72__To rule or not to rule Cassius
Maia’s gaze went from Rogan’s face to his brother’s, noting the crackling atmosphere of rivalry between them.
“Are you…” Rogan murmured darkly. “Trying to force my hand?”
Viktor didn’t bat an eyelid. “I’m simply telling you what I was considering.”
There was a dark chuckle and Kamilla shivered. She’d forgotten how Rogan could turn the air cold and scary when he wished. She guessed it was an ability every powerful Sorcerer held, but she didn’t care much for it. She rubbed at her goose-fleshed arms as he chuckled menacingly.
“Viktor,” said Rogan. “Since when… do you care to let me know anything? Especially whatever the hell you’re planning?”
The King of Onyx shrugged. “Sometimes people change.”
“Not us,” Rogan said with a tilt of his blonde head. “We don’t change.” With a light scoff, his eyes fell closed on a sardonic smile.
Maia found herself staring at that expression and thinking it was the sexiest thing she ever saw and the very thought made her feel ashamed of herself. How dare she ogle the Sorcerer, and at a time like this?!
“I’ll tell you what you’re doing,” said Rogan. He looked at Viktor. “You’re trying to end the centuries-long rivalry that exists between Onyx and Cassius. If Cassius remains as she is, it gives you more work and creates an air of uncertainty for your Kingdom. You don’t know when they might become fed up of their own ungoverned kingdom and begin to infiltrate themselves into Onyx.” He smiled. “Give it a few decades and you could have Onyx go from a kingdom of true blood Vamps to a kingdom of Vampire Sorcerers. Witches, as your father called us.”
Kamilla nodded. “Yup, that’s it!”
Viktor looked at her, mouth open in shock. “Yeah, tell him all of our secret plans, why don’t you?”
“What?” Kamilla blinked. “What’s the point of pretending, babe? Isn’t that what we’re here for, to get rid of that useless rivalry?”
“That’s not how it works, Kamilla, my love,” said Viktor. “There must be an exchange of cryptic words and threats, mind games which leaves both parties wondering what the other’s thinking of.”
“Bullshit,” said Kamilla with a laugh.
Maia nodded in agreement. It did, indeed, sound like the shit of a bull.
“Just lay all your cards out, Viktor,” Rogan said then. “I haven’t got time for mind games.”
Viktor ran a hand through his black hair with a harsh breath. “Look. Just take over the kingdom. To be honest, Cassius are a charming people, my wife is very fond of them. They’ve only been caught up in so many wars and lost so many lives to Onyx because they were being led by idiots. That is, the late king and then his granddaughter Diana. If Cassius…” Viktor paused. He wasn’t use to being this honest in any conversation with Rogan and it was staring to make him nauseous. Sighing, he continued. “If Cassius had been governed by your mother, Princess Donna… and then by you… perhaps it would be the powerful and peaceful kingdom it deserves to be.”
Rogan had been listening carefully, studying every switch in Viktor’s facial expression as he spoke. He was appalled to find nothing but sincerity in what his brother said. The discovery made Rogan pause with suspicion. What was this? Why was Viktor suddenly being civil?
Very uncomfortable, he cleared his throat. “So… you’re here, asking me to take charge over Cassius because they *deserve* it?”
The doubtful tone in Rogan’s voice was clear to Viktor and he sighed. This would be difficult to put through. “If you become King of Cassius, how many kingdoms will manage to kick them around in war as they usually do?”
Pride flared up in Rogan’s eyes. “None. Not a damn kingdom would even touch them.”
Viktor nodded firmly. “Exactly. That’s what I meant. If you don’t take the throne, either mine or another kingdom, but most probably mine, will squash Cassius like a bug.” He nodded at Kamilla. “And that would make my wife very sad. She has friends there.”
Rogan glanced at Kamilla and she nodded firmly. “Blake and them.”
Maia looked at Rogan in puzzlement. Why did he not want to take over that Kingdom? If it was his mother’s Kingdom and it had no ruler, surely he should take position before it got invaded?
Sensing her staring gaze, Rogan looked at Maia. “What do you think?”
She blinked. “Hm? Oh. Yes. I think yes.”
He frowned. “You think yes? You mean, you think I should take over?”
Maia nodded. “Yes. You’re very powerful. And me? I can heal! Did I tell you that? I think me and you, together, can help a lot of people there. If their previous ruler was cruel and their people have mourned many lives… then I think they will be happy to finally have a good King like you… Rogan.”
She smiled at him, her face beaming with angelic innocence as he stared at her with a look of wonder in his eyes.
Kamilla leaned slowly toward Rogan. “Excuse me. Does she know absolutely nothing about you?”
Viktor pulled her back. ‘Kamilla.”
“She thinks *Rogan* is better than Diana, Viktor,” she said in quiet shock.
“She knows,” Rogan said firmly, his gaze still fastened to Maia’s face. “She knows all about me. My evil, my darkness, my past. She knows everything.”
She had just momentarily forgotten. Just as she’d forgotten that the kingdom she thought he should rule was the same place she’d nearly died.
Kamilla was even more amazed. “She knows? And she still thinks you’re good? Wow…” She looked at Maia, a small smile of awe on her lips. “You really found an angel from heaven.”
*Or an absolute fool*, Viktor thought. He didn’t believe in Rogan becoming a better person.
Rogan didn’t take his gaze off Maia’s face for one moment, looking into the eyes that didn’t remember him. “I didn’t find her. She found me.”
