Make Your Move Katherine

A Jealous King

 Anthony

He looked from the witch doctor to their king. Did the king just say what he thought he said? Ju looked from the king who seemed to be shocked by his own confession to Anthony but the royal guard didn’t notice, for he was trying to figure out if he had heard wrong.

For a few seconds, Oscar looked at him with pleading eyes before he stood up and cleared his throat, pulling at the lapels of his beige-colored jacket. “Well, I wanted to but I didn’t.” It was as if he was telling Anthony that he never meant for it to happen and it didn't- which was weird but Anthony understood him.

He was letting him know that he had not crossed any personal line with her.

“How do you mean?” Ju who was also standing now asked and the king once again cleared his throat. She was looking at the way both men stared at each other.

“I, Uh. Well, see- yes, I was angry the last time but she had lost her father and I felt bad for her. Then I was miserable because she lost her father and didn’t make it to see his burial- she did not get to say farewell to him. Because of me…she- you should have seen her. I did. She looked so lost.”

The king sympathized with the queen?

“Then something in me wanted to choke me out, like- I became angry with myself.”

Ah. Guilt.

“Guilt?” Ju urged him on and he nodded, his head now downcast and both hands on his slim waist as he twisted from one side to the other as if he wanted to walk away but couldn't, or maybe he was just plain old uncomfortable, with the conversation. See, the king never had to share his inner feelings before because well- he's king and everything goes his way basically.

Now the witch doctor was coaxing out his true feelings in order to understand the situation better. The king would most likely have just left but this was a serious predicament they were in- well the king. It concerned his future as a vampire king and whatever that is hindering it. It concerned the phoenix merge and the woman he almost killed in a fit of anger- twice.

The royal guard was convinced that the queen would have been dead by now had Oscar not needed her phoenix power. And Anthony was powerless to do anything about it. Trapped in his lowly status here, at castle Wen. How he wished he could have met her at a different time, a different place…a different life… But the guard was not one to moan and wallow in self-pity.

Katherine is queen and will always be in his eyes. Nothing more.

“Then I wanted to protect her and the funny thing is…” he gave an almost hysterical laugh, “I have to protect her from me…for I am the one that did it.” He gave another maniacal laugh, “I took her phone or she would have known. It’s my fault.” Another laugh, “Me.”  More hysterics followed soon after then with a stern expression, “I’m to blame.”

The young king untied his already loosened tie and raked his fingers for the hundredth time through his thick hair that kept falling over his eyes, looking at the sleeping beauty before turning away to bend his head and again rake at his hair.

Anthony squinted his eyes and cursed under his breath- queen, he corrected himself, not beauty.

Anthony agrees with him- it is his fault. She is heartbroken and it is partially his fault. Bloody hell, they were all to blame- Ju, him, the king…the entire nation that depended on Oscar to protect them. She could have grieved like a normal person and moved on with her life eventually but now she had guilt over it. She would feel that she failed as a child.

He knew this because he missed his own parents’. He didn’t even know where they were- not precisely buried, anyway. He just knew the area in which all the bodies of ash lay, along with thousands of others...it was some sort of comfort to know that at least. Almost half of Demkas was burnt that day and one-eight of its citizens dead. While they knew the location of their loved ones, many wanted to be offered the comfort of knowing exactly where they were. He did not get the right to scatter their ashes as King Drago had held a massive funeral for all.

Anthony was not a prince, nor was his mother a queen, so he did not get the luxury of having a private funeral like Oscar. They were denied that right because of Xu Kai, the dragon king.

But instead, Anthony and his sister, both children back then had not been allowed to enter the city that day. No children were allowed into the capital that entire week. Of course, as an adult, he knows it was one to prevent further trauma but inside the far reaches of his mind, that was a memory that remained a painful one. 

He felt hollow on the inside, at times. An orphan. No belonging.

Anthony still felt that his sister and him would have had a better peace of mind as children if they had only held their parents' ash in an urn and scattered it themselves. He would forever be a child grieving the loss of his family that day.

Still, he looked at his friend and ruler now and felt his pain and confusion, for the royal guard once again shared it too. The king didn’t cry but the raw emotion could be heard and felt in the atmosphere around them by his broken voice, which had the Royal guard thinking- why? 

Did something happen? Just why was the king this way now and where was all the drama about giving her to the dragon king?

