Chapter 26: 26__Calls for vengeance

Maia would have questioned him further and poked every answer out of Rogan until she was satisfied, she really would have. If the spell he’d healed her with hadn’t knocked her out to sleep.

She’d been about to ask him what Trojan he’d stolen from the ghosts when she started feeling rather woozy.

The last thing she remembered before she dropped was Rogan lifting her off the bar and carrying her in his arms, her cheek resting in the crook of his neck.

The sleep was deep and restful, like a portal of healing that dragged her in to soothe her every wound. And when Maia finally woke a few hours later, the healing in her body was greatly evident, her bones feeling lithe and liquid in her body.

A deep breath pulled air into her lungs as she uncurled her body to stretch. Maia froze, her eyes cracking open.

The room was large and warm, glowing gold from the fire blazing up into the fireplace chimney.

She stared into the blaze for a moment, giving herself time to get accustomed to the arm wrapped around her waist and the body hot against her back.

Her eyes widened and her heart jerked in her chest at the unexpected position she’d woken up in.

“Relax,” Rogan’s gruff voice murmured behind her, so close to her ear that Maia nearly shivered. “The Hostel’s not under protection of magic. Had to make sure you were safe from ghosts,” he explained.

Maia felt herself relax, the tension easing out of her muscles until her back was fluid against his chest.

She attempted to move, but Rogan’s hand held her back, his hold tightening and tugging her back against him. “Don’t move,” he said, his voice a murmur that sent tingles along the back of her ear.

“I want to turn around,” she said to him.

He stayed silent.

Slowly, Maia inched away and turned onto her back before moving onto her other side to face him. Rogan stayed still, his eyes remaining closed even when Maia shifted closer.

She slipped a hand under her cheek as she gazed up at him, admiring the golden glow of the flickering fire upon his face. His features were perfect, making him aristocratically handsome, so much so that Maia should have known he was royalty even though he didn’t tell her.

Royalty, but evil, he’d said. Maia pursed her lips. Evil enough to kill his own family members, he’d said. Why then was she not frightened of him? The handsome princes in her novels were always sweet and warm-hearted. None of them swore and killed as Rogan did. That was more suited to the villains of each story. And still, she didn’t fear him. The more she’d gotten to know him, the darker his sins seemed to be. And yet still…

His frowning brows twitched and Rogan inhaled deeply. “Why’re you staring at me?”

Maia bit her lip and hesitated for a moment. In the end, her curiosity beat her cautiousness. “Why,” she started softly. “Why’d you kill your father?”

Her question was so softly posed, so harmlessly and yet it raged a torrent of memories in Rogan’s mind, flooding him with a thousand words at once. Why’d he kill? There were so many reasons, more than he could count, but the main reason for which Darrius had had to die was only one.

Rogan’s eyes stayed closed, his frown not easing. “I had to,” he said.

“Why?” she whispered.

Silence answered her questioned, swallowing up the word until Maia barely remembered uttering it.

“Because,” Rogan finally said. “He killed my mother.”

His answer surprised her and Maia stared at him for a moment. She shouldn’t have been surprised at all, but she was. Maia realised that even she had started seeing Rogan as the evil he portrayed himself to be and had expected that his reason would be a bad mood, a quarrel with his father or some sort of battle for the throne. She was ashamed of herself.

He had a far more valid reason. The loss of his mother.

“I’m sorry,” Maia finally said.

Rogan’s mouth curved on one end before straightening. “Don’t be. I’m not.”

His words held no lie, neither did his face hold any remorse. Did he have no regrets?

Shifting closer, she stared directly at his face and felt him tense. “Was that why you and your half-brother fought? Because he wanted revenge?”

The scoff escaped before Rogan could stop it. Her question had just been that absurd. He thought of how Viktor had been sent by their father to live halfway across the world just so Rogan didn’t get his hands on him and then considered her question about him trying to get revenge. Another scoff left his mouth.

“No?” Maia asked.

He kept silent again for a moment and then Maia watched Rogan slowly open his eyes, staring at her. She nearly gasped when the swirling blacks she’d expected where nowhere in sight, instead, his eyes glowed a powerful green around the black of his pupil. The he half of him that was Vampire shone through, seducing her.

