Double update!
IX: Jungkook
The reading room was dark when we first entered, but Taehyung snapped his fingers, and lights turned on, their soft warm glow penetrating the darkness. Unlike the other rooms in Armad Castle, the reading room was made of wood with traces of gold, all in all giving it a nice homey feel. No black obsidian or marble was in sight. It wasn't unlike the libraries back in the human world, except it was much larger and grander. Shelves upon shelves of books lined the towering walls, and the ceiling was a glass dome. Four white marble pillars supported the roof, its slender corinthian columns reaching up to the sky. A glass chandelier hung from the middle of the dome, light being reflected off its numerous crystal stones. It was my favorite room in the castle by far.
Taehyung led me over to some couches, which were right in front of a large window whose panes were white with frost. "Sit here," he said. "I'll start a fire." Letting go of my hand, he walked over to the hearth in the center of the room and added some logs into the fireplace. He then flicked a hand towards the wood, and immediately a small flame burst out from under the kindling. The warmth from the fire spread throughout the reading room, and I relaxed my hold on the cloak just a bit.
"So, how do you know what hot chocolate is?" I asked as he sat down on the couch so that he was facing me. "I thought it was a human thing."
"My mother used to make this for me when I was feeling sad. It was her favorite comfort drink." Taehyung smiled sadly, and put his mug down on the table with an audible clink.
"Oh..." I didn't know what to say. By his wistful tone, I could guess that it was a touchy subject. I then noticed his feathery black wings, and thought of another pretty important question.
"Do all vampires have wings, or is it some kind of gift you get when you become leader?" I asked, deciding to change the subject. Taehyung sighed, looking over his shoulder at his black wings.
"No. No vampire has it. I suppose it is some kind of gift depending on how you look at it. But not for becoming king." He paused. Standing up, he walked over to the window, tracing his fingers across the panes of glass and leaving handprints across the white surface. The silence continued for well over two minutes.
"Do you want to hear my story?" He asked suddenly. "It explains how I have wings. But I'll warn you now; not everything in it is pleasant." I simply nodded, curiosity getting the best of me. He sighed, seating himself on the wide windowsill and looking out into the forest.
"You see, I'm not a true blood vampire," He started. "My mother was the heir to the Sirius Clan throne, and my father was a fallen angel. That's how I got these wings." He paused again, simply staring out the window at the first rosy rays of dawn. I watched him, my hot cocoa forgotten.
"Since we work closely with other creatures of the night, it wasn't unusual for the leaders of each species to meet up and discuss plans. My parents met at one of those conferences. By the end, they had fallen hopelessly in love. Even now, different species aren't supposed to marry each other, so everyone was against their wedding. Her father, my grandfather, was the leader at the time, and he was a hundred percent against their love. He wanted my father out of the picture so he could arrange a nice marriage to a vampire for his daughter. So he decided to send my father on a quest, a quest which he thought would either kill him or prove him a coward."
"He sent him to battle the Nighthawks, a barbaric clan in the west, all alone. They were our greatest enemy at the time, and were known for their ruthless behavior. Of course, my mother protested against my father going, but he wouldn't budge. He knew that if he backed down, he would be labeled a coward and would never get to see my mother again. So he took the task and went west. Everyone thought that he would be brutally killed in no time, so they were astonished when he came back a few years later completely unscathed. He laid the head of the Nighthawk's leader at my grandfather's feet and proclaimed his task finished. There was nothing that my mother's father could do. He grudgingly agreed to give him my mother's hand in marriage, but didn't show up for the ceremony. The people were satisfied that my father had proven himself, and my mother was elated. If everything had ended there, they would have gotten a happy ending."
His hands shook, and I walked over to him. I was surprised at how cold his fingers were, but I took his hand in mine, rubbing calming circles just like my mother used to do when I was stressed out. He smiled and kissed my forehead lightly. I let him.
"They had a few happy centuries together, which isn't that long by vampire standards," he continued. "My mother became the Queen of the Sirius Clan, and my father ruled alongside her. My grandfather had already retired, so there was no competition for the throne. At least, not yet." His face darkened, and he looked out the window again. "Then they had me. As the firstborn child, I was already heir to the throne. But I was a hybrid; a cross between a vampire and a fallen angel. I had my mother's fangs and my father's wings. My parents were delighted, but my grandfather... not so much. If anything, he had been expecting a true blood vampire, not some crossbreed. When my sister Lisa arrived four years later, he became worse. Lisa looked like a true blood, but when she got angry horns would emerge on her head. Another compliment of our father. To our grandfather, we were symbols of his failure. He hated us, and we hated him right back."
"While I was growing up, my family didn't live at Armad Castle. My parents had decided that that would put too much pressure on Lisa and I, so we lived in a cottage at the edge of the woods. It was within walking distance of Armad, but we rarely went there. I didn't even realize that I was an heir to any clan until..."
