Chapter Thirty-eight

Mihai

"How dare you?!" The queen bellowed, widening her hazel eyes as veins of outrage, traced a line up the side of her neck the moment Mihai walked past the palace doors. He halted, quirking up a bushy brow as confusion braced him, causing him to glance over his shoulder in search of who she was yelling at. "How?!"

He scratched his untamed hair and tugged at the overgrown beards that were starting to itch him. If misery was a person then Mihai would pass for the best description.

"What are you talking about?" He questioned in Romanian, knitting his brows into a deep frown as he stepped further, closer to the throne she sat on.

"Don't you dare lie to me!" Her nose flared as she banged her fist on the armrest of the chair, elegantly dressed in a blue royal mantle that showed off her cleavage and poured down, covering her feet from the outer world.

"What?" Mihai chuckled in confusion as he rubbed away the itch from his beards and stood akimbo, staring dumbstruck at her.

"I'm not laughing with you, young man. How could you choose to betray your blood?" She gripped the edges of her dress and rose to her feet, turning red and Mihai feared she'd break her dental bone for how intensely she clenched it and bared her fangs. "How could you commit such an abomination?"

"What abomination?" Mihai asked, pinching his lips into a frown, slightly getting upset at the accusations. "I did nothing, mother."

"Don't you look me in the face and lie that you didn't kill a fellow vampire for the sake of an incompetent bastard!" She exclaimed and the chandeliers swung from one corner to the other, followed by the lights that flickered. Mihai glared straight at her face, tightening his jaw as his skin crawled and his ears tingled in irritation at the last words she uttered. "Do you know you're meant to be banished for what you did?"

"She-" he started through gritted teeth, feeling bitter bile, rising his throat as he hesitated to catch his breath so he wouldn't spiral out of control. "-is not a bastard."

"Then what is she?" His mother stepped down from the throne, dangerously approaching him with a hazardous emotion in her eyes. "Incompetent?"

"No, she's my Regina..." He drawled, feeling a lump in his throat, one that replaced his anger with guilt and sadness. "I love her, too much."

"Nonsense!" She screamed and her fangs elongated. "You killed your kind for a human, those greedy creatures?"

"Mother-"

"Would she kill her kind for you, would she lay down her life for you or even risk being banished?!" Rage surged through her like lava.

Mihai scrunched up his face as irritation raked his skin and he gulped, squeezing his lips into a narrow line of resentment.

"I was trying to protect her." He stated known facts, forcing the anger in him to stay down. "He was going to kill her, she's my Re-."

"Shut your mouth!" She stomped her feet and her voice deepened as her eyes turned into a darker shade of hazel, more like red. "She's a bastard and I hate her!"

"But you haven't even met her, how could you be so unfair?" Mihai asked, finally suppressing his anger and letting his mother be the captain of the ship. "You don't just judge people because-"

"And you think she'd still love you when she finds out you're a two-faced vampire that kills her kind?" She asked sternly and all the life drained out of his face as he felt his heart sink into his stomach. "You think she'd love you for who you are? A bad person that kills his wives and humans?"

"I didn't kill my wives." Mihai swallowed his frustration and shook visibly, clenching his fists as he tried to compose himself.

"Tell me," she said, sounding like Lucifer himself and her eyes were visibly burning with disdain. "You betrayer!"

"I didn't betray you and I didn't kill my wives!" He yelled on top of his voice, shaking the four walls and chipping off a coat of painting on the ceiling. "I loved Shemica, you knew it and you still know it!"

"Don't you dare raise your voice at me, I birthed you and I can still whoop your ass!" She pointed her index finger at him, and it shook in accordance with her body that trembled in fury. "Murderer!"

"I am not a murderer!" He marinated in a fresh wave of resentment that made the pit of his stomach coil in a void of rage.

Suddenly his mother raised her hand and landed it heavily on his cheek, setting it ablaze. "I am not a murderer, I didn't kill my wives, damn it!" Mihai yelled again, splattering droplets of saliva on her face. "She was pregnant with my child, why would I kill her?"

She left a stinging slap on his face every time he yelled at her.

"You're a disgrace." Her chest headed as her nose wrinkled in distaste. "You got her pregnant before marriage? You're such a cunt, you went against the palace rules. Who knows, maybe you're cursed and you're the reason for it!"

Mihai felt a burst of anger, coursing through his veins as his heart stopped for a minute and he froze to process her last words.

"Banished, you're banished from this kingdom, and I don't want to see you and your ugly, incapable face again!" She slapped him across the face one last time with all her strength and the force made him stagger as the stinging pain broke his heart into pieces. "I regret the day I birthed you."

Mihai's stomach coiled and he suddenly felt parched as his heart ached greatly in the walls of his chest.

"Get out!" She pointed to the doors, and he gnashed his teeth, biting hard on his bottom lip till the metallic taste of blood danced around his taste buds and he gulped it down.

The turbulent dark clouds of mental and emotional affliction plunged deeply into him and weighed his body down like a grand piano. He felt the injury of her words rip through his chest as they echoed in his ears, lacerating his heart with pain. Mihai turned on his heels and walked away from his mother with a stinging memory of how upturned in disgust her lips were for him. How could a mother utter such hurtful words to the one she claimed to be her son?

He increased his pace with a thumping heart and tears of pain that threatened to spill out of his eyes. How did she know he killed a vampire?

He badged into his room and picked his cellphone, knowing nothing important was in this room. He walked over to his table and stared lengthily at the golden crown of the acting king, adorned with a blue diamond before grabbing it off the table and breaking it into pieces. He pulled his drawer and searched furiously for something till he gave up and grabbed his phone off the table, stuffing both his phone and the expensive gemstone into his pocket. He grabbed one of his villain coats and put it on while standing close to his window. Instantly, he met the malicious gaze of a known person that flashed a foxy grin at him as if to say, 'I won'.

Mihai gripped the window sill and narrowed his gaze at him. In one insane second, he dashed out of the room into the cold atmosphere but didn't see the cold and wicked eyes of the enemy–he had vanished. He must have been the one that told mother but how did he know?

Mihai pivoted out of the kingdom, moving with the speed of lightening, numb to the breeze that slapped his face hard and filled his lungs. He ran, raising dust and dry leaves after him, he ran into the dead of the night and halted in front of his house.