“Sooo….” Kamilla began, watching the heart fluttering staring contest happening before her. She could hardly believe that it was happening with the same Sorcerer who killed hers and Viktor’s parents, except her mother, kidnapped her and nearly turned her Viktor into a murdering savage. That was only a small bit, the list of Rogan’s misdeeds was endless really. She needed confirmation. She looked at him. “So you’re not evil anymore?”
Rogan’s gaze whipped to her so fast, Kamilla almost flinched.
“I am a *villain*. I will *always* be evil!” he murmured darkly.
Blinking in shock, Maia raised a hand, her thumb and forefinger close together. “And a little good!”
Rogan scowled. “No good.”
Maia frowned. “Then we cannot be together.”
“And a little good!” confirmed Rogan. “I will be a little good.”
Before he could take note of the absolute shock on Viktor and Kamilla’s faces, he pushed away from the table and rose, shoving one hand in his pocket and taking Maia’s hand with the other.
He led her away in silence before pausing at the closed doors. Turning his face a degree to the side, Rogan looked darkly at Viktor.
“Cassius is mine. So don’t touch it.”
************
The royals had left, now all that was left for the Hostel women to do was to sit and pretend they hadn’t heard every word that had been said in the room.
“So what did the King of Onyx want?” asked Claudia, captain of the pretending ship.
Rogan only grunted in response, looking into his drink where he sat at the bar.
Thinking it wasn’t worth it to pry the answer out of him when she already knew everything, Claudia only shrugged, flipped her short golden curls and hurried off to where the other girls sat in the sunlit loft.
Finally given a moment of peace and quiet, Rogan looked deeply into his drink.
To rule Cassius, or not to rule Cassius?
That was the goddamn question.
Ruling a Kingdom wasn’t easy. Destroying one was easier and much more fun, in his experience.
He’d have to deal with the whining and bitching of hundreds of his subjects on a weekly basis, over the littlest things. It would take some energy and lots of glaring from Maia to not throw a dagger into anyone who bothered him.
However, it was true that his mother had loved her Kingdom. She would have been an amazing Queen, had Darrius not killed her.
It was also true that, when the late king of Onyx had killed her, her father, the late King of Cassius had sent her away because she carried the son of a Vampire King out of wedlock, but that didn’t count. His mother would have eventually been accepted back into the royal castle because Rogan would have forced the old man to give his mother her throne the moment he was tall enough to smack him. Grandfather or not, Rogan would have fought the king for his mother to get her throne. It was too bad he never got the chance to.
He sighed, resting his chin on his palm. Goddamn it. To rule or not to rule Cassius?
“You’re very deep in thought.”
Blinking, Rogan looked up just as Laurel got behind the bar.
He gave her a dirty look. “Ah. The fairy.”
Doing a short bow, she smiled tightly at him. “At your service.”
“I don’t like you.”
Laurel nodded. “I don’t imagine you do. I did clear your love's memory.”
Rogan nodded. “That’s part of the reason. The other part is that Maia told me you abandoned her. When Esmerelda got killed by Diana’s assassins, you abandoned Maia.”
The colour drained from Laurel’s face, her gaze sharpening with a lethal look. None of it scared Rogan one bit.
“What?” he questioned. “Nothing to say for it?”
“I did what I had to do,” she bit out. “Esmerelda was my only companion, I couldn’t sit still after she was killed. I had to find out who did it. And I got close enough to have strong suspicions. That’s why I didn’t like *you* the moment I met you. Pretending to be so close to my Maia when it was your family hurting her. *Your* family killed her Nana.”
Rogan snarled. “First of all, she’s not your Maia, she’s *mine*. Secondly, Diana wasn’t family, I considered her a pet lizard with a bad temper, at most.”
“Maia’s regaining her memory, but she shouldn’t,” said Laurel. “Your sorcery and the bond you created when you revived her is overpowering the magic of the wish you made, but it shouldn’t.”
An arrogant smirk curved Rogan’s lips, but before he could say a word, he felt the presence behind him.
A single turn of his head let him see Maia, standing at the foot of a staircase, watching him and Laurel.
Rogan froze. The sight of her there turned his heart into an anxious rock and sent it falling into his gut. Had she heard everything?
She silently looked at him, no sign of anger or sadness on her face. Rogan wished with all his heart that she hadn’t heard. He needed time. He needed time before he faced the risk of losing her when she found out it had been his family doing all that sick crap to her.
“Maia…” Glaring mildly at Laurel, he got up, turning to face her. “You okay?”
Nodding perkily, she approached him. “Yes, I’m okay. What were you two fighting about?”
Rogan pursed his lips in relief. “Uhm… this and that. You know, us magical beings.”
When she only stared flatly at him, he cleared his throat. “Okay, we need to go home. Wait here, I’ve got to see Cassidy really quickly.”
Maia watched him shimmy around her and stalk off to find Cassie.
She turned back to Laurel with suspicion in her eyes. “What were you and the Sorcerer fighting about?”
Looking behind Maia to make sure Rogan was gone, Laurel looked at Maia with a sigh, running a hand stressfully through her short, spiky hair.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Here, I’ll make it up to you.”
Maia blinked when Laurel suddenly produced a tall glass of a pretty, purple drink. “What’s that?”
Laurel smiled. “A drink. Tastes quite good, drink it.”
With a shrug, Maia took the glass and took a small sip, before drinking more of the delicious beverage. It tasted like cherries.
Laurel watched her drink with a satisfied nod. Good.
What had to be done was done.