Chapter 96

CAMILLA’S P.O.V

I didn’t realize how much pressure was on me until Ryker said those words. I don’t think he meant for me to worry but I couldn’t help it. I spent the entire morning thinking about his words. Loris had to cut training short because my mind seemed to be everywhere else but present. I almost hit him in the face with a stream of water while I was meant to move it from one stream to another.

The bodies were returned to the families today and I couldn’t bring myself to see them. I watched from a pillar while they sobbed into the bodies of their sons. My heart ached for them and I wanted nothing more than to comfort them but my feet couldn’t move. I couldn’t imagine how I would react if I lost a child.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I relaxed considerably when I realized it was Ryker. His scent crowded my space and I heaved a small sigh. His arms wrapped around my shoulders and he placed his chin on the center of my head. I could feel his eyes on me instead of the family.

“I feel bad,” I admitted. “It is our job to protect them and we failed.”

“This isn’t your fault. It isn’t even theirs. The fault resides with the vampire who killed them.”

“He won’t stop,” I whispered and he didn’t respond. There was no need for him to, he knew I was right. “We have to stop him before he kills anyone else.”

“We will, it’s just taking a little longer than we thought,” he pulled back from me. “One of us should be there to comfort

them.”

Before I could say anything, he brushed past me and walked over to the family. The mother sobbed into his arms and I watched as Ryker comforted her. He wasn’t supposed to touch them and I knew the elders would have a field day if they saw him but I couldn’t help but smile softly. One thing I loved most about Ryker was his ability to be so empathetic without saying a word. He deserved to be king much more than I deserved to be Queen. He would have found a way to sort this thing out. I only wished the vampire king were half the man he was. If he was, he would have known that his subjects were stepping out of line and he would have handled them.

As soon as that thought landed, I gasped. All this time, we had been chasing the wrong lead. There was no way that we were going to find the vampire who was doing this, we needed to find the king. I wanted to inform Ryker but he was too busy with the family so I made my way to the secret library alone. If I was going to find anything on him, it was going to be there.

I pulled out every single book I could find on vampires and put my wall firmly in place so I wouldn’t be disturbed. I couldn’t tell how long I sat there flipping through books and trying to figure out who the infamous king was. There were so many texts on him but none of them mentioned his name or even what he loked like. I knew finding him was going to be hard but I never realized it was going to be this hard.copy right hot novel pub