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“Why, father? Tell me why?” Mihal asked.

“Because your mother wanted it. Whether she will admit it is a different matter.”

“Get out, Jacques. I wanted Mihal to find peace, and all you have given him is a final and lasting pain.”

“Well, Mihal can go out into the sun if he’s that desperate to join Cleo.”

Inka threw a heavy vase with all her might, and it missed by inches. She took her son in her arms and turned her back.

I sighed.

I didn’t understand Inka and still don’t.What is it with her?

If Mihal had died and left her alone, she would have blamed me for the rest of my living days. I turn him into one of us, so he never leaves her, and now Inka blames me for that.

I’d my fill of bullshit and stormed into the forest, heading for home.

Nose out of joint, I charged through the passages in Mora until I stumbled upon a small, vacant cave. Grumpily, I flung myself down into a ball and sulked for the remainder of the night.

Chapter Thirteen.

Irefused to return to the main caves we lived in for a good three months. And I declined to speak to either of them for a year at least.

After the first month, Inka tried to talk to me when I went to get my blood, but I wanted none of it. I didn’t want Inka’s apologies—or anything else from her.

I was hurt and angry, and I suppose you think she’d a right to be too. But you forget I’d known Inka for nearly a five hundred years, and I knew her inside out. Inka had wished her son never to leave her. Inka would not have faced Mihal’s death, so screw her, I didn’t see why I should bother.

The pair of them could’ve gone to hell for all I cared. The others tried, they waylaid me when I collected my blood and attempted different approaches. They shouted at me and begged me to come home. Everyone wanted to know how I changed Mihal, and each time, I stared straight through them.

A side effect of creating a Vam’pir I discovered was if I gave him a direct order, he had to obey. So I ordered Mihal not to tell anyone and he couldn’t. That pissed Inka off even more which amused me further. Fuck her!

Nathan himself came and visited.How he’d found me, I don’t know, but he had.And I refused to talk to him too. Truthfully, I did not want to talk to anyone.

All I wanted was to wallow in my self-righteous grief and anger. I’d done the one thing Inka truly wanted, and she’d thrown it back in my face.

A rift formed between Mihal and me, too.

Mihal never quite forgave me, and I didn’t care. He was my son, but the way he acted towards me made me wish more than once I’d left him to die. Mihal was superior and smug and completely playing the victim.

Mihal proclaimed to all and sundry he hadn’t wished for this, and his selfish father had forced this on him. The situation was made worse as Curtan sadly watched Anton pass from old age a few weeks later.

I attended the funeral but still refused to speak to anyone. I’d my own pain to deal with and wanted to deal with no one else’s.

After six months, I decided I’d punished Inka enough by not telling her my whereabouts. Silently, I moved back into the main cavern, but I still declined to talk to them both. Mihal proclaimed me a childish and idiotic man. He was willing to forgive and forget, but I would not take the hand he offered.

I was sure the change addled Mihal’s brains somehow. I’d been a good father to him while he was alive and had doted on him. Now Mihal treated me like a leper and a simpleton.

Well, I wasn’t either. However, if Mihal preferred this approach, I accepted it.

In retaliation, I portrayed Mihal as the uncaring son and Inka as the indecisive mother. Clearly, Inka didn’t know what she wanted. People remembered her begging me to change Mihal, so it backfired on her. Plus, I wouldn’t look at them and often left the room if they were present. My hurt was on display for everyone to see, and people gossiped.

Nightly, I stayed in my workroom every waking hour and designed many pieces of gold work and jewellery. My pain was so terrible at getting everything wrong that over half the community felt sorry for me and often berated Inka and Mihal.

Perfect. I’d achieved my goal and got plenty of sympathy. People stopped by for chats or to inquire how I was, and I stared at them with sad eyes and carried on working. Everyone assumed I was grief stricken and full of remorse at what I’d done, everybody except Inka and Mihal, who knew me too well.

They looked at me with accusing eyes as Har’chens told them bluntly that their compassion had now expired. Har-chen’s demanded to know how Inka and Mihal could treat me so badly, and inwardly, I grinned in satisfaction. Let Inka and Mihal suffer the general consensus like I’d had to.

Public opinion wasn’t nice when it was directed against them. Mihal soon shut his mouth when he realised he no longer got sympathy. I played them, and they fell into the traps set every time.