"I don’t know what happened but then I became hungry and suddenly I craved…her…then I tried to kiss her.”

‘Kiss her when he was hungry?’

“You knew you were going to hurt her? Knowing she could die?” he heard the witch doctor asking and he listened almost uneasily.

“No- yes- I don’t know. Something in me…it wasn’t me. It- it wasn’t me,” the King uttered in a bewildered sort of voice and covered his face with his palms, rambling incoherently.

Ju turned around then and glanced at him briefly before her eyes traveled to the bed where the queen lay peacefully, oblivious to what was happening. Kat- no. He had to stop thinking of her as Katherine- she will never be Katherine to him, despite what the king stated. 

Before he had ever bitten her, Oscar had told him that here in Demkas, she was queen and respect his queen in Demkas and then he had repeated it slowly and stressed on Demkas, yet again. Between the lines, Anthony understood the meaning of it; in another country, he would be free to do as he pleased…as they pleased.

The King had given him permission to be with his wife- which was fair as the king himself had a mistress he loved. But he had warned him too… “Remember when the day comes, you must let go of her.”

Oscar had planned to still hand over his wife to the Dragon King, for peace he had said. She was to be the olive branch. How could Anthony love her- he didn’t, but he could for he felt strongly towards her. How could he even attempt to love her with these conditions? It would be selfish...How could the King do this to him and call him friend?

Anthony couldn’t bring himself to accept it and he was deeply tempted too. He could not bring himself to entertain the thought of her actually having feelings for him either- he won’t be able to control himself if she did.

He hadn’t even known he felt that way about the queen himself until the King mentioned it to him plainly like that. And it took him only a day- yes, he had allowed himself to live that dream for one day- to know he would never cross that line with her, or betray his king like that.

King Oscar Julian will always come first.

The Queen moaned and Anthony’s heart was in his throat and they all looked to the bed then. “Katherine!” the king called out to her, instantly by her side.

Anthony remembered the early morning Oscar called him, saying that he had bitten the queen and she fainted after. Anthony’s heart almost stopped beating then for most humans die from a vampire’s bite, but then he had said that he could hear her heartbeats. He had messaged Ju immediately.

The King would always come first, Anthony said boldly to his mind, to remind him that he did not and could not put anybody in front of the king. He turned away, closing his eyes briefly, trying to will his heart to slow down its joyous beat of hearing her voice, even if it was just a sound and not any actual words.

“Then who?” Ju still encouraged him to talk. Anthony could see the witch was looking at the king with a furrow. Yes, indeed they were both surprised by the king’s words and his odd behavior now as he took the queen’s hand in his.

“Him- this…the beast inside cares for her I think.”

“The vampire side of you?” Ju who had walked to stand next to the king looked down at the hands that held the queen’s tiny feminine one.

“I think so. It’s like I am eager all the time to be around her but I’m mad about it.”

Anthony listened to the king’s words and turned away a little heartbroken himself. The king was a bit in love with his wife but he was fighting it. The king had been jealous.

It hurt the Royal Guard a bit that he lost what he didn't have to begin with.

But Anthony understood why the King was fighting it. Him being one reason. Anthony knew the king thought of them as almost brothers and he won’t try to come in between them- Katherine and Anthony that is. It is what Oscar thought was his own selfless love- which was pretty lame for he planned to give her to their enemy, still.

That was another reason- Oscar’s whole life after his mother and sister were massacred, was wanting vengeance on the Dragon King and knowing Katherine is the key. Basically, Oscar was fighting between his feelings for her and his own guilt of thinking he was betraying his dead family and his country. Then he would also consider his friendship with him, the guard knew.

His king was torn.

“I keep wanting to hurt her.”

Anthony and Ju exchanged glances; this is the Oscar Julian they knew. The one that said he was going to make her, Katherine, suffer as much as one could possibly bleed, previously. “Pain Anthony, she will be broken and I will be there to see it, to feel it. The look on her face when he tears her apart,” he had said just months ago when he finally agreed to marry her. “I will break her.”

The ‘he’ the young king had been referring to had been his father’s cousin, the Dragon King, Xu. They had been looking at the sleeping Katherine in her home while the king’s expression had been most sinister just days before the engagement.

Both were puzzled by their king’s behavior now and both knew something bigger was coming but what?