Page 110 of Kingly Bitten

Calina studied my face. Then she nodded. “I agree.”

Two words. Not empty, but a true agreement. And it’d been easily voiced.

Because she’d sifted through all the logic inside my mind while I’d been speaking.

“This connection is fascinating,” I admitted out loud. No point in keeping it to myself since she would hear it anyway.

“Yes.” She started searching for information on my origin now, her mind picking through my memories without asking. Just like I’d done to her while she’d slept.

And also, like her, it didn’t bother me.

I gave her what she wanted, showing her the bloodline in my thoughts.

My father, Johan, was one of the original vampires. A being unlike many others due to his unique blood.

“It’s said that twenty mortals were blessed by the Goddess Nyx,” I murmured. “Twenty royal bloodlines. All over the world. And all of the Blessed Ones were male. Most of them reproduced with human females. And from those pairings, my era was born.”

“What happened to the Blessed Ones?”

“They’ve all since returned to the earth,” I replied. “But they’re not dead. They just sleep.”

“Why?”

“Because they prefer it to life.” I lifted a shoulder. “Their lovers all died thousands of years ago. It’s actually said that those spirits are where theErositabond comes from—that the Blessed Ones’ lovers all went to Nyx and begged for their vampire children to be able to take mortal lovers without requiring the kiss of death.”

I wasn’t sure I believed that.

But I couldn’t deny the magic of our existence.

“The kiss of death being the vampiric gift of immortality?” Calina correctly guessed.

“Indeed. It wasn’t an option for the Blessed Ones. They were gifted with endless life but couldn’t bestow it on their lovers. However, they were given immortal children. Cam was the first, his father being Cronus.”

A family tree seemed to form in her head as she linked my father, Johan, to Cam’s father, Cronus.

“They were both blessed, perhaps because my grandmother was a renowned night worshipper. I’m not sure, but it’s where the rumors of Nyx being the mother of our kind has come from—all the Blessed Ones came from families who worshipped various forms of aNight Goddess.”

This was thousands of years ago. All the literature of those beliefs was long destroyed.

Just like the languages.

“Twenty royal lines were created. But the Blessed Ones soon learned there was a price for their children to remain immortal.”

“Blood,” Calina said, her mind processing and understanding my history faster than I could say it.

“Yes. And our inability to traditionally procreate.” I drew my thumb along her lower lip, her mouth finally pulling my gaze from her eyes. “Some were more gluttonous than others, but we soon learned how to pass on our genetics via the bite. And the kiss of death spread to create the massive population that exists today.”

“But what about the lycans?” Calina asked, drawing my gaze back to hers. “How did they come to be? And where are the other royals? You said there are twenty lines. Only seventeen rule.”

My wrist buzzed before I could answer, a note coming in from Darius to remind me of the time. “Five minutes,” I read, slightly irritated by the interruption, but quickly remembering our purpose here. “The listening devices are about to click on again.” I cupped her cheek and pressed my lips to hers.

Then I unleashed what little I knew about lycan creation into her mind.

It had something to do with a bite and a mysterious bloodline, similar to the Blessed Ones, only weakened by mortality.

Because all lycans eventually died.

Although some lived to be upward of a thousand, most declined in their seven or eight hundredth year.