Taehyung's lip curled and dark fire seemed to spark in his eyes. His hands balled into fists, and a draft swept across the room. The fire in the hearth crackled. I squeezed his hand gently, which seemed to bring him out of his daze. He let out a ragged sigh, and continued his story, though his grip on my hand never loosened.
"Until a great fire broke out in our house. We don't know who set the fire or how it happened, but it killed everyone inside in seconds. Lisa and I were out during the incident, so we weren't affected by the flames... but our parents..." He blinked his eyes a few times. "Our parents weren't so lucky."
For a while, everything was silent. I didn't dare speak as Taehyung's eyes seemed to grow darker with every passing second. His fangs glinted in the fast fading moonlight, and his wings extended, making him look like a demon. A log cracked loudly in the fireplace, which made me flinch, but seemed to bring the vampire sitting next to me back into the present.
"After that, I flew into a rage." Taehyung whispered, hanging his head. "Something inside of me just snapped. I didn't care who had set the fire, all I wanted was revenge. I killed people I shouldn't have. Anyone who tried to stop me ended up dead. I... I became a monster." He gripped my hand tighter, and I squeezed it reassuringly. "Even vampires have a code. We aren't supposed to kill any creature that doesn't pose a threat, especially humans. But... I went ahead and killed hundreds of them. I set buildings on fire and sucked the humans dry of blood. For at least a century, I just wandered around aimlessly in both the human and vampire worlds, killing anyone who came in my way. I totally lost myself and my emotions to the flames. Murdering people became second nature to me. I... I couldn't stop."
He looked up, and I saw that his red eyes were filled with remorse and anger. He looked down at our entwined hands, and smiled a bit, though the sadness in his eyes still remained. "Finally, after a 100 years of pain and misery, I managed to calm down. I was able to harness my anger and hatred and mold it into something..." He paused. "Different. But I couldn't subdue it entirely. It's still inside of me, writhing and waiting for a chance to come out. And when it does..." He closed his eyes briefly, as if remembering a bad memory. "It won't be pretty."
He stared out the window, rubbing my palm absently with his fingers. I stood beside him, staring with concern as he turned back to me. He gave me a small smile as if to reassure me that he was alright, but his eyes were dull.
"About 10 years after that, I decided to come back to the Sirius Clan and become leader. Lisa had been ruling in my absence, but she glady stepped down, saying that being queen wasn't for her. No one tried to stop me, either because they were too afraid or maybe they just wanted a strong leader. I took my rightful place as king, and ruled over the clan. I won battles and extended the Sirius Clan's power until we ruled more than half of the vampire world. But I was lonely. I had no one to rule by my side, and after I bottled up my anger, I felt... empty. I had nothing to live for, and nothing for me to smile at or experience any other emotions other than sadness. I lived like that for more than 200 years." He looked up to meet my eyes. "And then I met you."
Taehyung smiled, his face alive for the first time since he had started talking. He reached out a hand to caress my cheek, and I sighed, leaning into his touch. Without warning, his other hand snaked around my waist and pulled me down so I was sitting on his lap. I yelped, clutching onto his shirt for balance, and I heard him chuckle. "Don't worry," his breath tickled my ear as he wrapped his arms around me. "You're safe." I simply leaned on his shoulder and stared at the rising sun on the horizon, the gold ball just beginning to peak above the mountains. He was right; I did feel safe in his embrace. I even smiled when he started to play with my hair, running his hand gently through my brown locks. As he caressed my hair, he continued his story.
"You were only a baby at that time, but you quickly became the light of my life. I would go down to the human world every day to see how you were doing, so much that Jimin once locked me in my room to try and stop me. It didn't work of course, but it made me realize how much I was addicted to you. After that, I tried to reduce my visits to once a week. While you were growing up, you became more and more aware of your surroundings, making it harder for me to sneak down to Earth to see you."
"So in other words, you were my stalker," I said, playing with one of the feathers on his wing. He laughed. "Yes, I suppose I was. Though I had no intention of hurting you. In fact, by the time you were six years old, it was a hard task even to keep you alive. All my enemies wanted you dead so that I would have no queen to rule with me. It helped that your parents were always away on business trips, so it was easier for me to protect you without being seen. Finally, I sent Baekhyun to guard you for the rest of your life, because I feared that vampires would attack when I wasn't there. He was the best cat for the job, though he did develop a fondness to milk which none of us vampires liked."
I giggled, and Taehyung grinned. "And now you're with me," he whispered, tightening his arms around me. "You're here, my beautiful soulmate is right here in my arms. You don't know how long I've waited for this moment."
"I can guess," I murmured, turning around to look at his face. "And I'm happy that I can make you so happy."