Chapter fifty six

Edward appeared in his palace. He stood in the hall he had called his throne room but have never really considered making it one. He reached up and wiped out the blood on the corner of his lips and with a wave of his hand, his red demon throne appeared on the far edge of the room, right where a throne should have been. His eyes flickered between red and blue and he shook his head and reached up to numb the growing headache. Ever since he had had to his fill the blood he had so longed for, his nightwalker’s strength had fully returned to max and since then, he had been feeling like a war was going on inside him.

He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, besides, deep inside he had always known that that would happen just as he had seen in his son and knew he would fight the same battle when he grows older. At the moment, he just needs to figure out how to control the two powers inside him and find a way to merge them and until he had achieved that, he had no plan of stepping out of his palace. The last thing he wants is for anybody to notice what he was going through.

The headache came again in full force and he groaned and staggered to his throne. He climbed up the stairs and went to it, sitting on it just like he had done a few hours ago in the demon woods. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists on the chair arms and then summoned the eternal fire to surface. A blue ball of flame enveloped him and he tested the power for some seconds before summoning the nightwalker’s power. He could feel the war going on inside him and he soon broke out in sweats.

His inside was burning like he was burning his own soul and he knew he should stop but for some reason, he didn’t. He continued pushing and pushing. Sweats caked on his forehead and drenched his back but he didn’t stop, he kept fighting to merge the two powers but the demon fire wants to be the dominate, however, his undead cells refused to be forced back into living and that means it refused to be submissive. The battle went on for hours and when Edward couldn’t take it anymore, he fell out of his throne and landed on the floor. Immediately, the blue ball of fire vanished and he gasped and opened his eyes, his eyes were so red and he was suddenly thirsty again.

***

“How are you feeling?” Melissa asked the man sitting up on the wooden bed and he shook his head with his eyes closed. “We have been withdrawn from the outside world for days, what do you think could be happening?”

Kaiden sighed and opened his eyes, his dark brown eyes landed on her, “either my younger brother has become the demon king or the demons had crowned someone king.”

Melissa frowned, “why would you say that?”

“I may not have possessed the demon fire but I have been the demon king for fifty years, so I am connected to the throne as long as I am still king. If I had known that Edward would be waking up real soon, I would have killed King Mar-El long ago. But who would have thought that my younger brother would be asleep for seven hundred and fifty years only to wake up fifty years later that I claimed the throne. I didn’t even get time to put my plan in full motion. I had wanted to kill his mate before he even found her. But then it took that pure blood witch forever to be born. If you look at it, you would think that nature has been against me all along.” He chuckled.

“But how would you have known his mate without him finding her?” Mary asked.

“I have always known that his mate would come from the very being he hates the most and because he hates them, he would never go and check. The only problem was that I didn’t know the pack she would be born in. However, after taking the powers of the infant pure blood witch, I immediately have a vision of the past and I knew then that his mate must be Mariah. I didn’t know how she would look like in this new birth but one thing would always remain the same: scent. All I had to do was travel back to her kingdom and find her grave. It was rusty and smelly when I did, but one is not a demon king for nothing. I only had to perform a forbidden spell to make her corpse one thousand years younger for a minute and with my demon powers, I quickly got her scent. A little sprinkle of her ashes was the secret ingredient in my potion to make every derange rogue search for her.”

“You went to that length?” Merinda asked in shock.

“Of course, when you want something, you will go to any length to achieve that,” Kaiden answered. “However, due to the fact that the ashes that I took was when she was human, I can only identify her in her human form and so does the rogues. But I quickly fixed that by just memorizing her wolf form and putting it in every deranged rogue’s mind or anybody that took my potion.”

“So you acted first on the blood moon night to keep him from finding her?” Melissa asked.

With a nod, Kaiden sighed. “I had thought he would have been busy in the party his kind was throwing for him and wouldn’t bother going to the Night Howler’s woods. But yet again, my younger brother outsmarted me. He had to be with her that day of all days.”

Melissa nodded as she paced around, “with her ashes as the secret ingredient, doesn’t it mean that her blood can heal any wolf or nightwalker infected by your poison?”

“Yes, that is why I have always referred her blood as special. However, I don’t need to worry about her healing my infected wolves and nightwalkers. Do you know how many are infected? She would be dead if she loses so much amount of blood, so that one is out of the question, that is if she knows she can heal them anyway,” he chuckled.

Melissa sighed, his theory seemed right. “So, what now?”

This time, Kaiden looked dejected as he exhaled. “Last night the demons have crowned a new king. I had felt my powers draining out of me,” he licked his lips as Melissa gasped, “it was all sucked out of me.”

“But you won’t give up, right? I mean, we still have to fight,” Mary said.

“What part of my powers drained out of me did you not understand?” Kaiden glared at her. “It’s over, I am nothing but a mere demon now. How do you expect a mere demon to fight a demon king?”

“But you are still a witch, you still have your spells,” Merinda said with a smile.

Kaiden rolled his eyes, “how many witches spells had affected him when he was just a nightwalker original?”

“So that’s it, you are just going to give up?” Melissa asked.

“What do you think?”

“You can’t do that!”

“And why can’t I?”

“You promised to restore me to my glory!” Melissa yelled and everywhere turned silent. “I was a coven leader, respected and worshipped and now look at me, hiding in a cave like a refugee.”

“Oh please, you got yourself tangled in your mess before I even offered to help,” Kaiden rolled his eyes. “You have long been a refugee before I found you two hundred years ago. As a matter of fact, I was the one that even gave you a home, I was the one that restored a little of your glory so you have me to thank for that.”

“And I cooked you the poison that you used on King Mar-El. If it wasn’t for my poison, everyone demon would have known you killed him and none would have accepted for you to be the temporal king until the demon fire is found.”

“No one agreed, I took the throne!” He yelled.

“Then why can’t you do so now? Where is that demon that poisoned a demon like King Mar-El for one hundred and fifty years. Where is that man that took such a risk against such a demon? Why is he cowering now?” Melissa asked.

Merinda and Mary didn’t know what to say but they both knew that it would be safe if they kept quiet and hide their presence.

Kaiden sighed and closed his eyes. “You don’t understand,” he whispered. “I have never won against him. Not as a human and certainly not as a demon. Perhaps I had thought I stood a chance with the demon throne but as you can see, even the demon fire rejected me and chose him. I can never win against him in this world, not in any form or era. I am just a weak nobody that would always stand in the shadow of my youngest brother.”

“How pathetic,” A voice said and they all turned to the cave entrance to see a hooded woman standing there. “If I had known this is the sight I would meet, I wouldn’t have bothered to come.”