Chapter 188 The Diamond Drakioness

Chapter 188 The Diamond Drakioness


"I'm so happy..."

His voice broke.

He stepped back just enough to look at her face, his eyes shining with tears.

"If your grandmother could see you..."

A choked laugh escaped him.

"She would be so proud."

He raised a trembling hand to her cheek, unable to contain his emotion.

"Look at you... You're here. Alive. Immortal. And you're going to take the throne."

His chest rose with a shaky breath.

"The future of our people is secure."

Blanche wanted to protest, to remind him of everything that could still go wrong, but Winter didn't give her the chance.

"And who cares if you can't have children!"

He smiled through his tears.

"You're immortal. You'll reign forever."

The thought seemed to overwhelm him even more.

"Do you understand what that means?"

He held her a little tighter.

"Centuries. Perhaps millennia. A Diamond Drakioness on the throne, generation after generation, without our people ever having to fear losing her."

His voice grew deeper, more solemn.

"I've waited my entire life to see this."

He gazed at Blanche as though he still needed to convince himself that she was truly standing before him.

"And I've lived long enough to see my own granddaughter become the new Diamond Drakioness."

He briefly closed his eyes.

Another tear rolled down his cheek.

"It's..."

He gave a shaky laugh.

"It's an immense source of pride."

Blanche remained silent in his arms.

She didn't know how to respond to such a declaration.

But as she felt her grandfather's arms trembling around her, she suddenly understood that, beyond the title, the throne, and all the political weight it represented, Winter didn't see a sovereign.

He simply saw his granddaughter.

And, for the first time, she realized just how proud he was of her.

"Not just yet!" Blanche exclaimed, moved by his happiness. "I'm sorry, Grandpa, but you're going to have to stay on the throne for a little while longer!"

Winter burst out laughing.

"And here I was, thinking I could finally retire! I'll rule in your name for as long as you want me to!"

He took his granddaughter's hands and kissed them, tears and reverence mingling together.

"But for now, I'd like to keep this a secret," Blanche added.

"Anything you want," he replied as he sat back down, still holding her hands. "My Queen."

Already completely smitten with his granddaughter, Winter felt an unconditional, absolute love for her.

Blanche noticed the filaments and, for the first time, she didn't need to level up to understand what they meant.

They simply meant love.

She looked at Kiyan.

There were so many of them in his aura, and they were so thick, that she burst into tears of happiness.

Thankfully, Cassie had put waterproof mascara on her.

Winter was too overwhelmed to notice that her tears weren't entirely because of him.

Blanche hugged her grandfather.

Kiyan loved her.

Truly loved her.

Did he realize it?

Or was he simply refusing to face it?

Why didn't he just tell her?

Her questions remained unanswered.

They had arrived at the foot of the North Tower, where the festivities were being held.

Returning here only a few hours after leaving left her perplexed. She hadn't even considered that the evening would take place at the vampires' home, despite the name Kysten had given the event.

The limousine stopped at the bottom of the gigantic entrance staircase, which had been covered for the occasion with an enormous red carpet.

Countless journalists were already waiting.

"Are you ready?" Kiyan asked her.

"Not really... but, well, here goes nothing..."

Blanche had no idea what was about to hit her.

She had forgotten that, if her grandfather was the King of the Drakions, he was also the CEO of the largest start-up in the world: Drake.

And if she was the heir princess of the Drakions, she was also the heiress to that financial empire — the future richest woman in the world.



Winter and Blanche got out of the limousine alone.

Kiyan preferred to use the service entrance.

In the human world, he was nothing more than a professor.

And tonight, the whole world was going to learn who his wife was — far away from him.

He had no right to stand at her side.

If Blanche had been born a princess, he considered himself an impostor.

King of the Djinns by title, not by nature.

Born in Ancient Babylon, the son of a simple gardener who tended the Hanging Gardens.

He had only learned to read and write because a high-born woman had fallen for his beauty while strolling through the gardens and entrusted him to the finest scribe she could find.

Without his sacrificial death to save his mentor, he would never have known anything beyond poverty.

No matter how intelligent he was, without noble blood, in a world that cruel...

He was a stain upon Blanche's purity.

Or at least, that was what he believed as he watched her through the window, slowly making her way forward, radiant, across her first red carpet.

The pearls caught the light of the camera flashes, making her glow.

She was breathtaking.

He watched her walk away, his heart heavy.

Meanwhile, Blanche felt as though she were exposing herself completely.

Clinging to her grandfather's arm, uncomfortable beneath the flashes, she was beginning to get a headache. Her eyes hurt. Her ears hurt. Her head was pounding.

All she wanted was to make it through the Tower's doors.

Unfortunately, the journalists' onslaught, though contained by the royal guard of vampires specially assigned to the event, became increasingly difficult to hold back as they moved farther away.

It was as though the journalists feared that Blanche and Winter would escape without giving them even the tiniest scrap of information to sink their teeth into.

"Mr. Drake! Mr. Drake! Who is the young woman accompanying you?"

"Mr. Drake! Isn't she a little young for you?!"

"Director Drake! Your company has climbed again on the stock market! Do you have anything to say that might explain this sudden turnaround?"

Winter decided to answer the most polite one — the young man who had simply asked who was accompanying him.

Under the watchful eye of the cameraman beside him, he revealed the identity of the young woman in question:

"This is Elizabeth V. Blanche Drake, my long-lost granddaughter and heir to my empire."

Those few words caused an uproar among the scandal press.

Fortunately, on their King's orders, Jax and Jen began doing their jobs and ushered their charges toward the doors.

Behind them, the announcement of the arrival of a rising movie star, the lead actor in a big-budget series about dragons, finally diverted the journalists' attention.

Thankfully!

Winter thanked the eminent sorcerer — a member of the council and an actor in his spare time — with a simple nod.

It was a win-win situation for the opportunist: receiving recognition from a man like Winter...