Sacrifice

Chapter 3 : A Taste of Heaven

The princes watch observantly as you process the information they just fed you. After they had realized your awakening nightmare was actually the last memory from your previous life, you had curiously, and somewhat insistently, asked them about that night. It's evident they were hesitant to recount the distressing memories, but part of you felt the urge to know. Like you needed to know otherwise your soul wouldn't settle.

Now, as you sort through your thoughts, you can't stop the light frown that tugs on the corners of your lips. In hindsight, it seems as if the main root of the problem, the ultimate dilemma that had led to your avoidable demise was communication, or rather the lack thereof. The more you ponder over each action the princes recalled, the more you realize that if they had been straight with you from the very beginning, you could have likely avoided the situation - or taken necessary preventative steps at the very least.

"Was there a reason why you kept the conflict between you and the villagers a secret from me in my past life?" You finally break the silent void, asking no one in particular. This seems to soothe the princes as some have begun to fidget nervously at your unnerving silence. Perhaps there is more to the story that you're missing. You would hate to base your conclusion on everything you have heard thus far. 

"Because the conflict resided between us and the villagers," Jake frowns as if the answer were obvious. "They had a problem with us because we were vampires. But since you were, and still are a human, we didn't think we needed to involve you."

"I think a better way to phrase Jake's response is that we didn't want to dump our problems onto you. We weren't necessarily in favor of excluding you, per se," Jay supplements, taking a seat on the foot of the bed. The mattress dips down slightly, giving into his weight and you suppress the urge to ask him to scoot in closer, suddenly yearning for the second eldest's comfort.

"I'm certain that your first meeting with us in this life was much more frenzied than your previous life's. However, that doesn't go to say that you weren't similarly dumped into a newfound eternal life like you just were less than 24 hours ago. In your previous life, you were also placed in a position of suddenly finding out that you're fated to be with seven vampire princes with minimal room for leeway," Heeseung adds. "Accordingly, we knew it wouldn't have been fair for you to suddenly change everything about your life to accommodate us being vampires and adapt our vampire-related ways. Which is why we thought it would have been selfish if we had dumped our existing problems onto you."

A bubbling urge to refute the prince builds in your stomach but you choose to hold your tongue. Instead, you take a few moments to contemplate everything. If you had been in the princes' shoes hundreds of years ago, would you have reacted the same? Probably not. But that's an easy conclusion to jump to since you're learning of everything as an afterthought. You can certainly understand why they chose to do what they did. They had assumed, purely out of love and consideration, that what they were doing was best for you. It just so happened that their choice wasn't the best option. But you simply can't find it within yourself to truly fault them for it.

"Jay, why don't you take the princess down to the kitchen and fix her a meal? I'm sure she's starving." Before you get a chance to say anything else, Jungwon cuts in. "Plus, I saw you massaging your temples earlier. Your headache is probably the result of a lack of food and rest," he adds, turning to you to brush a strand of hair aside.

"It's been nearly four days since you've last had a meal, petal. You must be feeling so weak," Sunoo frowns, reaching a hand out to delicately grab yours, giving it a comforting squeeze. "Come, let me show you to the kitchen."

Everyone monitors your movements with watchful eyes and you find seven pairs of arms reaching out to steady your balance when your feet plant onto the ground and you try to stand. The moment you embrace your core and push your weight onto your legs, you finally feel the onset of fatigue, especially when your knees threaten to buckle the moment you try to rise from the mattress.