Bloodlines
463 Words
The ride home was silent, but the tension was louder than any words.
Brittany sat in the back of the sleek black car, her father’s presence beside her like a storm waiting to break. She didn’t dare look at him, though she could feel his rage thrumming through the air.
The moment they stepped into the Valeris estate, the doors slammed shut.
“Upstairs. My study.”
She obeyed, climbing the carved staircase into the chamber lined with shelves of ancient tomes and relics. Her father stood behind his desk, his green eyes blazing.
“Tell me,” he said, voice low and deadly calm. “Why were you alone with him?”
Brittany lifted her chin, refusing to cower. “Because I wanted to be.”
The silence that followed was heavy, dangerous.
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” her father finally said. “Do you know what his family is? What they’ve taken from us?”
“I know they’re Draxons,” Brittany shot back. “I know you’ve hated them for centuries, but you’ve never told me why.”
Her father’s expression hardened. “Because the truth is poison. And once you taste it, there’s no going back.”
She stepped closer, her emerald eyes burning. “Then give me the poison. I’m not a child anymore.”
For a long moment, he studied her. Then he turned, pulling a leather-bound volume from the shelf and laying it on the desk. The cover bore the Valeris crest, worn and darkened with age.
He opened it, revealing pages filled with ink drawings—wars, bloodlines, empires carved in shadows. He pointed to an illustration of two crowns, one carved in flame, the other in ice.
“The Valeris and the Draxons were once one empire,” he said. “Imperial by right of the First Blood. But greed split us. The Draxons betrayed the oath, stole the Crimson Throne, and drowned our kin in their hunger. That is the price of their name: betrayal, blood, and a crown that was never theirs.”
Brittany stared at the pages, her heart racing. The drawings showed battles drenched in crimson, fangs bared, armies clashing under a blood-red moon.
“And Matt?” she whispered, though his name tasted dangerous on her tongue.
Her father’s gaze was sharp enough to cut. “He is the heir. If he wins you, he wins everything. Do you understand now why you cannot let him near you?”
Brittany’s chest tightened, but she forced her expression into ice. “Yes, Father.”
But deep inside, she knew it was already too late.
Because no matter what history said… she couldn’t stop thinking about the way Matt’s eyes had burned for her in that garden.
- Writer
