of Royals Saga
Garden of Thorns Trilogy
Crown of Death Saga
THE FALL OF ANGELS TRILOGY
THREE HEART ECHO
THE EDEN TRILOGY
THE McCAIN SAGA
WHAT I DIDN’T SAY
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About the Author
Keary Taylor is the USA TODAY bestselling author of over twenty novels. She grew up along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where she started creating imaginary worlds and daring characters who always fell in love. She now splits her time between a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest and Utah, dragging along her husband and their two children. She continues to have an overactive imagination that frequently keeps her up at night.