“I,” said Rogan darkly. “…wanted revenge on him. Not the other way around.”

Maia blinked. “Your half-brother? Why?”

Rogan’s teeth clenched, his jaw unwilling to pry open and spill his deepest thoughts out for her. His mouth was reluctant and yet, his brain, the master of his body, forced it open, spilling out all that his tongue dreaded to say.

“My father,” Rogan said. “Killed my mother… he dragged me away from her body and out of our home. He took me to Onyx, his Kingdom, which I’d never been to before. I already hated him then. Because he killed her. He only made it worse when he forced me to live among his people as a commoner, forbidding me from ever telling anyone that he was my father and that I was half a sorcerer. He ignored me all my life and then suddenly made me an Elder of his kingdom to help with meagre duties as other Vampire Elders did. I watched him get married… and have a son. He called him his firstborn.”

Maia was entranced by the story, focusing on every tremble of rage that moved Rogan’s words and every shuddering breath that he dragged into his lungs.

“I was that bastard’s first born,” Rogan continued. “I told him so. And I told him I’d had enough, that I’d make him pay. So I killed him. Viktor was barely twenty years old when our father sent him away to protect him from me. But I found him and brought him back to Onyx.”

Rogan’s mouth curved then, his smile chillingly sinister and yet so sexy it made Maia tilt her mouth closer.

“I made him go through hell,” he whispered, sending a chill down Maia’s back. “I turned him into a murderer. Made him kill his first love.”

Her lips parted on a silent gasp. “Why?” Maia asked sadly. “He never did anything wrong. Your father was the wicked one.”

“His existence was his mistake,” Rogan snarled. “He had everything that should’ve been mine.”

She lowered his gaze, biting her lip. “Like what?” She raised her gaze back to his. “The inheritance of the throne?”

Rogan’s eyes cleared of all emotion, staring drearily at her. “Parents,” he whispered. “He had parents who wanted to protect him, he had a real life… and he had his peace of mind. So I took it all away.”

“You’re evil.”

“I know.”

They stared at each other, silence enfolding them.

Maia raised her arm, slipping it around him until her face rested against his throat. Rogan stiffened, his body tightening with that hunger she stirred within him. She needed to let go. Now.

“You destroyed yourself,” Maia whispered, her mouth nearly touching his skin. “…and for people who never deserved you.”

“They deserved what I did to them.”

“Yes, but… did you deserve what doing that to them… did to you?”

Rogan let his eyes fall closed, stubbornly refusing to hear her voice of reason. “You don’t know what it was like, Maia.”

A long while passed and she said nothing. He thought she’d gone to sleep.

“I do,” Maia whispered then.

Rogan’s eyes opened again. “What?”

Moving away, she raised her gaze to his, looking him in the eyes. “Nana. She was killed just like your mother was.”

He frowned, processing her words. “By whom?”

“I don’t know their names,” she said, her eyes glistening now. “But the truth is… that day when I found her body, I could have hunted them down and killed each of them. And I wanted to. But I didn’t… because I value my soul. I kill to protect and in self-defence, not for revenge. Because that’s what destroys your soul. Letting go, dealing with pain or anger and overcoming it. That’s what heals you and makes you even stronger.”

Rogan stared at her. Her way of thinking was like a foreign language to him. He didn’t understand her at all. “How could you let them get away? They killed someone you loved and made you go through pain, how could you not make them suffer for it?”

Maia sighed softly and rested her head back onto her hand, looking at him. “I told you. I value myself. The price of revenge and its consequences is too high for it to be worth it. So I chose to forgive and move on.”

The words were illumination. It was like a streak of light had appeared in the darkness of Rogan’s mind. He swallowed. She could have become like him. And she’d become the opposite. How could two from the same place turn out so differently?

“Maybe,” he said to her. “You didn’t get many chances for revenge.”

Maia’s mouth curved in a smile that had held little joy. “That’s not true. I’ve had plenty of chances to hunt them down. Even now.”

He raised a brow. “Now?”

Maia looked at Rogan, a sharp glint in her eye. “If I follow those ghosts that I know are after *me* and not you… I’d find out who killed Nana. And I’d probably also find out who the hell I really am.”